In his 90-minute 2026-27 preseason press conference, Sam Presti addressed the impending cloud that will hang over the Oklahoma City Thunder. As several core pieces embark on their second NBA contract, will Clay Bennett and the rest of the ownership group fork over the money to field a title contender?
Remains to be seen. Presti is optimistic, but he left himself some wiggle room in case the Thunder don't. Thanks to some savvy cap-space trickery by moving on from three longtime role players, OKC was able to kick the can down the road on a dreadful second-apron year.
Right now, the Thunder are $6.9 million below the second apron. All it cost was moving on from Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins — a quarter of OKC's rotation minutes, as Presti
pointed out multiple times. Now, with a roster spot to spare, they'll enter the 2026-27 season as co-title favorites.
Zooming out, though, what about beyond that? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams are about to take up around 85% of OKC's payroll for the remainder of the decade. All three have hefty contract extensions kicking in. That's all before additional contract extensions get done with secondary players — such as Cason Wallace and Ajay Mitchell.
Can the Thunder really field a title contender when three players take up that huge chunk of their existing payroll? And an important follow-up question — is OKC's ownership group willing to dive into its pockets and pay up for the likely highest payroll in league history? Even if it means going into the second apron and the consequences that come with that?
Reacting to Presti's recent comments, ESPN's Brian Windhorst is skeptical — to put it nicely. His ears perked up at the OKC GM's noncommittal reaction on a recent 'NBA Today' episode.
"Sam Presti changed his verbiage," Windhorst said. "This is a man who is not uncertain about spending. I would hazard to guess that he knows every dime that he plans to spend for the next three to four years. What he's saying here is, 'I'm not 100% sure our ownership is going to be able to do it.' That's a little bit concerning if you're a Thunder fan for 2027, 2028, 2029, but let's not take the focus off the awesome team they have right now."
So far, recent NBA history has shown teams treat the second apron as a faux hard cap. No team has fully dived into it yet. Anytime they're near the imaginary line, they strip away pieces of their roster. Some even controversially so. Look at the Boston Celtics with Jaylen Brown and possibly the New York Knicks with Karl-Anthony Towns. Even the LA Clippers had to pull the plug on Kawhi Leonard and Paul George over it.
Let's see if the Thunder will be an exception. Next summer maps out to be a fork-in-the-road situation. If Wallace and Mitchell get handsome extensions, what are the lingering effects of that? Could others on the roster be moved to make their payroll situation more feasible? Such as Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso and Jaylin Williams.
If it were up to Presti, Bennett and the rest of OKC's ownership group would pay up. The Thunder are in a golden era of hoops. Going into cost-cutting mode completely contradicts that. Odds are, things won't ever get better than they are right now. If you want to contend for an NBA championship, you have to pay up for the roster.
This past summer saw the Thunder take the opposite approach. Albeit on a much smaller scale. All three of Dort, Joe and Wiggins have theoretically ready-made replacements already on the roster. But that bail-out card likely won't be there in the next couple of summers.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Brian Windhorst skeptical OKC ownership will pay to keep Thunder together
