The Oklahoma City Thunder, for the first time in more than a decade, have hit the reset and are turning to young, unproven players with the hope of improvement for future competitiveness.
During general manager Sam Presti’s Zoom call with media Monday, he thought back to the player whose mindset allowed him to improve in a way Presti hadn’t seen before from such a young athlete.
When Kevin Durant was a teenager, Presti said, the forward’s ability to process areas he needed to work on and make the adjustments impressed the GM.
“I had never seen somebody that understood the process of improving more so than him. He was probably 19 and his mindset was that of like a 50-year-old person. It really opened my eyes,” Presti said.
“It doesn’t matter really your age. If you have a growth mindset and you really understand the benefits of putting in the time and the process of improving versus just immediate gratification, you can really gain a huge advantage on the field.”
Presti said he consistently saw resiliency in the young players who rose up the Thunder depth chart, and those players will willing to look at their failures and grow from them.
“Failure is literally the engine to improvement,” he said. “If you don’t get a chance to fail, if you don’t get a chance to get feedback to what’s not working, it’s really, really hard to get better.”
Oklahoma City will hope that its new young corps has this same mentality. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luguentz Dort, Darius Bazley and Hamidou Diallo are young returners, the team aquired a bevy of new players in trades and signings, and the Thunder’s draft was highlighted by 18-year-old Aleksej Pokusevski and 19-year-old Theo Maledon.
Who will be part of the Thunder’s future? That will be decided with their work beginning this offseason.
