The Kemba Trade Is Fun, But Don’t Expect Him To Stick Around
Finally, Thunder fans, Tuesday brings something to look forward to rather than dread.
The NBA Draft Lottery is Tuesday night, so you’ll probably know the results already when you read this. Depending on the outcome, it could be the Thunder’s best night in years. It could be fun. And let’s face it: The Oklahoma City Thunder are in desperate need of something fun.
There was nothing fun about their 2020-21 season. Well, almost nothing – fans definitely have reason to hope for the future after seeing glimpses of potential in young guns like Luguentz Dort and Aleksej Pokusevski, among others.
But between their rash of injuries (most notably to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), their aggressive second-half tanking (they finished 22-50 and won just seven games after the midway point), and even their inability to lose the last game of the season (a shocking 117- 112 win over the Clippers, a team now playing in the Western Conference Finals), Thunder fans could be forgiven for tuning this season out. There’s nothing fun about losing, and something positively perverse about hoping your team will lose – though, of course, that’s exactly what the team needed to do this year to boost its draft odds.
So it was nice on Friday to see the Thunder make headlines in a more positive way. OKC sent Al Horford and Moses Brown to Boston in exchange for All-Star point guard Kemba Walker.
The teams also swapped picks in the trade. OKC sent Boston a 2023 second-rounder, while the Celtics gave the Thunder the No. 16 pick this year and a 2025 second-round selection.
It’s pretty much impossible to grade a trade right after it happens, but that doesn’t stop fans and media from trying. Most seem to agree that the Thunder came out on the right side of this deal.
Sports Illustrated gave OKC a B-plus grade for the deal, as did CBS Sports and The Athletic, while ESPN gave the Thunder an A-minus – all better marks than Boston got.
Walker was an All-Star as recently as 2019- 20, but injuries limited him to just 43 games in 2020-21. The Celtics took a big step back this season and decided to shake up their organization, as president Danny Ainge retired and Brad Stevens went from the bench to the front office.
Walker clearly was not part of the plans moving forward. Too expensive, too injuryprone and too old to really help out Boston’s young stars like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Walker is owed about $73 million guaranteed over the next two years, which put Boston in a bind as far as improving Tatum’s supporting cast. All they needed was an organization willing to take Walker’s contract. But who?
Enter the Thunder, who’ve tried this kind of move with great success in the past. Just look at Chris Paul, who rehabilitated his career in Oklahoma City with a stellar 2019-20 season. That All-Star season led to a trade that landed the Thunder – you guessed it – a first-round draft pick.
That’s likely what Thunder GM Sam Presti is up to here. Will Kemba be a good mentor to OKC’s young guards? Absolutely. Will he improve the product on the court? If he stays healthy, sure. But unless he can find a trade partner this offseason, Presti’s likely aim here is to put Kemba on the floor, show other teams he still has value, and then flip him during or after the 2021-22 season for picks.
Draft picks are the lifeblood of small-market teams, and nobody has done a better job of stacking them up lately than Presti. Just this year, the Thunder have a 45.1% chance for a top-four pick and an 11.5% chance for the No. 1 pick. There’s even a chance they could make the first and fifth overall picks, the franchise’s dream scenario (again, the results should be in by the time you read this).
This year’s draft is considered extremely talented at the top, headlined by Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham, so drafting inside the top five would be a huge win for OKC.
Seeing the Thunder make trades is always fun, mostly because of Presti’s impressive track record. But don’t expect the Walker trade to vault the Thunder immediately back into the playoffs. OKC might try competing again next season if it has a great draft, but the Thunder are more likely due for a slow and steady climb back to the top of the Western Conference.
It’s a road paved with draft picks, and Kemba Walker will probably turn into one pretty soon.