In May, the Thunder had 34 guaranteed draft rounds through 2027. Now, after summer and draft night, they have even more. No one has understood why Sam Presti has insisted on collecting one round after another in recent years., in which an eternally postponed reconstruction does not finish. Because yes, OKC takes players in the lottery, increases its number of young basketball players and looks to the future. But that future does not finish becoming present when it has been almost three years since Russell Westbrook He left the entity to set course for Houston and Hell, allowing the manager to do his own magic and, at the same time, allowing people to begin to consider that what he does is something very different from magic. At least, it seems so in the Thunder city, who had a comfortable extra time with Chris Paul in his ranks before the point guard said goodbye, Presti will collect more rounds of the draft and Billy Donovan will come off the bench.
Since then, there has not been any kind of sports project in Oklahoma. Mark Daigneault took command of a team full of young faces and a reconstruction began that has not been such and that has been translated into losing a huge number of parties, try things out to see who can stay on the team and who cannot and, again, look to a future that may be very distant. Draft rounds are used to apostille processes or make transfers, but it is rare for a team built exclusively with them to be eligible for the ring, the largest prize. Talent wins championships and it seems like there wasn’t much of that in OKC. But things are changing, something like green shoots is beginning and there are promising players in the Thunder. And a future star.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has posted a triple-double against the Nuggets of 27 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists against the Nuggets. It was the third consecutive victory for the Thunder, who are taking advantage of the constant casualties of their rivals and that nobody is well, to emerge in an ultra-competitive Western Conference and already add 11 victories. Antepenultimate of the West, yes, but only one victory away from the position that gives access to the play-inThat kind of preview that the NBA invented in the bubble in pursuit of justice and that has had a continuity from, like everything else, the income it has received from those extra games. And all of this, the Thunder are doing with with Shai averaging almost 22 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists per night and people who have wickers and who have much to offer in that future that does not come, but it seems that, at last, it is beginning to arrive. There is no Gabriel Deck, without opportunities in the franchise. But yes Luguentz Dort, Darius Bazley or, to a lesser extent, Tre Mann.
For the Nuggets, who stayed at 18 points in the first quarter and 14 in the third, nothing worked. Jokic, cast from sustaining the team steadily, He played only 25 minutes due to the dynamics of the game and was left with 13 points and 7 rebounds. And with that score he was the top scorer on his team, which is a good example of the constant disaster that the Colorado team was. And in the Thunder, in addition to Shai’s triple-double, up to six players with double digits and a very broad smile to face the next series of four games: in the first and last of them, against the Suns, they have it difficult. But, in between, against Pelicans and Kings, they can continue adding and, who knows, give some scare in the face of a second part of the season in which the losses will weigh more in the rest of the team than in OKC. In short, there are wickers, even if they are few, on a team that lost 73 points to the Grizzlies just 20 days ago. The biggest beating in history led to a meteoric recovery. Anyway, maybe Sam Presti knows what he’s doing.
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