The team can only protect 8 players. But once 1 player is taken, the rest are locked.

The picture shows salaries over the next four seasons from bb-ref with ages adjusted. I've removed all players who aren't on contracts past this season (Ous, Barnhizer, Youngblood & Carlson), but feel free to protect them if you want.

Who do you protect? Who do you make available? Who gets taken?

13 comments

  3. Yeah, this team is not keeping Hartenstein. The numbers are staggering, just looking at them right now

  4. SGA, Dub, Chet. The big 3, no questions.
    Wallace, Mitchell, Sorber. The 3 young guns.
    Joe and Dort (almost picked Caruso). Invaluable with what they uniquely provide for us.

    Dort’s age and relative durability have him being a little more valuable than AC. This is assuming that we look Dort in the windows of his soul and tell him that if we do this, he’s re-signing on a similar deal to what he have him on.

    Crazy that this decision was this hard… imagine this decision in 3 years. 😵

  5. shai, dub, chet, wiggins, mitchell, hartenstein, cason, sorber

    leaving out dort and caruso as those guys are a privilege that only teams with championship aspirations would value over a highly touted PG like Topic imo

  6. Shai, Dub, Chet, Dort, Wiggins, Cason, Caruso, Ajay. Tell anyone that gets selected “See ya when your contract is up with a kicker added”

  7. I don’t know the timing of when such a draft would happen. After free agency starts, or before?

    If it’s before, I’d cheat and decline team options of Dort and iHart, making them undradtable (but free agents, which we can hopefully negotiate on the side). It makes them free agents, but that scenario might happen regardless of expansion.

    So we’ll remove Dort and iHart from the equation. If it happens after a contractual extension for them after declining team options…how does that work for expansion draft

    That leaves 8 for SGA, Dub, Chet, Cason, AJ, Caruso (I don’t think an expansion team would draft him), Wiggins, and one of Joe, Sorber, Topic.

    Topic unfortunately does not have a role right now with AJ solidifying himself. It’s awful for where he is personally and what he’s going through, but I’m not protecting Topic.

    Then it’s between Joe and Sorber.

    I don’t know if an expansion team would draft Joe. Unless it’s the new Seattle team that just wants to draft someone from the Thunder for the hell of it, we can unprotected Joe and protect Sorber.

    However, I am of the opinion that iHart is necessary to our team. He fixed so much wrong with the 23-24 team. And we should keep iHart moving forward, at least until the 2028 offseason when we’re tearing the roster down to get under two years of the second apron.

    And if we do that…Sorber is a luxury and not a necessity.

    Joe, on the other hand, is our 3 point specialist, great regular season player to keep our record up. Hopefully he has a good 26 playoffs.

    But if Dort and iHart are removed for various reasons, I’m going with SGA Dub Chet Cason Caruso AJ Wiggins Joe. Topic and Sorber are mystery boxes, and we would only lose one, so those are whom I’d expose to be drafted in expansion.

  8. An expansion team isn’t picking up Caruso.

    He’s a playoff specialist on the wrong side of 30.

    There’s no reason to protect him at all.

    Either way, the expansion teams would take Topic and Sorber respectively without even thinking twice.

  10. One factor some commenters are missing: if each NBA team can only protect 8 players, there is no chance that a Thunder player won’t be selected. So to leave Caruso or Dort off b/c no one will select them is crazy talk. In fact, if the expansion team(s) can select more than 1 player from a team, the Thunder would lose at least 3 players, no matter who they would protect.

  13. If I’m a new expanding team I’m probably rebuilding and getting assets.i would go to each team and say in return for picks and young guys I’ll take your worst contract.

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