{"id":564065,"date":"2026-01-27T13:27:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T13:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/564065\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T13:27:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T13:27:23","slug":"thunder-presented-with-golden-opportunity-to-break-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/564065\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder presented with golden opportunity to break the NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The OKC Thunder are widely regarded as a team that shies away from making in-season trades. Throughout his tenure with the club, general manager Sam Presti has even gone on record denigrating such happenings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, given what’s currently going on between the Bucks and their franchise cornerstone, Giannis Antetokounmpo, they may want to strongly reconsider their belief system.<\/p>\n

Since the start of the season, rumors have been swirling that the two-time MVP has grown increasingly frustrated with Milwaukee and that his time with the organization could soon be coming to an end.<\/p>\n

Though Giannis has publicly downplayed this kind of rhetoric on several occasions throughout the campaign, over the past few weeks, as a result of their slide in the Eastern Conference standings and his public displays of frustration<\/a>, the volume of these rumblings has only increased.<\/p>\n

Monday, they seemingly reached their loudest levels yet, as ESPN’s Marc Spears boldly predicted on an episode of NBA Today<\/a> that the superstar has “played his last game in a Bucks uniform.”<\/p>\n

Should this actually be the case, with just under 10 days to go until the February 5 trade deadline, the Thunder might want to strongly consider dialing up the Bucks about a possible blockbuster.<\/p>\n

Thunder must see what a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade would cost them<\/p>\n

Yes, as currently constructed, the Thunder are already the reigning NBA Champions, boast the league’s top record (37-10), and hold the best odds (plus-100<\/a>) to take home the Larry O’Brien Trophy yet again come the conclusion of 2025-26.<\/p>\n

However, Giannis being traded to the wrong team<\/a> could risk OKC not only falling short of a title this year but also threatening their push to become the game’s next great dynasty over the next several years to come.<\/p>\n

Thrusting themselves into a potential sweepstakes for the Greek Freak would be as much of a defensive move from a strategic standpoint as it would be a push to strike on making an elite star-power upgrade.<\/p>\n

The beauty of this hypothetical — they almost certainly wouldn’t even break a sweat in their efforts of offering Milwaukee the best possible return package for the former Finals MVP’s services.<\/p>\n

On top of possessing one of the most extensive collections of draft assets<\/a> ever seen, the Thunder roster quite a number of top-notch young talents still attached to rookie-scale pacts (Cason Wallace, Nikola Topic, Thomas Sorber, etc.).<\/p>\n

Essentially, they have everything a crumbling team needs to expedite their rebuild back to relevancy in a timely manner.<\/p>\n

Now, granted, with this idea for a Giannis push comes the built-in fear of how adding his three-year, $186 million deal would fare for the Thunder.<\/p>\n

With three max extensions currently set to kick in come next season, they’re already bee-lining their way toward the dreaded second apron threshold as is. Adding Antetokounmpo’s salary would make ducking under it all the more complex.<\/p>\n

However, the idea of creating an NBA-breaking core-four of reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren might be enough on its own to have Presti and company adopt a temporary “act first, think later” approach to constructing this roster.<\/p>\n

Frankly, even if it cost them, say, Wallace, Topic, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, and upwards of four future firsts, the fact that they’d still have a supporting cast headlined by Lu Dort, Ajay Mitchell, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah Joe, while still possessing a considerable amount of draft capital over the coming years, the state of their depth chart would be in excellent shape both in the short and long-term.<\/p>\n

At the very least, with Giannis’ relationship with Milwaukee seemingly the worst its ever been, Oklahoma City must look into what it would take to have the 31-year-old, future Hall of Famer be shipped out to the Sooner State ahead of next month’s deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The OKC Thunder are widely regarded as a team that shies away from making in-season trades. Throughout his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-564065","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-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115967298440603643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564065","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=564065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}