The Thunder just FLEECED the Kings...

The Oklahoma City Thunder just did it again. We've got breaking news of a brand new trade from the Thunder and Sam Presti going out and reuniting with a player that the Thunder originally drafted just two years ago, fleecing the Sacramento Kings in what may be the best example I've seen as of late of a low-risk, high-reward trade. And this, for all of you out there with Thunder Nation or across the NBA that were looking Looking for Sam to make a move. With all these injuries, and go get a true established NBA guy, but for not much of a cost, Sam Presti has just done it, and we're going to go over all of the information here today on the channel. Fleecing the Kings, a new wing coming home who still has several years left on his contract. He was a 24 overall pick just two years ago, and honestly, folks, this is the Thunder's current version of the Jared McCain trade from last year. Both second-year players in terrible systems, incredibly talented guys that fall out of favor in a just completely floundering front office, a big talent that can immediately help Oklahoma City and gave up very, very little. Here's the report from Shams Charania, the Sacramento Kings trading Nick Clifford to the Oklahoma City Thunder for two second-round picks that have not yet been disclosed. And this follows along the trajectory of Sam Presti having an interest in players Not being able to get them right now, but that doesn't mean goodbye forever. As they go out, they select Neek Clifford with the 24th overall pick. They then trade his draft rights to Sacramento for a protected 2027 first from San Antonio, which they still have. Sacramento. They exercised his third-year option going into this season, meaning that he should have that now for two years with OKC. And then now, just two weeks since they exercised that option, Shams reports the trade to Oklahoma City. And the thing that makes this so much more hilarious is that, again, Sam traded away Nick Clifford's draft rights to Sacramento for a 2027 San Antonio first-round picks just over a calendar year later. The Thunder get both Nick Clifford and that Spurs first round pick this coming June. So Sam said, I'm going to have my cake and I'm going to eat it too. And this trade makes so much sense for OKC. So part two from Shams being about basically why this whole trade happened. Clifford fell out of the rotation with the Kings. They pick up some assets, clear a roster spot. This is a textbook, non-Sam Presti, rest of the NBA panic trade. It's exactly what we. We saw from Daryl Morey and the 76ers last year moving on from and at the time recovering from injury Jared McCain who they just completely shoved out of their rotation and now you see what he is doing in Oklahoma City and we don't know exactly the picks that the Thunder have given up yet or what they've done with the roster spot to bring him on the roster. I'm going to get into that here near the end of the video because this means the Thunder have to move on from somebody else. And I've got a pretty idea of who that most likely would be. But let's go into the details now. Nick Clifford losing his Sacramento role. Why did it happen? Well, you know, I'm not convinced that this was anything other than just complete ineptitude from Sacramento and a franchise that doesn't really care to win. And they kind of just want to tank their way into getting a lottery pick year in and year out. When you look at his season stats this year, you'd probably understand why the Kings made this trade. But context is. Everything in this league, ladies and gentlemen, you see what he's done this year, but 6.2 minutes per game. And he is quite simply not playing basketball anymore for this Kings team and their head coach. He spoke with the media just a couple of days ago, Doug Christie saying, yeah, we have a log jam in our rotation. It's nothing that Nick Clifford is or isn't doing, but obviously For some reason, they're not playing him, and I am racking my brain for reasons why you would not play this guy. He comes out of Colorado State, is one of the more seasoned players in the draft as he played all of his years of eligibility plus an extra one, so he's already 24 years old now, and what he did in his rookie season does not at all warrant what they have done to him this year. I mean, you look at his stats last season, 25 minutes a game, 50% true shooting. Eight points a game, nearly four rebounds a game, two and a half assists a game, and a 42% shooter from the field. And obviously his plus minus is gonna be in the minus. The dude plays for the damn Sacramento Kings. Like he is not gonna be in a situation where he can thrive or succeed. And what I'm gonna tell you all right now is this man gets on the plane, heads to Oklahoma. As we speak and as this video comes out, do not be fooled by his 2026 numbers. The dude can play. He's got a full developed physical frame. He has a very high floor. That was the analysis on him going into the draft and why it seemed like Sam Presti was a guy that may like him a lot, and he obviously did. You bring him in for the pre-draft workouts, you select him yourself, and then the Kings come calling and they trade you after you make the pick. Now, had some great games in the league so far. One of his better games last year against the Lakers where he scores 26 points, and he just completely took over that game offensively. The dude's a hustle player that can attack the basket. He'll guard the two to the four, and he will get you some steals. You look at his impact numbers from last year. And this is what I am buying into. You've got a good ball handler. You've got a great player when it comes to working collaboratively with the team. He's active in terms of what he's going to do defensively. And when you consider the facts that he's going to get to play with the league's back-to-back MVP, when he's going to get to play with guys like A.J. Mitchell, who are in there right now, having a breakout season, and we're going to have a video on that tomorrow, was planning on uploading it today, but then this trade happened, so we've got to push that back a day. And then you obviously have also got just another, a huge plethora of talent here on this team. It makes sense why Sam Presti and the Thunder are confident that they're going to get some really, really good return on this trade. And it makes it apparent that the Thunder are going to continue to go all in on this season as they should, even despite the catastrophic injuries that happened two weeks ago to the day. The Thunder, as of right now, are... 13 percentage points on Kalshi behind the Spurs for being considered a Western Conference Championship favorite. I feel like that's a really good return on investment for yourself, you know, talking about ROI with Sam Presti in this trade. Today's video is