{"id":139613,"date":"2025-07-01T16:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T16:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/139613\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T16:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T16:47:10","slug":"oklahoma-city-thunder-chair-clay-bennett-remains-behind-the-scenes-as-team-celebrates-nba-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/139613\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City Thunder Chair Clay Bennett remains behind the scenes as team celebrates NBA title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thunder Chair Clay Bennett, \u201cat least from the outside, is hands off\u201d in an NBA \u201cfull of meddling owners –\u202fsome who know what they\u2019re doing, others whose egos impede progress,\u201d according to Joe Mussatto of the OKLAHOMAN. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver presented Bennett with the Larry O\u2019Brien trophy after the Thunder won the championship<\/a> and he \u201caccepted it without giving a speech,\u201d before \u201cquickly handing it off to Thunder players.\u201d Bennett then \u201cmoved into the background.\u201d In the locker room after the trophy ceremony, Bennett \u201cdeclined an interview request.\u201d\u202fThose moments \u201care a metaphor\u201d in how Bennett, the chair of the Thunder\u2019s seven-person ownership group, operates. Bennett \u201clets the players play, the coaches coach, and most importantly, he lets the general manager manage.\u201d Thunder GM Sam Presti said Bennett \u201chas tremendous appreciation for their families,\u201d and \u201che wants people to have a great experience in Oklahoma and playing for the team.\u201d Presti: \u201cThe 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.\u201d Presti \u201calso acknowledged\u201d the other six members of the Thunder ownership group: Bill Cameron, Everett Dobson, Bob Howard, George Kaiser, Jeff Records and Jay Scaramucci. Bennett hired Presti as the then-SuperSonics\u2019 new GM in 2007, so the Thunder \u201cliterally wouldn\u2019t be here without Bennett\u201d and Presti \u201cwouldn\u2019t be here without Bennett.\u201d And Oklahoma City \u201cwouldn\u2019t be a title town if not for both\u201d (OKLAHOMAN, 6\/30<\/a>).<\/p>\n

CONSISTENCY IS KEY: The AP\u2019s Cliff Brunt wrote Presti \u201crelied on good-old-fashioned internal development, with a few strategic additions sprinkled in,\u201d to build the Thunder\u2019s first championship team. Presti said, \u201cThere\u2019s compassion on the team. There\u2019s a cowboy toughness, a self-reliance that comes from being homegrown, and an essential sense of goodness.\u201d Presti said that the Thunder \u201cwon\u2019t change much,\u201d as he believes that \u201cconsistency brought them here.\u201d Brunt wrote the team is \u201cpositioned to do well going forward with all the key players from the youngest team to win a title since 1977 signed through at least next season\u201d (AP, 6\/30<\/a>). <\/p>\n

TRANSPARENCY AND TRUTH: Presti indicated that the NBA \u201cneeds to be more honest about injuries.\u201d He said that there is \u201cno sense in refusing to acknowledge that the increased physical demands of the game and the schedule have led to injuries.\u201d Presti: \u201cThe one thing we have to do is get away from the defensive nature of trying to convince people, players and teams that there\u2019s no connection between the loads and the injuries. … I don\u2019t think we should be putting our head in the sand and acting like there\u2019s no correlation.\u201d CBSSPORTS.com\u2019s James Herbert noted\u202fthe NBA in January 2024 sent a 57-page memo to teams on the subject of load management. It stated that, based on data from 10 years of regular-season games, it did \u201cnot find that resting players made them less susceptible to injury.\u201d Herbert wrote for Presti, a sample like the one in that study is \u201cinsufficient, as it does not take into account how the game has changed.\u201d Presti: \u201cIf we\u2019re pointing to data, the data is from 20 years ago or 10 years ago. The game is a totally different sport than it was even several years ago because of the amount of possessions, the way the offenses work now\u201d (CBSSPORTS.com, 6\/30<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thunder Chair Clay Bennett, \u201cat least from the outside, is hands off\u201d in an NBA \u201cfull of meddling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,7457,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-139613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-leadership","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-oklahoma","12":"tag-oklahoma-city","13":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","14":"tag-oklahomacity","15":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","16":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114778999940733920","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}