Why The Oklahoma City Thunder Do The Trade

If the Oklahoma City Thunder made this trade, they’d be making history in the process.

It’s hard to recall an example of a young team trading a young player as good as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Conventional wisdom says that you keep your building blocks. Those are, after all, players worth building around.

The Thunder don’t seem concerned with convention. After all, they already have an unprecedented number of draft picks. Adding four more gives them an amount of control over the future of the league that’s almost unfathomable.

That 2023 Lakers selection is particularly interesting. The 2023 draft has the potential to be historic. It’s littered with transformative talent. Meanwhile, it’s impossible to say where the Lakers will end up by the end of next season. Certainly, they’ll be trying to compete.

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Just as they did in 2021-22. That’s the thing about draft picks. They’re lottery tickets. The Thunder are buying as many as they can afford with this deal.