This will fuel a Thunder dynasty...

This is how the Thunder keep their title window open for even longer than what the rest of the league would hope. After cashing in on an asset from the Clippers last year in the form of Adai Mara, who has been a star in the preseason, the Thunder are set to reload yet again in the next draft class in pretty much the exact same manner. We're going to talk about it here today on the channel, how the Thunder are going to continue to use this long-thrown-out philosophy from Sam Presti into continuing to build this team around their core for the next handful of years. In the second apron era with the current CBA, we can all thank CJ McCollum, the Thunder and every other team that tries to retain homegrown talent really is up against a wall. And we're seeing it right now in real time with the Thunder with guys like Cason Wallace. And obviously it has been a struggle and here we are four days away. We'll probably have a video on it in the last couple of days and we'll see if the Thunder end up getting pen to paper with Cason. I'm not super optimistic, but there is a way for the Thunder to continue to bring in young, talented players, and it comes from the Los Angeles Clippers directly. And if you've kind of been living under a rock in the NBA world, you're just now surfacing back up with the season underway. The Clippers got the absolute banhammer from the NBA over the course of this offseason with their Kawhi Leonard salary cap circumvention details, getting five first round picks taken away getting fined 30 million dollars you know something slight on a little Thursday afternoon Steve Ballmer and the rest of his team getting suspended for one year in the front office from all league and team activities well they moved on from Kawhi Leonard they traded for Brandon Ingram coming back in as a result and they're kind of trying to build around a core of players that are either young or really really old and kind of just in weird limbo phase to the point where the Thunder yet again own the Clippers pick next year and we're going to talk in today's video about why that is going to be such an awesome asset for the future for this team. Before we do that here's a word from our sponsor then let's get into it. 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Bradley Beal, their veteran presence on this team, he's going to be out for the first game with knee inflammation, so things are just continuing to pile up for Los Angeles. And even if this team is fully healthy, folks, I don't see a world where this team is even close to being a playoff team, let alone being outside of the top 10 of the worst records in the league because if you remember we were making videos on the channel probably nine or ten months ago you know a couple months into the last regular season saying the Thunder have a realistic chance of getting the number one overall pick obviously that didn't happen and it was entirely because Kawhi Leonard came back and just was absolute demon goblin mode for the Clippers to at least get them to the 12th pick to give the Thunder which ended up being a Dai Mara so thank you very much but they don't have Kawhi Leonard this year who was far and away the best player on that team they trade him to Toronto and they get Brandon Ingram in their turn Brandon Ingram has been a solid role a solid number two option on some winning teams but as a number one option his teams have never really done well and without Kawhi Leonard last year you see how much different they were in the net rating as an offensive and as a defensive team so without Kawhi Leonard I've got some serious question marks as to that team being able to finish outside the top 10 of draft picks and it looks like a lot of the other people out there tend to agree with me going over some mock drafts that have come out within the last two to three weeks sports illustrated has the thunder getting pick number five from the clippers in next year's draft bleacher reports got him getting pick number six tankathons got him getting pick number five no ceilings who is a little group that does uh nba draft mock draft prospect evaluations they are really really good at what they do go check them out they've got the thunder getting the fifth pick in nba draft room another one kind of along the same veins has him getting the 12th overall pick so if you aren't familiar with the prospects in this coming draft I honestly haven't done like a super big deep dive into a lot of these guys yet Tyron Stokes is kind of seen as the number one prospect coming out of Kansas and then you've got really your pick of anyone else this draft is seen as being a little bit weaker of a draft class that'll be yet to be determined but if you want to go look into some of these guys, you can, and I'm going to obviously be getting all sorts of video breakdowns on this. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. There's been an off season of all this stuff with Oklahoma City and, you know, the regular season's about to begin. So I'm going to dive into some of these guys once they start playing some college basketball this year. So, you know, later this month, November, December, January, you can expect some videos like this on the channel, especially if we can keep in track with where the Clippers are going to be picking and where that Thunder would be overall taking that pick. But these are some of the guys that are seen in that area if you want to go do some of your own looking right now and so we should all be keeping up with just how long LA's vets are out this season some of their early losses maybe pushing them on a downward spiral before this season begins and then some of the development of some of their other guards Darius Garland as kind of their number one option Keaton Wagner as their pick that they took in the top five this year all those things should be looked at but overall the Thunder and what they're going to be able to do is so unprecedented in this league and that's kind of the point of today's video being the rising salaries and it raising extra stakes into the NBA draft and most of the time you're putting a lot of stock into a guy that's being taken with one of the last 10 to 12 picks in the league but not this time I mean it's looking like another lottery pick for Oklahoma City and another chance for Sam Presti to go get a guy on a rookie contract that's going to be a big-time contributor in the first couple of years before a potential rookie extension and this comes at a perfect time with Shai's salary bump coming next year where he's going to get an extra 21 million dollars it comes when Chet and J-Dub are also on their new contracts where they're making 40 plus million dollars so it gives the best general manager in pro sports options for the future and that's exactly what he could have hoped for but I don't think he even could have thought that it would be as good as this so just is a quick reminder as we close out today's video the Thunder are right there with the Nets for the most draft capital over the next four seasons and you see what the Thunder have got next season they own the Spurs pick top 16 protected so that's most likely going to go to Oklahoma City they've got Denver's pick which is top five protected that's most likely to go to Oklahoma City as well and then you've got the Clippers pick with the swap rights so you're the Thunder going to really be able to keep two out of the three of the Denver and the Clippers and their own so there's a good chance the Thunder end up with three first round picks this coming season and they also have a swap with Dallas next year which could be very very interesting if Dallas is a little bit further behind in their rebuild but we'll see how all that goes 12 months from now okay so now to the part of the video where I want to get you guys involved down below in the comments what would you want to see the Thunder do with a potential premium first round pick in 2027 if you have any prospects that you've done some research on that you really like so far do you have a position you prefer the Thunder to go after would you use that pick for yourself would you trade it for some immediate help in the form of maybe another veteran presence what would you do let me know down below and while you're down there as well help us hit our subscriber goal 11k subscribers I know that we only have now five days until the season starts so if we can try to hit 11k by then we're about 600 subscribers away but either way if you're new to the channel if you want to be in here for all of our game live streams where we give some play-by-play some reactions have some fun just hang out talk ball and obviously we have these videos every single day then go hit that subscribe button because you want to stay in the loop on everything OKC and as we have been doing our comment spotlight for the end of today's video coming from Sarah shout out to Sarah and obviously a bit of a somber tone for this comment with the video I made about Otega Owe away yesterday and if you had not heard yet it is confirmed now that Otega did suffer a ruptured right Achilles and he already has had surgery on that so he's going to be on that long road to recovery Sarah Stockton giving her thoughts to Otega Owe hoping the Thunder can avoid the injury bug this season amen to that let's hope that that can be the case and let's hope that the Clippers can maybe tread water slightly sink enough to where the Thunder could get a top 10 pick into this coming draft wouldn't that be pretty swell wouldn't that be pretty fun I think so we'll see you guys later with some more content appreciate you all for supporting the channel