A lot of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s DNA can be traced back to the San Antonio Spurs.
Both are small-market franchises that have enjoyed long runways of success due to synergy spanning from ownership to the front office to the coaching staff to the roster.
In fact, Thunder general manager Sam Presti notoriously had his start with the Spurs, where he spent eight years from 2000 to 2007 and worked his way up to assistant GM.
Presti was eventually handed the keys to the Thunder when he was named their general manager in 2007 and the rest has been history since.
Being a GM for that long for one franchise means you get to see several iterations of the team. For Presti, this means he’s currently overseeing his second rebuild after the first opened a contending window that spanned the 2010s.
When asked about the job Presti has done building up their current young core, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich was complimentary and mentioned how this wasn’t his first rodeo of roster building.
“Sam (Presti) is a pain in the ass,” Popovich joked. “He’s brilliant. He’s fantastic. Which I knew from day one long ago. His moves and decisions didn’t just start. He’s been doing that from the beginning. He and Clay (Bennett) have built just a class organization. Something that everybody in the league should emulate and something I know the city is really proud of.”
The Thunder and Spurs had several heavyweight matchups in the 2010s as title contenders led by Kevin Durant and Tim Duncan respectively. Both franchises hope history repeats itself with Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama — who faced off for the first time on an NBA court during Monday’s preseason opener.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]