Oklahoma City Thunder
Players Out: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Ankle), Darius Bazley (Knee), Luguentz Dort (Shoulder), Derrick Favors (Back), Josh Giddey (Hip), Ty Jerome (Hip), Mike Muscala (Ankle), Kenrich Williams (Knee)
General manager Sam Presti is the longest-tenured front-office executive in the NBA and he absolutely knows what he is doing with this young, growing Oklahoma City Thunder franchise.
The future is extremely bright for the Thunder and with the rights to 25 total draft picks through 2028, the Thunder have plenty of options on how to build the NBA’s next best dynasty.
All year long the Oklahoma City Thunder have been a competitive basketball team, but at 22-53 on the season, it is not hard to look at them from the All-Star break on and claim that they have not been tanking.
A vast majority of their roster has dealt with injuries all season long, as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luguentz Dort, Darius Bazely, Josh Giddey, and others have all dealt with multiple different injuries over the course of the regular season, but Oklahoma City is in no rush to bring any of them back and in fact, they announced within the last few days that a lot of their roster was going to be out for the remainder of the season.
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Gilgeous-Alexander is out for the Thunder’s remaining seven games with an ankle injury, Giddey is out with hip soreness, Bazley is out with a non-displaced tibial plateau fracture in his right knee and the list goes on and on.
Essentially placing their guys on “injured reserve” for the remainder of the year is not a surprising move for the Thunder to make, especially since they are not playing for anything anymore other than pride.
In the absence of their main starters, others like Tre Mann, Isaiah Roby, Aaron Wiggins, and Vit Krejci have all been given opportunities to play.
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As a result, the Thunder have been able to evaluate their secondary talents and bench a little bit more, giving them a head start on the offseason and building their roster for the 2022-23 season.