sponsored by Kalshi. Go click that link down below in the description, and you can go put in code DIGESTNBA. And when you do, on your first $25 trade, you will get $55 back on... Your bonus funds on the account. You can do it on sporting events. You can do it on anything in the NBA, from game-by-game results, from player predictions for the course of a season, all these little props in there as well, all across all sports, all across pop culture, across music, across media, all the things that you'd want to go look into. Go check it out for yourself. Kalshi's the official trading partner of the NBA as well. And what makes them different is you're trading against other users, not against a house. And yeah, so that's kind of what makes them different. But Kalshi sponsoring today's video, go check them out in the link in the description. You know, I mentioned the parallels to Jared McCain and Nick Clifford. The Thunder giving up basically some pennies and some pocket lint to get McCain last year at the deadline. And you see what they did to my boy J-Mac before he gets traded. Like his rookie year, he was incredible, guys. Like he literally was a candidate for rookie of the year until he had some injuries that he finally came back from and they just never trusted him again. The dude literally dropped 8.7 points a game. You saw his minutes got cut, and as a result, so did his confidence. I'm saying the same thing is going on right now with Neat Clifford. The dude got his minutes cut. He's gotten his role shaven away. The Kings have no idea what the hell they're doing, and as a result, his confidence is cut as well. He's gonna come in here, and he is going to thrive, and he's gonna be making a very pedestrian salary. You're going to have him for two more years after this, and OKC with Neat Clifford going to be getting a player that can help you at the wing, and that's what everyone's been talking about. What can the Thunder do to bolster their wing rotation? Well, they can do it by getting guys like... What you see right here with Nick Clifford and going and getting Micah Peavy, who has been a great addition to this team. And honestly, I think Nick can be what Micah has been so far on steroids. You look at the injury report for the Thunder and it obviously continues to not be good. Have no idea when some of these guys are gonna be coming back in terms of Thomas Sorber, in terms of Nikola Topić, who did get optioned to the G League yesterday, which means he should be on the path to his rehab assignment at some point here in the near future. But Cason Wallace, you know, gone for a long time. J-Dub gone for a long time as well, but you bring in a dude with the rookie evidence that he is going to be active offensively. He's going to be a good spot-up defender. He's going to be someone you can trust in terms of cutting to the basket, spot-up shooting, pick-and-roll ball handler. This is a dream for the Thunder. I mean, this is a fantastic trade, you guys, and Sam's taking a swing here with this. The cost's going well beyond... Just what you're bringing in and what you're getting rid of in terms of getting rid of two second round picks, which in this league is basically nothing. Unless you're Sam Presti, who can turn second round picks into players like AJ Mitchell, but most teams cannot do that. But the thing that I think is very, very interesting here is that Thunder technically don't have a roster spot to bring in Nick Clifford. And the way that they would have one Is by getting rid of a guy who basically just walked in the door. It's kind of like the Simpsons meme of the grandpa coming in, putting his hat on the coat rack, doing a circle, grabbing the hat, and walking back out the door. The Thunder signed Dale and Terry to that 15th roster spot like a week and a half ago. His deal was fully non-guaranteed as it was later reported. And I would imagine the Thunder are going to have to cut him loose, sadly, to make this This happened, which it's nothing. That will hurt themselves. It obviously sucks from the business aspect of things for a guy like Dale and Terry if that ends up being the case. And again, we don't know for sure, but that in my eyes is the only way that it would make sense unless the Thunder were to use one of those hardship roster spots like from the DPE type of stuff, the disabled player exceptions. But if you were to do that, you would have to, at the time that you use it, you'd have to render either Kaysen or J-Dub out for the season No possibility of return in the playoffs, and I feel like it would be a surprise for the Thunder to do that, still just a week and a day into November, but either way, for OKC, you are buying into a player that was a high-impact rookie last year. A wing player that's active, he's got scoring creation talent, and guys, I'm telling you right now, he is going to thrive in this system, and Sam Presti loved him from the very beginning. So I want you guys now down below in the comments to grade this trade for me. Are you going to give it an A, are you going to give it a B, do you give it a C? I would give this trade right now. An A, to be honest with you, like in terms of what you're giving up and in terms of the potential that you're bringing back in and the confidence that I have that this dude is going to come in and ball out for the Thunder, I'm giving this trade an A and you guys may disagree with me, but let me know down below in the comments. I'm excited to have some of those conversations and our comment spotlight for today's video comes from herehere3184. The rookies are looking better as each game goes on and that could not be more true. After last night's dismantlement of another bad franchise in the Washington Wizards. And you look at Adai Mara really growing into his role. And Bennett Sturtz blossoming before our very eyes. And in the second part of this, Micah Peavy, don't forget about what he has done so far. He has been awesome. I think Nick Clifford can be Micah Peavy times 10 in this current setup. Presti is the best GM in all of sports. I'll say that till the day I die. I think that this trade that he just made is even more evidence of it. So again, let me know your grade down below in the comments, or if you don't have any ideas, just go simply say, welcome Nick in the comments down below. And if you're enjoying all of this content, don't forget to help us out with our subscriber goal of 11K. We're getting very, very close to it as we're now within... I think from now 150 subs away. So if you're enjoying the content, if you're excited for live streams in the future, you want all these breaking news updates, you know what to do. Go subscribe down below, stay in the mix. Appreciate you all so much. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day. Nick Clifford coming to OKC and we'll see you guys later here on the channel.