Who Would the Thunder Protect in a Looming Expansion Draft?
In today’s NBA environment, it seems like the league is always shifting. Whether it’s lockouts, trade demands or big free agent signings, there’s always been something to shake up the league over the past decade.
Entering the 2022-23 season, the busy business hasn’t slowed a bit. Rumors of NBA expansion are rapidly picking up steam and, at this point, almost seems inevitable. Not only inevitable, but in the near future too.
The two cities that are constantly brought up n expansion discussions are Seattle and Vegas. Seattle, obviously, was a longtime NBA city looking to bring basketball back, while Vegas is one of the entertainment capitals in the world. It makes total sense to reach those two locations.
What does this mean for the rest of the NBA, though? An expansion draft would be necessary. The last time the NBA expanded was in 2004, with the addition of the then-Charlotte Bobcats. Each NBA team selected eight players to protect, players that the Hornets weren’t allowed to touch.
If the magic number is once again set at eight during the next expansion draft, teams like Oklahoma City will have some hard decisions ro make. There isn’t a ton of separation between Oklahoma City’s younger prospects.
When thinking about who the Thunder would protect, there are a few relatively obvious names. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Josh Giddey and Lu Dort will all be penciled in assuming they remain on the roster through the trade deadline.
Next in line would seem to be Tre Mann with relative certainty. He could be Oklahoma City’s sixth man of the future. After that, though, it gets interesting. Jalen Williams and Ousmane Dieng probably have an inside track to the next two slots, simply because of draft order and potential.
That puts the number at seven with plenty of talent left on the roster. Assuming the Thunder land a lottery pick next season too, that player could occupy the last spot. Players like Kenrich Williams, Aaron Wiggins, Darius Bazley, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Aleksej Pokusevski would be right on the fence.
The way the 2004 draft worked, is the Bobcats were allowed to choose one player from each team to reach the 15-man limit. They were not allowed to poach multiple players.
If this is the case once again, the players not chosen would seemingly be allowed to return to their teams even though they were unprotected from the expansion draft. Oklahoma City would still retain most prospects, but losing out on a good one would be unlucky.
Either way, it’s a good problem to have. There’s plenty of intriguing talent to go around on this Thunder roster.
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