With a mammoth luxury tax bill looming at the end of the year, the Thunder plan on sticking with 14 players on their roster to begin this season, reports Erik Horne of The Oklahoman.
“Right now we’re going with what we have,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “If something changes, I’ve always said this with Sam (Presti) and Troy (Weaver), they’re always looking to improve, make our team better all the time… that would be something that if Sam decided to do that, we’d probably talk about that.”
As Horne notes, the decision to keep the roster at fourteen makes sense considering the Thunder would face major luxury tax implications with the signing of a fifteenth player.
Right now, both Bryce Alford and K.J. McDaniels are on training camp contracts with the Thunder, so they’ll ultimately be waived if Horne’s report is accurate unless one of them impresses enough to force the Thunder into waiving someone with a guaranteed salary.
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- In another piece for The Oklahoman, Horne writes that Thunder swingman Andre Roberson has been looking good in practice despite not yet being cleared for contact. Because he’s still rehabbing, he’s mostly limited to shooting drills at this point.
- Joe Freeman of The Oregonian reports that all indications out of Trail Blazers practice is that new addition Seth Curry is looking good. Teammates are praising his jump-shooting and playmaking ability, while coaches are impressed with his basketball intelligence and versatility.
- According to Nick Friedell of ESPN, Timberwolves forward Taj Gibson was surprised at Jimmy Butler‘s trade demand, saying, “I worked out with him all summer, so when I said what I meant, it was like a right hook. I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t know. I thought — it looked like from everything things were going good.”
OKC is overrated.
I feel like if anything they are underrated. Because nobody takes them seriously at all.
They are so shallow on talent. One injury to Russ or PG or Steven adams and the season could a loss and miss playoffs. Or all works out and their D carries them to the second round (this is best case for this squad).
No one in their right mind is predicting anything amazing for this squad so overrated is not the right term.
The division is a total toss up. They were all within 3 games of each other last year and this year could be much the same. Any of the teams could have a big season, and any of them could have an awful season without really surprising anyone.
How do they have such a big tax bill with such a weak team?
Donovan should have Roberson shoot 500 jump shots every practice.
Any news of what happened with Kevin Hervey’s draft rights for this year?
I haven’t been able to find anything on him. I think the most likely scenario is probably a G League contract (domestic draft-and-stash).
About Taj Gibson’s notes… evidence for a Butler theory: I suspect Butler was moderately happy with the Wolves, until learning his presence was holding up Towns’ extension. That made it time to go.
I think it all comes down to ego management between stars on the same roster. Butler seems to think he was brought to MN to show Towns how to ball. Towns seems to think Butler was brought to MN as a supplement to himself.
Someone with a little more people sense than Thibs probably could have pacified it. But, it seems like he lost his 2011 Bulls team photo and wants to retake it.