Thunder general manager Sam Presti said he made a mistake by trading for Hornets forward Gordon Hayward, according to ESPN.
Hayward was supposed to provide a veteran presence to the rotation but barely played in the postseason. Oklahoma City gave up three players and two second-round picks for Hayward.
“I missed on that,” Presti said Tuesday during his end-of-season press conference. “That’s on me. But I’m learning, I’m trying to learn this team, I’m trying to learn the pace of the team a little bit. And trying to be a great observer of the team as it’s going through its paces, knowing that it’s really going to change on its own in and of itself.”
Hayward, who is headed to free agency, expressed frustration over his role after the team was eliminated.
“Obviously disappointing with kind of how it all worked out. This is not what I thought it would be. Certainly frustrating. … We have a great team here with great young players, a great coach. So the future is bright,” Hayward said, adding, “I feel like as a player I have a lot to offer. I just wasn’t given much of an opportunity to do that.”
As Presti pointed out, the move at least created some cap flexibility going forward for the Thunder, since all three of the players they sent to Charlotte in the deal are owed guaranteed money for 2024/25, whereas Hayward’s $33MM+ salary will come off OKC’s books this summer.
Here’s more from Presti’s press conference, per Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman:
- Presti is happy with the team and coaching staff in place. “It’s not a matter of knowing what you need,” he said. “It’s a matter of knowing what you have. … I think one of the things that we learned is we have a really good base to work with.” As usual, Presti is armed with plenty of draft capital and approximately $35MM in cap space. And once again, he doesn’t feel the need to get a star player to complement what he already has on the roster. “I think we learned that we do have some guys in (Chet Holmgren) and (Jalen Williams) who are certainly not there yet, but I wouldn’t bet against them,” Presti said. “We didn’t mortgage our future to get that result. We didn’t do anything performative to accelerate that process. … But I’m glad we took the path that we did. Ultimately, we trusted the team.”
- Presti wouldn’t tip his hand regarding Josh Giddey, who is extension-eligible this offseason but was removed from the starting lineup in the second round of the playoffs. “He is tough, and he is clutch,” Presti said. “He has been asked to change some things and adjust to different things, and he hasn’t flinched one time. He’s trying to figure out how to best help the team. … We’ll sit down and have those conversations relative to his contract when those are appropriate. But we also don’t have to do anything right now either because he has another year. I’m super open-minded about all of our players and where I think they can get to.”
- With the No. 12 pick in the draft, Presti is wide open about the type of player he’ll pick. “We’re not looking for something specific, like an on-court need,” he said.
Did the GM since they were the frickin’ Sonics just say he’s “trying to learn this team” He must be a slow learner!
All he knows is getting first round picks and vibes
Chet Holmgren was 6 years old when the team left Seattle and has only played 1 season. Jalen Williams was 7 and has 2 seasons under his belt. So yes, he does need to learn these new players and how they play together.
Easily could’ve been in the conference finals. They were a couple guys short and every breathing person knew they needed size. Seeing how Minnesota is imploding, what could’ve been
If Luka was healthy they would have beat OKC on 4 or 5. One more big would have made no difference as by games 5 and 6 Luka started moving much better.
Lol, nothing wrong with Luka. Scammed
Any organization banking on Hayward contributing anything to the team is keeping the bench seats nice and warm.
man, u got a million pics already! start spending them! siakam was out there for u to grab and he would be a perfect fit! veteran, great age and CHAMPION!
You better send them your resume, but remember, your keyboard brand isn’t a skill.
You realize this is a rumor site, right?
next time, I’ll ask u first what should i say
Nah….he didn’t miss. He dumped a bunch of players on the hornets that weren’t gonna see much PT here and freed us up salary and roster spots. Yeah it would have been nice if GH also did something for us, but that’s a secondary or tertiary desire from the trade.
Thunder got what they wanted for the most part of the GH trade and it really wasn’t for GH to be a future Thunder.
Honestly I don’t think Hayward was all that bad for them. He needed to be more assertive with the playing time he got but he shot .453/.517 during the regular season. He didn’t get much run in the playoffs.
This trade was such a disaster that it probably cost them a chance in the conference finals – that’s why the gm even admitted it was a miss. The thunder are so arrogantly steadfast about developing young players over all else that they cost themselves a legitimate chance at a title this season. While the future obviously looks really bright, you never know how many chances you get. They spent much of the season with a non-nba caliber player like Dieng in their rotation to develop him instead of developing the chemistry of a fairly elite perimeter shooter in Bertans with the rest of the team. Had they done the opposite (and not traded bertans in the pointless salary dump – he’s an expiring contract so that didn’t help anything as far as winning goes), they could’ve had that floor spacing option which they so badly needed to try to prevent the mavs from clogging the paint against Shai and Jalen Williams which was ultimately probably the biggest difference in the outcome of that rather even series… The details matter and the thunder disregarded them and I think Presti regrets it now based on his comments.
lol….disaster….just….no. Was it a slam dunk for the Thunder? Obviously not but it no way, shape or form was it ANY kind of “disaster”
The key point was to move the multi year contracts of micic, Mann and the dead cap hit of bertans. (Won’t even mention Poku, he was just included for salary matching but means little.)
