Clay Bennett clinked his Michelob Ultra bottle against Sam Presti’s can of Miller Lite. It was a championship cheers two decades in the making between a pair who predate the Thunder’s inception.
When assigning credit for the Thunder’s title — an exercise the organization would detest, by the way — Presti gets a huge slice of the pie. Same goes for Mark Daigneault. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander? Give the MVP the fattest slice of all. Every player on down deserves a portion of varying sizes.
Make sure to leave room for Bennett, though.
The Thunder chairman operates in the shadows, but that might be his finest attribute. In a league full of meddling owners — some who know what they’re doing, others whose egos impede progress — Bennett, at least from the outside, is hands off.
When NBA commissioner Adam Silver presented Bennett with the Larry O’Brien trophy, Bennett accepted it without giving a speech. He raised the hardware above his head before quickly handing it off to Thunder players. And then Bennett moved into the background, ceding the spotlight. In the locker room after the trophy ceremony, Bennett, drenched in beer and champagne, politely declined an interview request.
Those moments are a metaphor in how Bennett, the chairman of the Thunder’s seven-person ownership group, operates.
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He lets the players play, the coaches coach, and most importantly, he lets the general manager manage.
Presti, who held his postseason press conference Monday morning, was asked to reflect on his relationship with Bennett.
“I think Clay is true to himself,” Presti said. “He has so much respect for our players. I think that’s the big one … I think he has tremendous appreciation for their families, and he wants people to have a great experience in Oklahoma and playing for the team. You can see that in just the way the former players embrace him.
“I also think the relationships are not transactional, and I think that makes a big difference with everybody in the way in which he supports all of us and the resources that are required to have a team in Oklahoma City compete on an elite level.”
Presti also acknowledged the other six members of the Thunder ownership group: Bill Cameron, Everett Dobson, Bob Howard, George Kaiser, Jeff Records and Jay Scaramucci.
The first time Bennett and Presti met was in 2007 during Presti’s interview for the SuperSonics’ GM job. Presti, then 29, was an assistant general manager for the Spurs, and Bennett had previously been a part of the Spurs’ ownership group — Bennett played a key role in the Spurs hiring Gregg Popovich as GM in 1994 — but Bennett and Presti didn’t overlap in San Antonio.
Presti was at a pre-draft camp in Orlando when he got a call that Seattle was interested in hiring him. The Spurs, meanwhile, were still in the playoffs. They would go on to win the 2007 NBA title.
Bennett happened to be in Dallas, so Presti, as he remembers it, flew there between series for an interview.
“I was in a great situation,” Presti said. “I didn’t have a lot of reasons to want to leave (San Antonio). The team was really good and they were great to me, incredible to me. They were investing in me in terms of just giving me more responsibility and grooming me in a lot of different areas, and I had no complaints whatsoever. I wasn’t looking to leave.
“But the challenge that was being presented was, there was a lot to take on, and I liked that. I felt like Clay would be somebody that I’d like working for … It just kind of grew from there.”
On June 7, 2007, Bennett hired Presti as the SuperSonics’ new general manager. Presti became the second-youngest GM in NBA history. After one season in Seattle and the past 17 in Oklahoma City, Bennett and Presti are still fused as the stabilizing cornerstones of a franchise that’s known little besides success. Miami’s Micky Arison and Pat Riley are the only owner/lead basketball executive duo with more longevity than Bennett and Presti.
The pairing has not only been remarkably stable but resoundingly successful. The Thunder has made the conference finals five times and the NBA Finals twice since moving from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008.
Year 17 ended with the first championship in Thunder history, and the Thunder will enter next season as the overwhelming favorite to defend its crown.
The Thunder literally wouldn’t be here without Bennett. Presti wouldn’t be here without Bennett. And Oklahoma City wouldn’t be a title town if not for both.
Cheers to them.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.