There is a dicton that goes: if you stay motionless, you lose ground.
Or something like that.
For those of us with a sporty IQ, allow me a little to do it a little:
If you can’t stop TJ McConnell, you really shouldn’t put banners.
If we learned something from the recently finished NBA season is that what is happening in the first 82 games really doesn’t matter. It’s all about qualifying series.
Oklahoma City Thunder was about as dominant in matters devoid of meaning as any team in the history of the NBA. They were such a big favorite to win the championship, the Mack mattress had to bet a King-size just to win a few feathers.
Yes, the Thunder prevailed and Mack’s daughter can dress in pocahontas for the show-And-Tell. But the fields have lost more than what they won during their trip of the surprisingly difficult qualifying series.
Oklahoma City was declared legendary even before the first battle for the playoffs was led. Twenty-three games later, the dynasty is over.
On the one hand, the Thunder did not play like the Celtics or Lakers or Celtics or Spurs or Warriors during their championship race. They were ultimately rather ordinary.
To cry aloud, if Tyrese Haliburton does not blow at his Achilles seven minutes after a match 7 which has launched the world of basketball: “Oh my God, it could really happen”, well … it could really have happened.
The Thunder could have lost the fourth best team of the light conference.
He would have classified himself as one of the greatest embarrassments in the history of the Lights Vives. Some went so far as to suggest that the coach would have been dismissed.
Three weeks later, we now see that the coach was not the problem. He was his boss.
Sam Presti worked 13 years by trying to rebuild the greatness of 2012, when the Thunder was mastered by LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in the NBA final.
He sold Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Chris Paul and dozens of others, most transforming into the largest collection of recovery choices in the history of humanity. Even Patton had less than five stars at his disposal.
The plan worked brilliantly, so slowly. By 2025, Presti created not only a team that won more regular season games than any other in the history of the Thunder, but also the one that ended up winning the first franchise championship from Seattle.
During all that, remarkably, build a war selection chest which is somehow greater than ever.
Presti had a chance this offseason to have the draft, to have a free agency, to have the fast way to another championship and, with it, of this slippery dynasty.
Instead, he fell in love. I fell in love with a large regular season team which barely reached the finish line of the playoffs.
And that prepares it for sorrow.
With a developing superstar, a second star in the making, a great fragile man, good actors and so little depth that his bench was upgraded 291 to 205 by the Pacers in the final, Presti has, as the saying, was still held this summer.
He had two first round choices, up to five others next year, at least five above this in the next four years, and three first-round exchanges which are likely to transmit. He could have suspended them all for a real co-star of Superstar live, or spread them around three or four at the same time among the many teams hoping to use his own roadmap to succeed, looking for guys better than hers who fought with Benédict Mathurin, Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin and Aaron Nesmith.
Instead, he threw his best first round choice on a guy, it is unlikely that it is more than a spectator at the time of the playoffs and added to the blue range of the gague of Oklahoma City with its selection of second round.
Presti also dealt with its other choice of first round for a first 2027 of Sacramento, which has just added to its arsenal which could have dominated all the other teams of the League of the commercial market.
The Thunder spent most of their time this time, this off -season again signed, ensuring that they will again have the deepest list of the NBA next season.
It’s great … when the quantity is large. But in the playoffs, because they should be fully aware now, it is the quality that prevails.
When the Thunder will not repeat 11 months, some will blame Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for not having been able to reproduce his remarkable 2025 season. Some will quote another injury to Chet Holmgren, this at the end of the year rather than the start. Others will say that they told us that Jalen Williams was surfaced, that Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso are considered to be companions for a reason, that Lu sleeps, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe could not intervene when they had a greater opportunity.
Heck, some will suggest that they should have dismantled their coach, which, at that time, they would probably do it.
And they will all be wrong.
It will be the fault of Sam Presti and his summer vacation.
