Tag: Andy Bailey

Bleacher Reports grades OKC Thunder 2024 offseason with A

Bleacher Reports grades OKC Thunder 2024 offseason with A.

The calendar will soon flip to August, which means most of the big offseason moves have already been made by NBA teams. Following the draft and free agency, most rosters are set.

This allows Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey to hand out offseason grades for all 30 NBA teams.

As one can expect, the Oklahoma City Thunder had a high result. They had a productive offseason headlined by the additions of Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso. OKC received an A for its efforts.

“The Oklahoma City Thunder may well have had the best offseason in the NBA.

They’re already among the youngest teams in the league and are coming off a first-place finish in the West. This summer, they addressed their glaring weaknesses…

Adding Isaiah Hartenstein gives the Thunder the option to pivot when necessary, and it’s reasonable to believe Hartenstein and the more perimeter-oriented Chet Holmgren can even play together…

The other weakness was Josh Giddey’s struggles as an outside shooter, which made him an easy option to sag off of. Alex Caruso will punish opposing defenses that choose to pack the paint rather than close out to his open catches.”

Bailey even mentioned their draft haul. The Thunder swung with Nikola Topic, who fell in draft boards because of a torn ACL that will keep him out next season. OKC has the luxury of waiting out his recovery.

“Add to those additions the team-friendly contracts for Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins, as well the pick of Nikola Topić (perhaps this class’ best playmaker) in the draft, and this is an easy A even though Topić figures to miss this season while recovering from a torn ACL.”

The Thunder entered the offseason with over $30 million in cap space and used it wisely to improve their roster. Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams are on bargain deals for the next two seasons, so they took advantage of the added payroll to spend.

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Bleacher Report proposes trade that land the Thunder Luka Doncic

What are your thoughts on the trade idea?

The Dallas Mavericks have entered a crisis.

After trading for Kyrie Irving to pair with Luka Doncic, the Mavericks’ struggles have reached a boiling point. At 37-40, they are two games behind the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 10th spot in the West standings with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season.

The recent struggles — on and off the court for the Mavericks — have caused people to ponder Doncic’s long-term future in Dallas. He is signed through the 2026-27 season, which is a player option he can decline. This means the Mavericks only have two guaranteed seasons left with Doncic.

Anticipating the doomsday scenario of Doncic asking out occurring, Bleacher Report writer Andy Bailey created four trade proposals with four separate teams.

One of them was the Thunder.

Here’s the proposed trade idea by Bailey on what it’d take for the Thunder to land Doncic:

“If Dončić demands out, OKC could offer a prime package of picks, Josh Giddey, Chet Holmgren and Luguentz Dort as the salary filler. Jalen Williams is another possible addition to the framework.

The remaining roster would be pretty bare-bones, but a backcourt of Luka and SGA would be nightmarish for the rest of the Western Conference.

And with those two in place, you wouldn’t need to add much beyond defense and spot-up shooting. That can be easier said than done, but the trickiest part of team-building is landing the stars.

Something like this would put the Thunder ahead of most of the rest of the league on that front.”

Phew. That’s quite the haul for Doncic. I understand he’s going to go down as one of the greatest players ever, but it’s hard justifying stripping down OKC’s roster for someone who might not stay in the long run.

A more reasonable proposal would likely center around two of the Josh Giddey/Jalen Williams/Chet Holmgren trio, as many draft picks as possible and filler. To give up four of your top five players is too tall of an ask — even for someone as generational as Doncic.

Considering the reaction to the trade idea, it looks like Thunder fans also are going to give a hard no on this proposal.

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Bleacher Report suggests Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to Knicks, other Thunder trade ideas

Bleacher Report suggests a trio of Thunder trade ideas headlined by sending SGA to the Knicks.

NBA training camp starts next week, which means that the offseason is essentially over as teams prepare to start the 2022-23 regular season.

With that said, that does not mean trade season is over too. Bleacher Report writer Andy Bailey published an article on Monday that included trade ideas for all 30 NBA teams.

For the Oklahoma City Thunder, they were involved in three such trade ideas with the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks.

The most notable of the batch is the proposal of sending Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to the Knicks after missing out on Donovan Mitchell. There’s been talks recently about a potential marriage between both parties, but nothing’s been officially reported and it’s more about coming up with trade ideas.

Let’s take a look at the three trades and Bailey’s reasoning as to why the trade makes sense for both teams

Bleacher Report has Lu Dort going No. 26 in 2019 NBA draft redo

The UDFA goes No. 26 in a 2019 draft redo.

Bleacher Report writer Andy Bailey recently redrafted the 2019 draft class. Now feels like an appropriate time as the sample sizes are respectable enough to draw reasonable conclusions.

The players have had three seasons, which is plenty of time to adjust to the league and to start seeing results.

Lu Dort is the only Oklahoma City Thunder player in the first redraft at No. 26.

“Advanced numbers and his shooting percentages paint a bleak picture of Luguentz Dort’s career. He’s never been above replacement level in box plus/minus, and he’s shot only 39.5 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from deep.

Basketball Reference acknowledges BPM’s shortcomings when it comes to measuring defense, though. And Dort is already a plus on-ball defender who still has room to grow.

If he can become more consistent from the outside—and there’s no reason to think a 23-year old can’t improve on that front—he’ll be a legitimate three-and-D threat.”

The Thunder only drafted one player, Brandon Clarke, who was subsequently traded to the Memphis Grizzlies. The Thunder acquired Darius Bazley’s draft rights and was the only other homegrown player from this class. Ty Jerome was also part of this draft class and spent his rookie season with the Phoenix Suns.

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Bleacher Report predicts the OKC Thunder will finish with 18 wins in 2022-23 season

The 18-64 mark is the 2nd worst among all 30 prediction.

The NBA released the 2022-23 regular season schedules last week for all 30 teams. The drop is usually accompanied by record predictions by several outlets. That was the case with Bleacher Report and writer Andy Bailey, who published a record prediction for every team in the league.

The Thunder, whose over/under is 24.5 wins, are predicted to finish with an 18-64 record, which is worse than the 24-58 finish the team had last season.

“The prediction that the Oklahoma City Thunder will fall seven wins shy of their over isn’t necessarily a vote of no confidence in the core. It’s more about optimism for others in the West and a hunch that OKC is still a year or two away from consistently competitive basketball.

On long-term talent alone, this team has one of the most interesting rosters in the league.

With Josh Giddey, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Aleksej Pokusevski and Chet Holmgren, the Thunder can deploy lineups with plus passers at four of the five positions.

Holmgren and Luguentz Dort will have plenty of possessions in which they make scoring difficult for the opposition, too.

The key to hitting that over-under as early as this season may be whether two or three of those guys join SGA as an average to above-average shooter.”

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Even with the Thunder entering another rebuilding season and being extremely young, finishing with just 18 wins would be a bit of a surprise — especially if the team is relatively healthy.

Nonetheless, if the Thunder finish with fewer than 20 wins this season, it’s safe to bet they’ll have top-three lottery odds to land the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA draft and subsequently acquire generational prospect Victor Wembanyama to add to their already stellar young core.

Only the San Antonio Spurs have a worse projected record in the league, 16-66.

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