Presti says he “missed” because GH was all out in the media saying he was lied to and misused during his time in OKC. (Essentially he didn’t play in the playoffs because he’s past his prime and he’s crying about it.). Presti is just GM speak trying to be nice to the guy but he still makes that trade 100% of the time because no one else was lining up to take those 4 players in exchange for an expiring contract that will open roster and cap space for the Thunder going forward. It was the primary point of the trade. GH wasn’t going to be some savant to lead OKC to the finals or anything. Anyone who even thinks that doesn’t know basketball. If he added anything from a role player giving a few minutes and points a game, then great, but no one in OKC thought he was going to do anything for this team.
As for your take on the Thunder playoff chances going forward….not even worth debating. They’re the youngest team in the league with a top 3 mvp player, a top 2 ROY and great supporting cast and loaded with tons of high future draft picks. They made the second round of the playoffs which I can almost guarantee this group will easily see again. You act like this was their 1 chance in forever to win a title…..
Presti has built a monster and still has tons of ammo going forward. Now he has a high draft pick and cap space. I’ll take that over Gordan freakin Hayward any day of the week and twice on Sunday and he will too.
If it was ultimately the difference between winning a title this season and not, this trade was a disaster. Obviously no one will ever know and that isn’t the popular opinion, but the twolves were worn down after the 7 game series with denver and the celtics just had the easiest path to the finals in league history and basically played the mediocre pacers even so the opportunity was there. Your take on the thunder future is essentially the same as mine (just that I added the caveat that you never know what will happen in the future). You’re acting like trading micic and mann and attaching 2nd round picks to do it was difficult. Any number of teams would’ve accepted that – both are playable role players not on egregious contracts. My point is they gave up a potentially useful player (bertans) per the floor spacing skill that they so badly needed against the mavs for a negative asset in hayward who was whining about playing time that he wasn’t earning. You’re entitled to your opinion, but Presti seems to agree with this take and I think he understands that these details were disregarded when he prioritized cleaning up the back end of his roster logjam over trying to win this season…
The only reason that series went to six games was because Luka was really injured the first 4 games. By games 5 and 6 Luka was moving much better. Would not have mattered what piece they could have gotten. If they got a defensive center who could rebound that means Chet wouldn’t have played with his offensive output.
The Mavs are not an elite team and Luka is not the second coming. One of the worst defenders in the league can’t hold ip against real competition. The NBA is historically weak right now, which is the only reason the Mavs are where they are. Luka is a mid player who is unbelievably boring to watch play. The Mavs are the rockets of 10 years ago.
Presti knows tanking, and he knows talent. But he doesn’t seem to want to recognize that team building might have a dimension beyond those two. The problem wasn’t in who he acquired, but who he didn’t. This team needed more physicality, at a level that could have easily been added at the deadline (in addition to, or in lieu of, Hayward).
The team is so young, and so talented, that they (and he) will likely have many more chances to get it just right. But, of course, the same thing was said about the Durant-RW-Harden team.
The average NBA numpty could of told you that Sam…
The only thing that trade did was clear cap space…
So many options at that salaray level and you went with Hayward? Was dumbfounded at the time…
Options? What players were available at the trade deadline and what were the teams asking for in return? Keyboard GMs always criticize after the fact.
Next to Siakam, the other expiring contracts that couldve been used in a trade with Bertans where Dinwiddie, Bruce Brown, Anunoby, Trent Jr., Hield, Fournier, Morris, Fultz, DeMar DeRozan and Lowry.
It all depends on the price some of these players could be had. If it was only with Bertans and some of those 3 others, then maybe it couldve been better. But if they wanted an expiring contract, options were slim.
Feels like they’d be in the Finals if they’d used their draft capital and added Siakam or Markannen.
It does, but you’re assuming they’d actually had a viable trade for Markkanen or Siakim.
Depends on if Raps would have viewed Giddey as better than RJ or Quickley. He isn’t really. Those two are better than Mann and Poku by miles too.
He is great at building for the future and assembling, but he still has no clue on how to make the kill shot trade and go for it.
He still assembles practically a 4 on 5 line up as he loved having Thabo years ago, then Roberson, Perk, and now Giddey. Yes Giddey is better on offense than all of them but Thabo and Roberson were world defenders.
He balked with Harden because they could have kept all three and Perk. He drafted Cam Payne over moving up for Booker who would have been a SG, Payne was never going to pass Russ. Drafted guys like Mitch McGary and Husestis over Jokic yes hindsight 20/20 for that one.
I didn’t think Hayward was going to be some over the top pick, he was just another wing. Most knew they needed a big guy.
Either way they traded some bench guys they weren’t using and 2nd rounders.
lost tre mann for nothing smh
He isn’t good…couldn’t crack the line ups.
Looter in a riot his brief time with Hornets.