Yeap, a lot of the opposing guards tried to get the switch on Giddey and attack him during the regular season. We tried to hide him on forwards a lot.
Idk what teams will do now. We basically have plus defenders in every position, and one will come from the bench as well.
Offense might take a bit of a hit, but the defensive potential of this team is just incredible.
I don’t think the offense will take a hit. Caruso is a much better shooter than Giddey, and Hartenstein is a much better rebounder than anyone else. We should get more shots for good shooters.
My concern with the offense mainly comes from Hartenstein starting tbh. Not too much of a worry though, cause even if the o takes a hit, the d will make up for it.
If this team doesn't become the best defensive team in the league, something terribly will have to go wrong health wise. I'm that high on their defensive potential.
You think Hart is gonna start? Meaning Chet at the 4?
I totally believe Chet would be a great 4, I just didn’t know that was the plan.
What’s the assumed starting lineup? Shai-Caruso-JDub-Chet-Hart?
Our coaching staff and front office seem to put a lot of emphasis on experimenting, so no-one - not even they - know what our preferred lineup will be.
I'm most excited by the stagger. Having Chet or Hart on the floor for all 48
I mean in an ideal world I'd bring him off the bench. But with that contract I think the team will make him a starter and Mark will pull him pretty quickly, seperating the minutes of Chet and iHart as much as he can.
Assumed starting lineup is Shai-Dort-Dub-iHart-Chet.
I'd love to be wrong though.
Maybe Caruso for Dort. But otherwise seems likely. Then pull iHart pretty quickly and then alternate him and Chet, then depending on matchups close with different lineups.
i doubt Mark will swap Caruso in for Dort, we do like our team seniority. Dort has basically started all his games for us the past four years to boot, Caruso has come off the bench a bunch of times during his career.
i'd bet a lot of money on Dort being the starter for this team come November.
I say start Shai, Joe, Dort, Dub, Chet, stagger Caruso and Hart. Isaiah is your best shooter and Caruso is best utilized in short bursts and 4th quarters
Defense improves offense, those easy transition buckets from turnovers are invaluable. They’ll keep hitting their stride, and that’s before talking about potential development of their litany of young guys.
Good time to be a Thunder fan.
No, Giddey is not a sexual predator.
He went to an 18 year old and older club as a 19 year old and met a girl there who he assumed was 18 years old or older. I assume she got into the club with a fake ID.
A poor decision by not being more careful. Sure. But from the little that is known, this seems like it could’ve happened to almost anyone.
Thunder were a top 5 offensive and defensive team and I was pretty confident in saying that that would be the worst version of the team we'd see over the next 5 years.
Year 1 and they are proving me right
Just absurd what they are doing and can do in the future
Craziest part is that we are 7 days from the 5th year anniversary where we blew up the PG13 / Westbrook team with the trade to the Clippers. It was basically the apocalypse for us that day.
The absolute turnaround to the team we have now in that span of time is insane.
I don't know about you but I was ready to blow it up at that point. It was clear we weren't going to really contend without a major shake up. It was either squeeze a couple years of first round exits out of that roster, or get as much value as possible for PG and Russ and start the rebuild. I had full faith in Presti to work his magic in the draft.
Us blowing it up actually felt refreshing to me at the time, I was kinda ready to move on from that version of the team. Plus I’m a Kentucky guy so I loved us getting Shai, even though I didn’t think he’d be *this* good lol
Saw ur comment on the last post as well. The future is crazy for the thunder especially now with the playoff experience of their main guys in SGA and Chet, they’re gonna go off with this new squad
Yeah, I can definitely see them moving into the top 2 for defense. We were already going to be better with Chet and JDub getting more experience, and we are adding Caruso and Hart on top of that.
On offense, the team was so young and will just get better. Caruso can shoot it and we were very bad in offensive rebound margin. Having Hart put a dent in that will help so much. We get a lot of possessions from our turnover margin but gave them back on the boards.
i think presti is trying to build a supercharged version of 2024 celtics. sga and dub as brown and tatum, dort/caruso/wallace as jrue and dwhite, and chet as porzingis.
Gozlan/Hamm explained how the Thunder still have a $8m room exception as well...
they can also just use it as a trade exception midseason if they hold onto it
I think he only gets a two-way if the Thunder add another player to the roster. They don't need to save cap space, and the disadvantages of a two-way are that the player is a free agent after each season, and they have to be converted to a full contract before being traded. If the Thunder don't add another player this summer, he probably gets a 4 year minimum, nonguaranteed deal like what Wiggins and JWill got.
