The Downfall Of The Thunder Is…

The Downfall Of The Thunder Is…

The Oklahoma City Thunder, fresh off an NBA championship, are spending big this off seasonason, spending nearly $800 million to extend SGA, Chad Homegrren, and soon Jaylen Williams to massive contract extensions. And this has caused a bunch of people to wonder, is this actually the beginning of the Thunder falling apart? And I know that might seem strange. They’re extending their best three players to massive contract extensions. Those guys are all still young, but this is the reality of the new NBA. They’ve put new rules into place that make it extremely difficult to keep teams around longterm when you’re spending this much money on the core of your team. Just this offseason, we have seen multiple teams around the league, in some cases championship level teams like the Boston Celtics, tear down their rosters in an effort to cut costs because it’s so difficult to maintain your team because of the restrictions the league has put in from a team building perspective for spending so much money. You’re going to see terms thrown out there like the second apron and the new CBA. Essentially, what it means is if you spend a bunch of money on your team for multiple years in a row above a certain threshold, there are actual roster building restrictions put into place. Your draft picks move around. You can’t sign certain guys. There’s a ton of restrictions on what kinds of trades you can make. It makes it unbelievably difficult to have any kind of flexibility. And a bunch of teams, like I said, even the Boston Celtics that won the title just two years ago are tearing down their teams as a result. And so, the question of course becomes, isn’t this just going to happen with Oklahoma City? They’re spending so much money on these guys. How are they possibly going to be able to keep them all around? And inevitably, they’re going to look exactly like the Celtics have this off seasonason, right? No, that that’s just frankly not the case. That’s the point of the whole video. There are people just throwing these terms around, second apron, new CBA, and they’re throwing the terms around without an actual understanding of them, and they’re completely misrepresenting the situation in Oklahoma City. Let’s compare Oklahoma City to what happened in Boston this off seasonason. Everybody’s seeing Drew Holidayiday, Chris Porzingis, these guys are leaving via trades. They’ve got other guys off their bench like Luke Cornett that are leaving in free agency and they’re just assuming, well, this is what happens. You get a two-year window, you spend too much money, and you have to get rid of salary. Well, Boston didn’t have to get rid of any of their core guys. Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, and Jason Tatum are all still there, and they’re going to be underneath the Second Apron this off seasonason. It is possible to roster your core three players and the rest of your roster and be under the second apron as evidenced by the Boston Celtics. It’s not an impossibility to have three Giant contracts and still be under the second apron. And one of the main reasons the Celtics even made those moves in the first place is because Jason Tatum tours Achilles. Now, they still might have cut costs in other ways, but adding Drew Holidayiday and Chrisaps Porzingis two years ago was their way of winning a title, and those were always the luxury pieces, similar to some of the pieces in Oklahoma City that we’ll talk about later. The core of the team is still there. They get rid of the salary, they duck the second apron for a year, and then they’re going to be fine moving forward into the future. You compare that to Oklahoma City and the situation is completely different. All their guys are young. All their guys are healthy. And they are as well set up to deal with this new CBA, the second apron, all these things as any team has been in the history of the league. Now, there are still concerns in Oklahoma City. You’re going to be worried about the luxury tax and the team’s willingness to pay that. You’re going to be worried about injuries with these guys. You’re going to be worried about the rest of the roster and trying to build around them. But if you’re concerned about one of Chad, Jaylen Williams or SGA just not being on the team in a few seasons because the roster’s too expensive and the second apron just forces them to, that’s just not going to happen. So, let’s break this down. I would encourage everyone when these contracts get announced, when you see these massive numbers, SGA signing for like 285, Deon Booker signing for like $75 million a year. I would encourage you to shift your mindset when you see these numbers and think about how much these players are getting paid less in terms of how much money they’re making, but in terms of the percentage of the salary cap. Because the reason these players salaries are increasing so much and we’re seeing guys on maxes make 70 plus million is because the NBA salary cap continues to grow. If you go back like 20 years ago, the NBA salary cap was like $45 million total. That was the salary cap for your entire roster. Now it’s like $150 million. So even though we’re seeing guys make even more than the total cap was 20 years ago. There’s a reason for that and that is because ever since the NBA has implemented a max contract system, there is a maximum amount of money that a player can sign for. There have been percentages built into those contracts in terms of the percentage of the salary cap you can sign for. SGA is a perfect example of this. he is going to make either 30 or 35% of the salary cap on his max deal because that’s what the rules say. This massive number that you’re seeing is implemented by the rules that are put into place. So let’s put 30 to 35% over there for SGA’s contract. Then you get to Chad Homegrren. He’s signing