Report: Oklahoma City's Gabriel Deck Intent on Staying in the NBA
It’s been an interesting offseason for Gabriel Deck.
After joining the Oklahoma City Thunder from Real Madrid, the Argentine only featured in 10 games at the end of last season.
While participating in this summer’s Olympic Games with his country, rumors began to circulate that Deck had his eye on returning to Europe, perhaps with FC Barcelona where he would link up with former Thunder guard Alex Abrines, but such a move never materialized.
Earlier this August, Marca, one of the biggest sports newspapers in Spain, reported that Deck and his camp had every intention of returning to the NBA, going so far as to say that Deck would be working to renew his work visa as soon as the Olympics concluded.
Deck’s contract became fully guaranteed with Oklahoma City yesterday, August 30, and seeing as there was no announcement about the two sides parting ways, it’s likely that he’ll at least start the season in OKC.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the 26-year-old EuroLeague star signed a four year contract worth $14.5 million back in April.
In limited action for OKC last year, Deck was a nice surprise on the defensive end of the floor, showing off a polished mid-range game on the other end of the floor as well.
The 6-foot-8 Argentinian shot 47.8 percent from the floor, adding 4.0 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 0.8 steals per game while only turning the ball over 0.6 times per contest. Deck rarely stepped out beyond the 3-point line, only attempting 1.5 3’s per game, but he only converted 13.3 percent of his attempts from deep — an area he’ll have to work on.
Deck’s fit with the current Thunder roster is something of a question.
While it’s clear the Argentine wants to play in the NBA, Oklahoma City may not offer him a ton of minutes in lieu of getting young forwards like Darius Bazley and Aleksej Pokusevski as many minutes as they need to continue their development.
Sam Presti and the Thunder could showcase Deck to see if there is any interest from other franchises, but it seems unlikely the organization would want to invest heavily in a 26-year-old project.
Perhaps after a full offseason with the team, Deck will be able to get fully acclimated and play a role for the Thunder in 2021, but time will tell how impactful he can be in Oklahoma City.
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