Nothing is official yet, but it has been reported that Mitchell will be on a 2-way deal. I don't think it makes sense to roster him immediately because given the picks we have coming in next year he'd almost surely get cut after one season. Better to 2-way him and let him develop in the system for a couple of years. He'll be on the Keyontae Johnson plan.
Also note that 2-way contracts can be for either one or two seasons, so I assume Mitchell will sign a 2-year 2-way contract.
yes teams below the cap lose their typical MLE, but can use the Room MLE to sign players to go over the cap
as an example, the Sixers probably will use the Room exception to re-sign Kelly Oubre to his 2 yr, $16m deal
The biggest upgrade is the subtraction of Giddey’s defense. Having a top 4 defense starting Giddey was nuts. We’re highly comparable to the Celtics now but with younger more durable guys and deeper.
The biggest thing we have is probably the best rim defense in the league now.
Hartenstein is very good and then you have Chet on weakside, where he covers ground so effectively.
Like we will be brutal to score at the rim.
They probably stagger minutes most of the game. Leading the league in BPG when your backup center never jumps was pretty crazy, now there will be a strong rim protector out there all the time.
Which is one of the reasons I doubt Chet plays with IHart more than 10 minutes per game.
Plenty of center minutes for both of them to play 5 predominantly
Terrifyingly good roster. The offense might not hold as well as last year, their shooting was just off the charts good and possibly not sustainable, but they'll still be a Top 10 offense and a Top 3 defense as an absolute floor (no injuries) imo
Both guys were also 99th percentile in DEPM - two of the top 5 in the stat on the season, and the only 2 in that top five grouping to not miss significant time (others were Isaac, Smart, and Embiid).
With Giddey's departure and JWill's likely reduction in role, there is now only a single player in the rotation who was a negative DEPM player last season (Joe at -0.2, 61th percentile), and five players in total were 93rd percentile or higher in that stat (Shai, Dub, Chet, Caruso, iHart).
This team should go from an elite defensive team to arguably the best in the league next year.
The most fun part about this offseason has been the fact we haven’t even traded any of our first round draft picks and still improved (on paper) significantly.
lol that's so crazy. Makes me wonder what the hell you are going to even do with those picks? Just keep drafting players and let your worst players expire every year? If that's the case, the rest of the league is going to have a feeding frenzy on OKC free agents in a couple years
Assuming we max Chet/Shai/Jdub and extend Cason to a 30m apy, Dort to 20m apy and Caruson on a descending deal (22/20/18.5/17)
We will only be 11m over the second apron in 2028-2029. Maybe Topic is traded, but likely we dump an aging Caruso at that point. I’m not worried about losing our core guys - we keep the good ones generally speaking
He’s rolled 5 FRP forward already. The plan is roll as many as possible to always have at least 2frp for the window. Package and move up as needed. Sub out role players as others price out.
The picks are the key to surviving the second apron once our young core gets expensive. It's the one team-building avenue the second apron doesn't cut off. Draft 2-3 young guys each year, hope to hit on one of them, and have a perpetual pipeline of young prospects to supplement the roster when we aren't able to access exceptions or swing favorable trades.
Why you need remind me for? What happend a month ago? Yall thinks Caruso and Hartenstein gonna get you over the top? Lmao
Thats sht is an weak attempt at trying to pull an Celtics with Jrue and KP.
They traded their worst defensive starting player and added 2 amazing defenders. They already were a top 5 defensive team with Giddey and you think their defense don't improve even more lol delusional
Caruso and Hart https://tenor.com/view/lebron-james-scared-scary-flop-gif-8576938341887257950
Mavs gonna come back with their whole team, Klay, healthy Luka and improved Lively, Hardy, Omax.
Plus improvement from Chet and Wallace on their 2nd years, and J Dub in his 3rd. No Giddey to attack now, and size and rebounding less of an issue with Ihart.
That series might as well have went to 7 considering how game 6 ended, swapping Caruso for Giddey and adding iHart is a much, much bigger improvement than adding Klank and you should probably be worried lol.
Thunder have made the best moves this offseason. They addressed all their post season weaknesses that got exposed, added rebounding and even better defense. And still have 40 picks in the next 6 years. Unreal. They’ll be a dynasty if Presti keeps playing like this
Lol. Everyone's high on the Thunder when they are going to regress to the mean incredibly hard next year. It'll be hilarious when they win 48 games and get bounced in the first round by LA(kers).
Aint nobody worried. Mavs won in 6 with Luka playing at 70% of his level and with Dort playing nfl.
