Facing the cold realities of the NBA cap-space world, the Oklahoma City Thunder spent the summer making cost-cutting moves. Three longtime role players were traded elsewhere purely to save ownership money. Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins were all sent out East.
In his 2026-27 preseason press conference, Sam Presti dove more into the three trades. Because of financial scarcity and second-apron penalties, the Thunder are the latest team to make controversial roster moves. Albeit on a much smaller scale compared to others — for right now, at least.
"I want to just recognize the contributions of Lu, Wiggs and Isaiah. Those players were not just great players for us, but they were tremendous professionals and also real assets to the community,"
Presti said. "Just great human beings. We're very grateful for their contributions, and also want to wish them the best of luck in their new situations and know they'll do great."
As Presti noted several times in his 90-minute press conference, the Thunder are going through a bit of a soft reboot. At least around the complimentary pieces. Those three have been longtime staples in OKC's rotation. They saw them go from a rebuild to an NBA champion. Now, they must figure out a way to fill the vacuum of a departed group that made up roughly one-quarter of their playing time — or, in other words, 10,000 regular-season minutes.
There are at least a few contingency plans. As usual, the Thunder are banking on internal development. Specifically, from a handful of role players.
In Dort's case, he leaves the biggest vacancy. He was a seven-year starter. The one-time All-Defense member helped the Thunder become a title contender. Now, his starting spot seems to be going to Cason Wallace. In fact, Presti explicitly mentioned that it's a 'sign of respect' for the 22-year-old to carry the baton forward.
Joe and Wiggins were both scoring punches off the bench. They became some of the more underrated developmental success stories in OKC's history. Several candidates — like Ajay Mitchell, Jared McCain and Bennett Stirtz — are expected to take over their respective roles.
"Lu was undrafted. Wiggs was the 55th pick. I think we got that pick from trading Kelly Oubre during the COVID-shortened transaction window. And Isaiah had been cut, and we were getting him off waivers essentially," Presti said. "To work themselves into those types of players shows a lot about them."
Alas. Such are the harsh truths of the NBA. You can't keep the same group of guys around forever. For the Thunder, it made way too much sense to sacrifice a smidgen of your depth to kick the can down the road of a dreadful second-apron year.
That said, the Thunder were incredibly lucky that their financial-driven moves mostly made basketball sense, too. By the end of the 2026 NBA playoffs, Dort, Joe and Wiggins were basically outside of OKC's rotation. And with younger and cheaper replacements in-house already, there's a sound plan in place. But this might be the last summer where that's the case.
Zooming out and looking at OKC's big-picture trajectory, was this summer just a one-time thing or the start of a disturbing trend where the Thunder have to continue to downsize with an expensive payroll coming up? Remains to be seen. If it's the latter, then more polarizing and consequential cost-cutting moves will occur down the road.
"It's certainly disappointing but also necessary for us to transition, as I said before," Presti said. "And hopefully create another foundation that can take us into the Continental Coliseum and hopefully beyond that because the team is positioned very well to do that."
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Sam Presti opens up about moving on from 3 longtime OKC Thunder players
