Oklahoma City will open against San Antonio on Oct. 20 with a thinner rotation than the group that won 64 games and pushed the Spurs to seven games in the Western Conference finals. Sam Presti is not minimizing the personnel loss, but the Thunder general manager believes the remaining core gives the club a chance to become a high-level team again if it stays healthy.
Key takeaways
- Oklahoma City moved Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins to get its payroll beneath the NBA’s second apron.
- Those departures remove roughly 10,000 combined minutes, about one-quarter of the Thunder’s previous rotation workload.
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander returns after averaging 31.1 points on 55.3% shooting as a two-time reigning MVP.
- Jalen Williams is back after missing 49 games in 2025-26, while Chet Holmgren enters the season off a career-best year.
- Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell and Jared McCain are positioned for larger jobs in the reshaped rotation.
A different Thunder rotation heads to San Antonio
Presti’s message was straightforward: the Thunder cannot expect to look the same after sending out a longtime starting wing in Dort and two important bench pieces in Joe and Wiggins. The transactions were made to avoid the second apron, the punitive salary line above the luxury tax that sharply limits a team’s trade and roster-building options.
“By the end of the season, I think we can have a really exceptional team if we remain healthy,” Presti said. “But we are going to be different.”
He put the turnover in rotation terms. The three outgoing players accounted for about 10,000 minutes over the previous two seasons, a significant slice of the club’s available playing time. That means Oklahoma City will have to redistribute minutes around its stars and find out quickly which younger players can hold up in expanded responsibility.
Gilgeous-Alexander remains the engine. The MVP guard averaged 31.1 points per game and hit 55.3% of his field-goal attempts. He will again share the floor with Williams, the 2025 All-Star whose 49-game absence last season interrupted what had been a central two-way partnership.
Holmgren provides another pillar after posting personal highs of 17.1 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. The forward earned his first All-Star selection, made both All-NBA and the All-Defensive team for the first time, and finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting.
The practical question is the wing and guard depth left behind by the summer moves. Presti pointed to Wallace in particular when explaining the decision to part with Dort, saying the deal reflects the organization’s belief in the young guard. Mitchell and McCain are also expected to receive more opportunity.
Presti asks for a beginner’s mindset
Rather than entering the season with a fixed depth chart or a preset style, Presti wants the Thunder to allow the roster to reveal itself. He called it a “beginner’s mindset,” one built around staying open to different lineups, roles and approaches as the schedule develops.
“We cannot arrive with assumptions about how the season will unfold, who will play where or exactly how we will play,” Presti said. “We have to keep our minds open and let this group show us where it can go.”
That is consistent with the organization’s long-running approach, he said: measure improvement rather than declare an expected win total. Presti said the internal message did not change when the Thunder won 23 games or when they won 68, and he stressed that this season’s record is not guaranteed.
Presti also sees the league’s current structural changes as part of a longer horizon for Oklahoma City. He cited revised draft lottery rules and the stronger financial penalties attached to the second apron as forces likely to affect records, net ratings and individual production around the NBA.
In his view, those measures could help set up another strong era for the league, one the Thunder want to be positioned to join as the franchise approaches its 25th Oklahoma City season in 2033.
The job, Presti said, is to avoid getting consumed by every leaguewide development. The focus remains making the Thunder better “day to day, season to season and, believe it or not, decade to decade.”