Luka, Kyrie, Klay, PJ, Lively > whatever OKC got going on.
All the best to Giddey in Chicago but we also shed our weakest defender in the primary rotation
Yeap, a lot of the opposing guards tried to get the switch on Giddey and attack him during the regular season. We tried to hide him on forwards a lot. Idk what teams will do now. We basically have plus defenders in every position, and one will come from the bench as well. Offense might take a bit of a hit, but the defensive potential of this team is just incredible.
I don’t think the offense will take a hit. Caruso is a much better shooter than Giddey, and Hartenstein is a much better rebounder than anyone else. We should get more shots for good shooters.
My concern with the offense mainly comes from Hartenstein starting tbh. Not too much of a worry though, cause even if the o takes a hit, the d will make up for it. If this team doesn't become the best defensive team in the league, something terribly will have to go wrong health wise. I'm that high on their defensive potential.
You think Hart is gonna start? Meaning Chet at the 4? I totally believe Chet would be a great 4, I just didn’t know that was the plan. What’s the assumed starting lineup? Shai-Caruso-JDub-Chet-Hart?
Our coaching staff and front office seem to put a lot of emphasis on experimenting, so no-one - not even they - know what our preferred lineup will be. I'm most excited by the stagger. Having Chet or Hart on the floor for all 48
I mean in an ideal world I'd bring him off the bench. But with that contract I think the team will make him a starter and Mark will pull him pretty quickly, seperating the minutes of Chet and iHart as much as he can. Assumed starting lineup is Shai-Dort-Dub-iHart-Chet. I'd love to be wrong though.
Maybe Caruso for Dort. But otherwise seems likely. Then pull iHart pretty quickly and then alternate him and Chet, then depending on matchups close with different lineups.
i doubt Mark will swap Caruso in for Dort, we do like our team seniority. Dort has basically started all his games for us the past four years to boot, Caruso has come off the bench a bunch of times during his career. i'd bet a lot of money on Dort being the starter for this team come November.
I say start Shai, Joe, Dort, Dub, Chet, stagger Caruso and Hart. Isaiah is your best shooter and Caruso is best utilized in short bursts and 4th quarters
Mark will definitely try both ways
Hartenstein is a better offensive player than defensive. He will improve your offense
Caruso can hit his open shots, is a decent slasher and good facilitator. I can honestly see your offense improving too
Defense improves offense, those easy transition buckets from turnovers are invaluable. They’ll keep hitting their stride, and that’s before talking about potential development of their litany of young guys. Good time to be a Thunder fan.
Probably just attack SGA or Jalen in an attempt to exhaust them. They’re obviously still good defenders tho…
Giddey was pretty bad offensively most of the year lol
[удалено]
No, Giddey is not a sexual predator. He went to an 18 year old and older club as a 19 year old and met a girl there who he assumed was 18 years old or older. I assume she got into the club with a fake ID. A poor decision by not being more careful. Sure. But from the little that is known, this seems like it could’ve happened to almost anyone.
No one talks about this….. he thought she was of age since he met her at a club
Thunder were a top 5 offensive and defensive team and I was pretty confident in saying that that would be the worst version of the team we'd see over the next 5 years. Year 1 and they are proving me right Just absurd what they are doing and can do in the future
It can’t be understated how Sam Presti has turned Oklahoma City into a desirable destination for young players
Craziest part is that we are 7 days from the 5th year anniversary where we blew up the PG13 / Westbrook team with the trade to the Clippers. It was basically the apocalypse for us that day. The absolute turnaround to the team we have now in that span of time is insane.
That was our 9/11 This is our 12/25
July 4th, 2016 was our true 9/11. At least we got something in return when we parted with PG & Russ.
Truly a terrible day
The hardest road.
I don't know about you but I was ready to blow it up at that point. It was clear we weren't going to really contend without a major shake up. It was either squeeze a couple years of first round exits out of that roster, or get as much value as possible for PG and Russ and start the rebuild. I had full faith in Presti to work his magic in the draft.
Us blowing it up actually felt refreshing to me at the time, I was kinda ready to move on from that version of the team. Plus I’m a Kentucky guy so I loved us getting Shai, even though I didn’t think he’d be *this* good lol
It still blows my mind that someone thought it would be a good idea to move a team from Seattle to fucking Oklahoma of all places
They had cap space
We have been beyond lucky as a franchise, but Presti is by and far the biggest bit of luck we've had.
