OKC Thunder General Manager Examines Narratives Around Team

As the Oklahoma City Thunder keep winning, the outside noise only grows louder. Fresh off back-to-back 60-plus-win seasons, an NBA Championship and a trip to the Western Conference Finals, the Thunder have dealt with plenty of backlash.

The NBA media, fans and opposing coaches have all taken their shots at the Bricktown Ballers. The narratives and outcry around the team have reached levels that some would describe as toxic. Oklahoma City, in the eyes of these parties, has a team that can defend more physically than anyone else's in the NBA –– getting away with plenty of fouls through the biased lens they see the game through. A superstar with the benefit of the whistle and that is labeled a flopper or free-throw merchant. The jealousy, envy and frustration only grow and this season hit a fever pitch.

At his end of season press conference, Thunder general manager Sam Presti was asked about the discourse around the team.

"I think a couple things. One, part of it is like it just kind of comes with the territory, and that's to be expected. When we have success, it's just kind of the way the world has been," Presti explained. "I think the change to that -- and it's not necessarily a complaint, but I'm just trying to answer what you're saying, is there's like an architecture or an infrastructure to the way that social media works, and we've seen it with how we talk about our politics and what that's done, and it's clearly making its way into sports. It's the same model."

Presti is right, the sports talk culture has reached political levels. Everyone is firmly planted on their sides and no facts, no reasoning, no opinion can change anyone's mind.

"I think it's tough because I don't think it's changing, but we also have to understand like it's an incentive-based business. There's people that have financial incentives -- I was saying to someone in our office the other day, it's a black market for anger, division, tribalism, and just kind of ugly discourse, right? And people are very skilled at it. You know, I hate to say it, but they're very skilled at it. People have career ambitions too. It could be somebody that is trying to get a better job somewhere else, and they understand that this is making its rounds. So they jump on that." Presti said. "The redeeming reality to the whole thing, in my opinion, is that's not the real world because you could have two people that are screaming at each other or whatever on this -- I really don't have any of it. But it finds me in screenshots and things people are sending to me. But you put them in a room together, they'll watch the game together and have a beer, just like you have disagreements about other things."

Presti is right, the narratives will never change, and there is obvious incentive to continue to stoke the flames from prominent voices in the NBA landscape to drive engagement and, in turn, money.

"I think the worst thing we could do as a league is to start to believe that's actually the way our fans think or feel because it's all manipulated. Now, some people are manipulating it -- you know, it's tribalism. It's fandom. It's always been there. But sometimes it does matter how big and how loud the one group is. If you're playing a specific team, it feels really big, but they're just rooting for their team, but it's in a much more sophisticated way of making their points," Presti dished. "Again, it's where we're at, but I don't think it's real all the time. So we're going to have to live through that if we're successful. If we're not successful, people are not going to care about us, and you won't see the clip video and the this and the that. It's just, you know -- but I think the same model is being used in sports, and it's inside our sports, inside our fans, but it's not when you interact with the real fans, the people that they're not incentivized or they're -- they don't consume the game for that purpose to find the weakness in everybody."

The Thunder's top decision maker sums it up perfectly. If the Oklahoma City Thunder were not successful, none of these takes would be flying. Look at Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's free throw attempts per game as proof. In the play-in season for the Oklahoma City Thunder, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged a career-best 10.9 free throws per game. He was beloved for bringing back the mid-range, for his unexpected star leap and for taking the Thunder back to the postseason. The media applauded him, opposing fans enjoyed watching him and opposing coaches never muttered a bad word about him. Once he –– and the Thunder –– made another leap into contending status, that is when the outrage began.

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