How OKC Thunder GM Sam Presti became the best executive in sports

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Sam Presti is the GM every fan wishes they could have, or even be.

Sam Presti has nothing left to prove. But his team might do some proving anyway.

General Manager of the Oklahoma City Thunder; the 2025 NBA Executive of the Year; drafter of Tony Parker, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden; traded for Paul George when the team was floundering, traded Paul George to form the backbone of a juggernaut; finder of Jalen Williams and Lu Dort; hirer of Mark Daigneault; universally considered “the best general manager in the NBA” by all who know ball.

There are no master plans in the NBA, only skillful damage control — one never quite knows when a superstar will bolt or who will be available when you’re on the clock. But Presti has controlled everyone and everything to such a degree since he took over the Seattle Supersonics in 2007 that it feels like this was all one big scheme. For a team in a small market never itching to pay the luxury tax, Presti has somehow constructed the best team in the NBA that’s also the youngest.

Trade after trade, draft after draft, Presti has found diamonds in the rough. Jalen Williams has blown through every pre-draft expectation as a scorer, and the undrafted Lu Dort may now be the NBA’s best defender. With how many unheralded prospects are getting real minutes in the playoffs, you might think Presti has perfected the art of NBA Moneyball.

But that’s a mischaracterization, as he’s also found plenty of diamonds in the jewelry store. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was an elite young player (though nobody knew this would happen), and acquired only through the Thunder trading George, their best player. Many thought Chet Holmgren could be the number one pick, with Presti selecting him at two. Alex Caruso cost only Josh Giddey in a trade, and he’s been critical to Oklahoma City’s success this year. Ultimately, Presti hasn’t just found the hidden treasures. He’s also known when to buy the shiny ones.

This all has made the Thunder are a terrifying-horrifying-so-good-very-baller basketball team that could make the next few years in the NBA feel like a zombie apocalypse. Presti has done his job, and the team doesn’t need to win the championship to prove him right. He’s got years of brilliant management doing that.

However likely it looks right now, there’s a non-zero chance this Thunder team never wins an NBA title. Does that make Presti a bad GM? Of course not! Does that make the Paul George trade, which pulled a league MVP out of a top hat, wrong? Ridiculous! Should the Indiana Pacers actually pull this thing off, it won’t because Presti made some critical error in roster construction.

Right and wrong in NBA discourse is really just playing the results. Ex post facto declarations that, because of a success or failure, the whole construction of a team was flawed. But I studied history in college, and people told me that you have to wait 20 years before studying results can yield usable opinions. There is no defensible reason to predict the Pacers will win this series beyond believing the outcomes of basketball games are random, the greatest testament to Presti’s work.

I’m much more interested in why people are right and wrong. If an ESPN analyst picks the Pacers to win, and then they do, does that make them smarter than everyone else? Or did they just load up a public relations lottery ticket and cash it in? Presti’s success came every day, and it almost doesn’t matter how it ends.

So why has Presti been more successful than everyone else? You could argue he’s just a genius, able to see things before they happen like some sort of supervillian with telekinetic draft powers. And in that respect, 16-year-old Presti did write a letter to the Boston Globe expounding why his hometown Boston Celtics should change their team-building philosophy and draft a certain guard out of Cal in 1994.

“The rebuilding of this once-massive dynasty must begin now. We need to clean house; let players go and clear up salary room for our draft pick. Although the draft is not incredibly deep this year, I do see a future star on the horizon,” Presti wrote to the Globe. “Jason Kidd from the University of California has the skills and pure basketball sense to be a superstar and a savior to a struggling franchise.”

So, you know, not a bad read from a 16-year-old. But behind every genius is a great deal of luck, and behind every great investment is a massive gamble. Had Shai Gilgeous-Alexander become the next D’Angelo Russell rather than the next, like… Kobe Bryant, this Thunder team simply would not work as well as it does. The wrong coach could have likewise torpedoed this wiley collection of ball-handling swings; imagine Tom Thibodeau coaching a team with an average age of 24. He’d combust.

But maybe it all works because it works together, within a coherent and committed philosophy that Presti refuses to stray from. Keep reloading, keep a million chips in your pocket and never play them all. Since he took over in 2007, Presti has been refueling the Thunder over and over, never quite able to finish the job but always avoiding complete disaster.

If the Thunder lose, some will say they need to go “all in” and trade their entire war chest of assets for, say, Giannis Antetokounmpo. But Presti has spent a career proving that it’s better to be lucky than aggressive, and perhaps more swings of the bat beat one swing from a guy batting .350.

This team only works because everything is subordinated to his philosophy. It’s flexible and ever-changing, but always coherent and powerful. It used to be three of the best scorers in the world in Westbrook, Harden, and Durant. Now it’s ball-handling and defense from 1-12 in the rotation. Maybe tomorrow it will be 13 Kyle Korvers all shooting exactly eight threes a game each.

But there’s nothing left for him to prove. If it’s rings you want, Presti already has them — three, in fact, while Assistant General Manager with the San Antonio Spurs. General Managers can’t make or miss shots, can’t sub players in and out. They’re artists who, after painting their masterpiece, have to release it into the world for consumption.

Should the Thunder fall short again, Presti will reload again. He’ll reconfigure, run damage control, tinker and fix because the “master plan” was always just making the best out of every situation. Win three straight titles or win none for the next decade, it hardly matters. Presti has shown the proof is in the pudding, and he’ll keep cooking until the sun goes down.