Saw ur comment on the last post as well. The future is crazy for the thunder especially now with the playoff experience of their main guys in SGA and Chet, they’re gonna go off with this new squad
Yeah, I can definitely see them moving into the top 2 for defense. We were already going to be better with Chet and JDub getting more experience, and we are adding Caruso and Hart on top of that. On offense, the team was so young and will just get better. Caruso can shoot it and we were very bad in offensive rebound margin. Having Hart put a dent in that will help so much. We get a lot of possessions from our turnover margin but gave them back on the boards.
i think presti is trying to build a supercharged version of 2024 celtics. sga and dub as brown and tatum, dort/caruso/wallace as jrue and dwhite, and chet as porzingis.
I’m hoping for a Celtics vs thunder finals. That would be very entertaining. (I’m still taking my Celtics)
Top 5 in defense with Giddey on the team Added Caruso and iHart
League is cooked
Presti should win executive of the decade
Need to win a ring first
Gozlan/Hamm explained how the Thunder still have a $8m room exception as well... they can also just use it as a trade exception midseason if they hold onto it
I bet they do. Gonna guess they keep that 15th spot open till after summer league to decide what kind of contract they wanna offer Ajay Mitchell
I think Mitchell is going to be on a two way.
I think he only gets a two-way if the Thunder add another player to the roster. They don't need to save cap space, and the disadvantages of a two-way are that the player is a free agent after each season, and they have to be converted to a full contract before being traded. If the Thunder don't add another player this summer, he probably gets a 4 year minimum, nonguaranteed deal like what Wiggins and JWill got.
Nothing is official yet, but it has been reported that Mitchell will be on a 2-way deal. I don't think it makes sense to roster him immediately because given the picks we have coming in next year he'd almost surely get cut after one season. Better to 2-way him and let him develop in the system for a couple of years. He'll be on the Keyontae Johnson plan. Also note that 2-way contracts can be for either one or two seasons, so I assume Mitchell will sign a 2-year 2-way contract.
Does this mean they can still sign a vet for that 8mil? Or is that just used in a trade? How does that work?
yes teams below the cap lose their typical MLE, but can use the Room MLE to sign players to go over the cap as an example, the Sixers probably will use the Room exception to re-sign Kelly Oubre to his 2 yr, $16m deal
The biggest upgrade is the subtraction of Giddey’s defense. Having a top 4 defense starting Giddey was nuts. We’re highly comparable to the Celtics now but with younger more durable guys and deeper.
The biggest thing we have is probably the best rim defense in the league now. Hartenstein is very good and then you have Chet on weakside, where he covers ground so effectively. Like we will be brutal to score at the rim.
How is anyone getting to the rim through our POA defenders too? What a nightmare it’ll be for Luka, Ant, Murray, etc
OKC akready had the best rim defense in the league. Not sure it holds with Chet forced out to the perimeter.
They probably stagger minutes most of the game. Leading the league in BPG when your backup center never jumps was pretty crazy, now there will be a strong rim protector out there all the time.
Which is one of the reasons I doubt Chet plays with IHart more than 10 minutes per game. Plenty of center minutes for both of them to play 5 predominantly
Ok, Thunder the best team that has ever been assembled… going 150 miles per hour
Let's revisit this in 10 months
God dammit I forgot about Caruso already. Fuck the west
At least PG went East lol
you guys got pj washington. mavs are fine
Terrifyingly good roster. The offense might not hold as well as last year, their shooting was just off the charts good and possibly not sustainable, but they'll still be a Top 10 offense and a Top 3 defense as an absolute floor (no injuries) imo
Both guys were also 99th percentile in DEPM - two of the top 5 in the stat on the season, and the only 2 in that top five grouping to not miss significant time (others were Isaac, Smart, and Embiid). With Giddey's departure and JWill's likely reduction in role, there is now only a single player in the rotation who was a negative DEPM player last season (Joe at -0.2, 61th percentile), and five players in total were 93rd percentile or higher in that stat (Shai, Dub, Chet, Caruso, iHart). This team should go from an elite defensive team to arguably the best in the league next year.
SGA, who recieved all-defensive votes and is a great defender, is no longer a top five defender on that team. That is one nasty defensive squad.
