Neither Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook nor Troy Weaver are still members of the Oklahoma City Thunder organization, but that doesn’t mean that the three can’t combine to give us an interesting piece of information.
Weaver, who has been a member of the Thunder front office since 2008, was recently hired by the Detroit Pistons to assume the general manager post for the floundering franchise.
Writing for The Athletic, Erik Horne spoke with several former members of the team, including Durant, about Weaver and what he brings to the table.
Although operating primarily behind the scenes, over the years, Weaver played an integral role in not only scouting players and making recommendations as to who the team should draft, but also helping players get acclimated with like in Oklahoma City and with their teammates.
More than the general public knows, that type of integration is necessary for a young player to thrive.
In the story, Durant recounted to Horne how Weaver played an important role in convincing the front office to take a chance on drafting Westbrook with the fourth overall pick in 2008. Back in those days, Westbrook was still considered somewhat raw and there were doubts as to whether and how his game would translate at the NBA level.
It turns out that Weaver was convinced rather early.
Horne writes:
Durant is a student of the game, so he naturally reveled in Weaver’s storytelling, trying to soak up as much information from him as possible. A portion of Durant’s basketball mind was built off of Weaver telling him stories… and how he figured out Russell Westbrook was the right fit for the Thunder…
“He (Weaver) told me he was going to a workout and Russ was there two hours early, sleeping in his car,” Durant said. “He was like, ‘Yeah, this is the guy.’
Obviously, Westbrook would’ve had to perform well in the workouts to convince the Thunder to take a chance on him, especially with promising prospects like Eric Gordon, Joe Alexander and Jerryd Bayless expected to be available.
In the end, obviously, the Thunder made the right choice. And although it probably wasn’t all due to Westbrook falling asleep in his car, that obviously helped convince Weaver that Westbrook’s competitive fire burned quite violently — something that has since been proven true.
It’s also telling that Durant remembers that detail after all these years.
“That’s a cool story to know because you never know what triggers these GMs to fall in love with a player. For him to point that out to me shows that he enjoys blue-collar, hardworking guys. I appreciated that time when we spent two or three minutes together here and there to just talk about the game, talk about how he viewed players. That really shaped how I viewed the game outside of just hoopin’. I attribute a lot of that to Troy.”
So count Durant among those who sing Weaver’s praises…
And we now know that he’s detail-oriented. We’ll probably have some interesting stories about Pistons draft picks over the coming years.