Hanifan's Offseason Outlook: Evaluating the Oklahoma City Thunder 2024 offseason - Hot Hot Hoops

Hot Hot Hoops senior writer Matt Hanifan will provide his take on the offseasons of all 30 teams for the next 30 days! Today, we are looking back on the Oklahoma City Thunder’s offseason!

Previous Offseason Outlooks:

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Additions: Alex Caruso (trade), Isaiah Hartenstein,

Subtractions: Gordon Hayward, Mike Muscala, Bismack Biyombo, Josh Giddey (trade), Olivier Sarr, Lindy Waters III (trade), Keyontae Johnson

Re-signed: Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins

Draft: Nikola Topic (No. 12 overall), Dillon Jones (No. 26), Ajay Mitchell (No. 38)

Hanifan’s Take: The Thunder may have had my favorite offseason, given their previous ascension. Oklahoma City pulled off one of the league’s biggest trades by adding Alex Caruso for Josh Giddey–who wilted into a depreciated asset within this context–without forgiving any of their 1,398,890 first-round picks. Caruso’s a very good 3-point shooter and arguably the league’s top guard defenders. Adding him with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, two very good point-of-attack defenders. Hartenstein is one of the league’s best offensive rebounders who was very impactful to the Knicks’ success last season. And while he doesn’t necessarily fit into their 5-out offense, he’s a very good short-roll playmaker, screener and has improved defensively. Not to mention, the Thunder landed Topic–a consensus top-5 prospect who will miss this year with a torn ACL. They also landed Dillon Jones, who was one of the most productive players in college basketball last season, at the back-end of the first-round with a solid guard in Ajay Mitchell toward the middle of the second round. Sam Presti crushed this. Kudos. They’re deep. They’re tough. They’re cool as hell.