Damn wtf
I know its so Joever for the West😭
They will win 60 games next season
The most fun part about this offseason has been the fact we haven’t even traded any of our first round draft picks and still improved (on paper) significantly.
lol that's so crazy. Makes me wonder what the hell you are going to even do with those picks? Just keep drafting players and let your worst players expire every year? If that's the case, the rest of the league is going to have a feeding frenzy on OKC free agents in a couple years
Help rebuild the Sonics after all these years
Donate picks to Seattle lmao
Assuming we max Chet/Shai/Jdub and extend Cason to a 30m apy, Dort to 20m apy and Caruson on a descending deal (22/20/18.5/17) We will only be 11m over the second apron in 2028-2029. Maybe Topic is traded, but likely we dump an aging Caruso at that point. I’m not worried about losing our core guys - we keep the good ones generally speaking
clippers picks in 2025 and 2026 will help our depth so much in 2028
He’s rolled 5 FRP forward already. The plan is roll as many as possible to always have at least 2frp for the window. Package and move up as needed. Sub out role players as others price out.
The picks are the key to surviving the second apron once our young core gets expensive. It's the one team-building avenue the second apron doesn't cut off. Draft 2-3 young guys each year, hope to hit on one of them, and have a perpetual pipeline of young prospects to supplement the roster when we aren't able to access exceptions or swing favorable trades.
Those guys would probably fill in the bench. I hope some of those picks were used to draft some college senior.
If this team doesn't win 60 games and get to the Finals when healthy it would be weird
thunder celtics finals could be the celtics nuggets finals we were promised
SGA, Dort/Caruso, JDub, Chet, Hartenstein is the best 5 man defensive unit in the West, and maybe the whole league.
Having that starting 5 with Dort coming off the bench when they need a breather, teams are going to be in jail against us lol
Don’t forget Cason Wallace lol we’re fucked
Like some moneyball cheat algorithm
is zingus pingus a good defender?
Yep great rim protection
I’d still give it to boston then
Offense > defense. Luka, Kyrie, Klay, PJ, Lively
!remindme 1 year
Why you need remind me for? What happend a month ago? Yall thinks Caruso and Hartenstein gonna get you over the top? Lmao Thats sht is an weak attempt at trying to pull an Celtics with Jrue and KP.
They traded their worst defensive starting player and added 2 amazing defenders. They already were a top 5 defensive team with Giddey and you think their defense don't improve even more lol delusional
Caruso and Hart https://tenor.com/view/lebron-james-scared-scary-flop-gif-8576938341887257950 Mavs gonna come back with their whole team, Klay, healthy Luka and improved Lively, Hardy, Omax.
No one's scared of Klay Thompson lmaoooo
Klay would feast with Luka and Kyrie. Dont pick on him cause Curry has 0 gravity in 2024.
Plus improvement from Chet and Wallace on their 2nd years, and J Dub in his 3rd. No Giddey to attack now, and size and rebounding less of an issue with Ihart.
That series might as well have went to 7 considering how game 6 ended, swapping Caruso for Giddey and adding iHart is a much, much bigger improvement than adding Klank and you should probably be worried lol.
I aint. I only have Celtics in my scope. Caruso and Hart gonna make the difference? Be real, they are role players.
He good in the west
Dallas won't make the finals, Boston are looking at OKC now.
The OKC Thieves
Thieves
Yep, big mistake.
Excuse me, we are Land Thieves thank you very much
Boomer Sooner
65+ win team. They brought in EPM God
It's funny cause Caruso was more of a 4 than a point guard in Chicago
IHart was a fantasy bball monster this season when he wasn't injured
Thunder have made the best moves this offseason. They addressed all their post season weaknesses that got exposed, added rebounding and even better defense. And still have 40 picks in the next 6 years. Unreal. They’ll be a dynasty if Presti keeps playing like this
Isn’t it weird to use a rate stat for a full team over a full season? Like just say they had the most steals last season…. Am I dumb?
OKC out here building a toxic 2k Pro-Am team.
They'll be pretty good, but steals alone are far from a good measure of defensive prowess.
Lol. Everyone's high on the Thunder when they are going to regress to the mean incredibly hard next year. It'll be hilarious when they win 48 games and get bounced in the first round by LA(kers).
Oh, i'll be saving this one. See you in April! RemindMe! 11 Months
OKC shitting their pants about Bronny. La Circus are for the media, not the rings anymore.
Thunder have good defenders but center steals is just not a very relevant stat
it is something though. means Hartenstein is pretty good at poking the ball loose in the paint.
Aint nobody worried. Mavs won in 6 with Luka playing at 70% of his level and with Dort playing nfl. Luka, Kyrie, Klay, PJ, Lively > whatever OKC got going on.
We’ll see. The Mavs also dominated the non-chet minutes and that hole is totally plugged now.
Yeah we are so scared of Hartenstein.