Yesterday JJ was on 610 AM and happened to have watched Sam Presti’s end of year review right before that.
[https://youtu.be/N\_cQHqeOHfk](https://youtu.be/N_cQHqeOHfk)
In many ways I think being a modern NBA GM is closer to Baseball > Football. The head coach in football is still king. The NBA and MLB can interchange coaches/managers but losing a great GM can take a team back ( or simply not hiring a great one).
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1. **Fan Incentivizing** :Presti really sells fans on their importance. Especially with a rebuilding team that doesn’t splurge on free agency. OKC really loves the Thunder (as well as their Dodgers farm team) regardless of record. He gets into how it’s a part of the development for the players gaining confidence.
2. **Openly Talks About Having To Adjust To Other Franchises Adjustments / The League :** Presti sometimes comes off as a hipster b-ball nerd (and don’t get me wrong , he is exactly that) but he often discusses what he’s learning about on the side to show that he’s as dedicated as his players in terms of developing himself. Kobe/Phil Jackson were very big on this and I think that he’s not so much trying to find the next Kobe Bryant but to install the process/work ethic as they did.
3. **Drafts to build chemistry and culture :** I think this is understated in baseball. OKC doesn’t always draft the highest player on the board despite being analytically minded. They aren’t pressured to draft the quickest to develop player either. They take on a San Antonio Spurs approach of realizing that you have to find a nice balance between work ethic, intelligence, and athleticism – and sometimes that’s pinpointing freak athletes that have both of the other boxes checked despite not having a ton of stats/success on the court.
2 comments
Interesting, thank you for this post.
Agree with what this post is saying. Here are some additional thoughts.
The thunder are the only professional sports team in that area, which helps them tremendously.
They are a newer franchise as well, 2005 I believe.
They had some terrible years where fans did not show up and there were some talks about this team being relocated again.
As good as it seems he is at being a GM, his teams have yet to win. He did draft 3 MVPs and ended up losing all of them.
The SGA clippers trade is an all timer for sure but we won’t know fully until all of those draft picks develop. As of now, that’s borderline highway robbery.
Now for some royals thoughts. I do wish we did a better job with fan involvement. I do think basketball games are a lot easier to go to and have fun at even if they have shit players. I do think we have some fun players but I don’t think we’ve done a good job marketing them.
Also, our front office fails to give good timelines for our goals like NBA gms do. We get vague timelines but I wish they would have a better more definitive plan.
My last point is patience. I wasn’t huge on keeping JJ and wished we would’ve just hit the compete reset instead of a 50% reset but I think Q is a good manager and his staff seems to be good too. We do have to give JJ a year or two to get this entire program on track for what he plans to do with it.
I think we’ve seen some very promising things this year but have also seen some very terrible things 1 month in. Hopefully one thing the front office can try to find is consistency.
Actually, my last thought is I hope we start taking some risks and locking up our young guys. Look at Ozzie Albies deal. We should be offering Bobby that or a little more today, before he fucks around and becomes Nolan arenado. I’d rather lose 90 mil and miss ending up with a Trevor plouffe, then not pay and miss out on a superstar.