NBA basketball is on the way back, but when the Thunder take the court to tip-off the 2020-21 season on Dec. 22, what the team looks like is anyone’s guess.
Danilo Gallinari is expected to depart the team via free agency and Chris Paul seems a safe bet to be traded. Likewise for Dennis Schroder, though the latter presents a very interesting case.
At 27 years old, Schroder is still on the younger side of 30, but he is entering the final year of a contract that will pay him $15.5 million. It’s assumed that Sam Presti’s front office will pare its payroll as it begins what many expect to be a rebuild of which Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the first major piece.
When faced with a similar situation with Jerami Grant, the Thunder opted to trade Grant to the Nuggets in exchange for a first-round draft pick, and Presti has been famously proactive in trading players whose futures do not seem to be with the team.
Recently, we entertained the idea of trading Schroder to the Lakers in exchange for Kyle Kuzma, and whether that comes to fruition or not — and there’s no reason to believe it will — Schroder is expected to be a player for whom the Thunder field calls.
Aside from it just making sense, ESPN’s Zach Lowe echoed those sentiments in a recently published piece on ESPN.com in which he took a long look around the NBA and reported on things to watch for, including the Celtics attempting to package some of their picks to move up in this year’s draft.
Reports that Boston has explored trading its three first-round picks — Nos. 14, 26, and 30 — to move up are accurate, sources say…
Boston has also sniffed around using picks to acquire a solid veteran, sources say. There are few such veterans available in future-for-present deals with almost the whole league trying to win.
This is why you hear Larry Nance Jr.’s name a lot across the league — in addition to the big names in Oklahoma City (Paul, Gallinari, and Dennis Schroder). Schroder would draw strong interest, sources say.
This past season, Schroder finished second to the Clippers’ Montrezl Harrell in Sixth Man of the Year voting and was the league’s leading bench scorer with 18.9 points per game. He is a good attack guard who can both see the floor and finish in the paint and is someone who could be a vital cog on a contending team.
Like Paul, he could also be on his way out of Oklahoma City.
