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Thunder Mock Trade: Acquiring Gary Trent Jr. From Raptors

What would the Thunder look like if they traded for Raptors guard Gary Trent Jr. before camp?

Training camp for NBA teams will begin in roughly a month. With that in mind, most rosters are being solidified and few deals are expected to happen between now and the start of the season.

With that in mind, Zach Buckley of Bleacher Report proposed one trade that every team should make before camp. 

His deal for the Oklahoma City Thunder was one that involved the Toronto Raptors and one of their young guards.

Oklahoma City Thunder receive: Gary Trent Jr.

Toronto Raptors receive: Derrick Favors, Darius Bazley, Theo Maledon and 2024 first-round pick (via LAC)

In this hypothetical trade, Oklahoma City avoids its roster crunch while also adding a ton of talent.

This trade certainly looks good on paper for the Thunder, but only further clogs the guard rotation. Between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Josh Giddey, Tre Mann and Jalen Williams, there’s not a ton of minutes to go around.

However, Trent has great upside and still fits the Thunder’s timeline. This could make some of the other guards on this team more expendable in a future trade to potentially add frontcourt depth.

Overall, it would be surprising if the Thunder approved this deal. The front office seems to be very happy with the pace of the rebuild and this move could potentially expedite things too quickly. It appears Oklahoma City is fine spending one more season developing young talent and acquiring a top draft pick before pushing more chips in.

Favors and Maledon likely aren’t long-term pieces for the Thunder and Darius Bazley is set for a new contract soon. In reality, it would come down to if Oklahoma City was willing to part ways with the first-rounder. 


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