for 5 years 250. Wow, that’s a lot of money. It’s 25% of the salary cap. That’s what Chad Homegrren is eligible for. Jaylen Williams, same thing. As of the recording of this video, he hasn’t signed an extension. I’m anticipating it’s going to be very similar to Jets. Also 25% of the salary cap, right? There are ways in which those guys can actually bump those up to 30% if they win an MVP, if they win defensive player of the year, multiple AllNBA teams. So maximum we’re looking at 35, 30, and 30% of the salary cap. So that is 95% of the salary cap spent on just those three players, which seems like a lot, right? And it is as evidenced by how massive these individual numbers are. But when you frame it as the percentage of the salary cap, it’s actually much more reasonable to understand how you’re going to build out the rest of the roster because everybody’s concerned with Oklahoma City with the second apron. That’s the big boogeyman out there for any kind of team building situation is you really need to avoid the second apron. Well, there’s two things on that. One, yes, you need to avoid the second apron generally speaking, but really you need to avoid being it for multiple years in a row. That’s why the Celtics are ducking it this offseason. That’s why teams try to avoid it so much because they don’t want to be in a situation where they’re in it three out of five years because that’s when the most strict penalties come in to limit your roster building flexibility. And the other kind of misconception here is we’re talking about 95% of the salary cap for just three these three guys, right? But that’s the salary cap, not the second apron, not the luxury tax. This season, the second apron is $50 million more than the salary cap. So, even with those three guys taking up basically all the cap, you still have $50 million to flush out the rest of the roster before you even get to the second apron and you are allowed to go over it. You don’t want to be over it five years in a row if you can help it. It’s still not the end of the world, but it’s something that pretty much every team tries to avoid. But it’s that far away even when accounting for these massive contracts that Oklahoma City just signed. So, why is everybody freaking out? Why is this such a big concern? Well, it’s because these other teams around the league, the Celtics, other teams are not as wellb built to get the rest of the roster figured out around those three guys with such a limited chunk left of their payroll in between what these three guys are making and the second apron. And that is what makes this situation in Oklahoma City so unique. They have so much depth on this roster and cheap depth that they’re going to be totally fine. Are they going to be as good as they were this year? Are they going to be as good next year and the year after as they potentially could be without these rules in place? No. They’re going to lose guys like Isaiah Hartinstein at some point. They will probably trade Alex Caruso and or Lou Dort, but they have Kase Wallace. They have Topic who they drafted in the lottery last year. They just drafted another guy with a top 15 pick. They have all of these future picks as well. They had to trade away Dylan Jones so that they could roster their first round pick this year, a guy they picked 15th overall because they didn’t have any roster spots left because the rest of the roster, the other 15 guys are just that good that they had to dump someone just to add a guy that was picked 15th overall in this draft. And that is the main difference between Oklahoma City and all of these other teams. So, if you’re concerned about Oklahoma City losing Jaylen Williams or Chad or SGA, or maybe you’re excited about it, you want the Thunder to fail, you’re concerned about this dynastic team, you want them to fall apart, and you’re hoping the Second Apron is going to do that. It’s not going to happen to one of those three guys. It’s going to happen to Isaiah Hartinstein. It’s going to happen to Lud Dort. It’s going to happen to Alex Caruso. And there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Oklahoma City to draft well in the first round with all these picks that they have and get complimentary guys. But this is a team that has proven they can draft extremely well. Jaylen Williams was like the 12th pick in the draft. Kase Wallace is really good and is going to be someone that’s going to help them over the next couple of seasons. And if they don’t want to pay Kase Wallace, if they’re like, you know what, we can’t afford to add him, they can flip him for another first round pick or two first round picks and then draft more guys, keep guys on that rookie scale and just continue to resign guys at the back end of the roster like Aaron Wiggins and AJ Mitchell on super cheap contracts. They are planning for their roster to be expensive around Jaylen Williams chat and SGA. And the only way you can do that and also either avoid the second apron entirely or avoid it in terms of going into it 5 years in a row is the rest of the roster has to be really cheap. It doesn’t mean the rest of the roster is going to be bad. It just means it has to be cheap. And I think that’s the big misunderstanding with what’s happening in Oklahoma City is people are throwing out these terms about the Second Apron and about the CBA without an actual understanding of what they mean. There’s no rule in the CBA that says if you have three max contract players, you have to trade one of them to avoid some imaginary line within a couple of seasons. That’s not what it says. All that it says is here’s an imaginary threshold that you should probably try and avoid. It’s called the Second Apron. If you go into it, there’s team building restrictions. If you’re in it multiple years, there’s a lot of team building restrictions. But if you’re able to avoid that number and still feel