This year’s draft was a little different for the Oklahoma City Thunder. It was the first one in 15 years without front-office member Will Dawkins.
The Thunder lost Dawkins to the Washington Wizards earlier this month. They hired him as their new general manager. Dawkins is second in command behind former Thunder front office member Michael Winger, who was named the president of the Wizards.
The Wizards had quite the busy draft night. They traded up for the No. 7 pick and drafted Metropolitan forward Bilal Coulibaly, who was heavily linked to the Thunder in mock drafts.
In his post-draft press conference, Thunder general manager Sam Presti spoke about Dawkins and his departure, noting how proud he is of his former assistant working his way up to a GM job.
“Been with him for a really long time, so I’m super proud and excited for him and he’s going to do — he’s already off to a great start obviously. To be with Michael (Winger) and just to have those two guys working together, it’s surreal.
“I’m super grateful because I know myself personally, like I’ve been so blessed over the time I’ve been here to work with people like that, to have had Will for that long, I was the beneficiary of that just like with Mike or any of the other guys. Now Acie (Law) has stepped right in and has done an incredible job this year.
“So we are a collection of individual people that are all kind of working towards a common goal and I want to believe that when people leave here and they go into bigger and better things that they feel like they did, you know, some of their best work of their lives. I just couldn’t be more excited for him. I think it’s great and I think he’s going to do great.”
Presti’s general manager tree continues to grow as Dawkins is added to the long list of Thunder front office members who have graduated to decision-making jobs for other teams throughout the league.
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