the rest of your roster, you are still perfectly capable of having three max contract players all on your team and field an okay roster with the rest of the team, which is exactly what Oklahoma City is planning to do. Now, having said that, there are ways in which this is going to hurt Oklahoma City compared to the past rules for the NBA. Isaiah Hartstein in two years probably not going to be on the team unless he takes a massive pay cut. Lud Dort, Alex Cruso are guys I could see them trading and trying to get, you know, Kase Wallace and other guys on the rosters to step up into the starting lineup. And the other thing people are going to point out is the luxury tax, right? Because Oklahoma City historically, there have been historical examples, I should say, that the organization does not want to pay the luxury tax. People go back to when Kevin Durant left the first time. Part of the reason he left is because they traded James Harden. The team wasn’t as good. And one of the reasons they traded James Harden is because they didn’t want to pay him a bunch of money and thus be in the luxury tax. There’s a lot more nuance to that situation that I’ve already talked about in the past, but that’s kind of the short version, right? Is Oklahoma City has been a little bit allergic to paying the luxury tax historically. The problem is that’s just not true. They have been in the modern era more than willing to pay the luxury tax. From 2014 to 2019, they went into the luxury tax five of six seasons. And in one of those years, this is without Kevin Durant. This is in 2018. They were the most expensive team in the entire league in terms of their luxury tax bill. So, I don’t think this is an organization that if they have CET, SGA, and JDub at the center of their team, they’re winning 60 plus games and competing for titles, they’re not just going to look at that and say, “Well, it’s time to trade Jaylen Williams because all of a sudden, we don’t want to pay the luxury tax.” That is a myth around this organization that simply just doesn’t exist. It’s just not true. It’s not factual. If you look at their luxury tax history, they are willing to pay the tax and they were willing to pay the tax for a team that was kind of the definition of mediocre in the Western Conference with Russ and Paul George. I would imagine they’d certainly be willing to pay a bunch of money for this roster as well. The only other real concern here is these rules definitely do put a lot of emphasis on players on your roster being worth the contract you have signed them to, right? Like it’s very difficult to build a highly competitive team with just $30 million on your cap that’s just not doing anything. And the concern with that would be injuries, which Jaylen Williams and SJ have both proven to be extremely durable. But Chad would be the concern, right? He’s skinny. He’s had two freak injuries bookended by playing 82 games in his second season, but he’s played like 114 regular season games in the NBA. And if he gets hurt, all of a sudden they’re not as good. It’s just JDub and it’s just SGA. And all of a sudden, you’ve got a guy making $50 million on your roster that is just either not good enough or hurt all the time. And that’s absolutely concern. But there’s no scenario which they were just going to let Chad walk. He’s one of the best defensive players in the league. He’s still really young and he’s got plenty of room for improvement on the offensive end of the floor. So, they were always going to sign Chad to this number and you can’t necessarily project injuries for a guy that does have a fully healthy NBA season in his past. The last thing that I would point out, the thing that no one talks about is the new rules that have been implemented, the CBA, the second apron, these things do not last forever. Like this CBA runs until the 2930 season, which is not that far away. And these new contracts that the Thunder have put into place, the SGAA extension, the Chad extension, the the JDub extension, it’s not like they go into effect immediately. Chad and JDub’s new deals don’t even kick in until the 2627 season and SGA’s in the 2728 season. So even in a scenario in which all three of those guys, as I outlined earlier, are making basically the entirety of the salary cap between those three players, the rules could very well change a few years after those guys go on to those deals. And they could just be a little bit cheaper around the margins and get rid of guys like Lou Door if they wanted to not be as good, but still be pretty good. And then the rules change after the 2930 season and maybe the Second Apron doesn’t exist. Maybe we go back to a system in which you’re able to just spend as much as you want to as long as you’re willing to write the checks. These rules are not forever. And even if they are, Oklahoma City is as well set up and well positioned as you could possibly be. Because the secret about these rules is one, understanding them before you talk about them. And two, having cheap depth. If Oklahoma City drafts well the way they have over the last couple of seasons and retains back of the roster depth and talent the way that they have over the last couple of seasons, there is absolutely nothing in the CBA in the Second Apron in anything that restricts them from paying SGA Chat and Jaylen Williams as much money as they are paying them. There is no mystery rule in the CBA that says you can’t do that. It’s absolutely possible and I think Oklahoma City is out to prove that over the next couple of

The Oklahoma City Thunder, fresh off the 2025 NBA championship, are spending BIG this offseason… spending nearly $800 million to extend SGA, Chet Holmgren, and soon Jalen Williams to massive contract extensions… and this has caused a bunch of people to wonder – are the OKC Thunder already falling apart?

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