u/Illustrious-View-888

Hoping for a strong offseason from our core of players and I hope some tackle specific stuff to improve as players

Shai - Pull-up shooting, I seen the videos but I hope to see it translate in the actual court. Back 2 back playoff runs with Shai in the low 30’s in 3 point shooting. Teams figured out that unless it’s a stepback or wide open 3 then Shai shooting is a negative. Pull-up shooting would dramatically help

Chet - strength… that’s it lol. Need him to go from 208 to 217 at least

Jdub- same as Shai, more pull-up shooting; or more volume overall. I like to see Jdub at 5-6 attempts per game from 3.

Ajay- Same as Shai & Jdub 😭. His 3 point shooting creation needs work (surprisedly a low % from open to wide open 3’s; he gotta knock those easy shots down)

McCain - some rim finishing or more playmaking would be nice.

Cason - needs to make quicker decisions when he has the ball. Maybe get better at driving to the rim to generate dunk windows for our bigs

JWill - get better at boxing out, I think he can be sooooo much better as a rebounder

Caruso & IHart I think are perfectly fine players and they excel at their roles. I don’t think we need more from them. They are elite at their roles

I don’t think it’s smart for the Thunder to use assets right now to add a veteran

Part of the reason the Jones offer made sense is because 1. It was a cheap offer, and 2 you used no assets

If the Thunder plan to use assets they should wait until the deadline once more teams put players on the trade block

I will say.. I know Klay Thompson probably wants the Miami Heat, but i wouldn’t hate if the Thunder offer Klay a 1 year 5/6 million offer (he’s definitely going to get bought out)

You use no assets and add a 6’5 sniper and proven champion

Since Chet was a rookie I always wanted him to get bigger, but everyone always said “his shot will be broken, his handles won’t develop”

Well it’s been 4 years now and his handle is still shit, and his release is still slow
So the benefits of “staying skinny” aren’t adding up

Bulking up for Chet would make his floor as a player really high.
What do I mean by floor?
Basically the worst he can perform; he can still bring high value

This happened throughout the regular season, & obviously in Game 7, he gave us his floor

It’s usually something like 6 or 8 points, & under 5 rebounds. He did this vs the Celtics back in March, & vs other great teams (hence why I always said Chet was inconsistent vs elite teams)

Because of his lack of strength, there’s only so much he can do when teams gameplan Chet correctly

I want Chet to bulk up so even his worst games aren’t embarrassing. There’s really no reason Chet can’t be a 10 rebound a night player; but his lack of strengths always has him out of position when boxing out so it makes his rebounding floor really low

I’m seeing lots of talk on what to do with the final roster spot

I think adding a veteran wing is the most logical answer to that

I seen people suggest that we should leave our roster spot open to convert a 2-way player and I think that’s a terrible idea

Think about it, if Otega manages to actually play & provide enough value to earn a contract .. that likely means Otega passed Nikola Topic in rotation. At that point just trade Topic then use his spot to convert his contract

Either way Topic & Otega will not play much in the playoffs

We have 6 million to play around. There’s a few options, but my favorite suggestion is .. Spencer Jones. The Nuggets currently are negotiating with Peyton Watson and Jones.
They are only offering Jones around 3-3.7 million so far

I think we can easily offer him between 4.8-5.7 million a year and snag him since he is a UFA

I had a lot of people in my head for the past year because of my comments towards Chet’s contract

This is basically what I have been trying to say for the last 365 days

Chet is a Good player, but he has to get way better to justify keeping him longterm

We are now a below 2nd apron team, and our next roster crunch will be in 2028. Essentially giving us a 2 year window with this current core

After that … it depends who gets traded

Multiples scenarios it can be a mix of Caruso, Hartenstein
Possibly… one of Cason or Ajay
and of course Chet being the biggest question mark with him making $49 million in 2028

Everything leads back to how Chet develops as a player. Once he signed that max contract; expectations were given
The days of Chet giving us 14 points and 7 rebounds and everyone here being okay with that statline are gone

Either he improves or he will get traded in 2028

I will admit and say I didn’t really paid attention to the draft profiles so I didn’t really scouted Mara

From what I watched in the summer league I’m seeing multiple issues

- stamina issues
- VERY SLOW
- kinda stiff
- is he a weak rebounder ??
- doesn’t have the athletic profile to be a force at the rim

Does show passing potential

Someone that scouted Mara what exactly made him worthy of the lottery?

Not really hating on Mara, just trying to understand the logic

I always knew the 2026 season was basically the “Last Dance” for the roster that was created at the beginning of the rebuild

Dort 2019, Joe 2022, Wiggs 2021

It sucks because they all should be leaving as 2x Champions and leaving the Team on a high note

But someone decided to drop 4 points, 4 rebounds

Whatever happens.. happens

But at least I’m confident in these 2 players

I wouldn’t be surprise if Jdub plays through the pain tomorrow
40% of Jdub is still better than 100% of the other All star we have

Obviously at the end of the day the decision falls on Jdub

But I wouldn’t risk
If we lose this series, then we lose

I’m not risking anything with Jdub because our 3rd “All Star” is a fraud

The lack of ball handlers wouldn’t be such an issue if Chet had any form of offense. Usually we can run more offensive sets through Chet to ease the load off Shai, but since Chet has no offensive value then we can’t do that.

If we lose the series then we lose the series. I rather look to move on Chet instead of risking an injury to our 2nd best player

We have to think of the longterm not 2026

Dort, Joe, Wiggins.

I just need one of yall to send us back home up 3-1, Please

JWill hasn’t been good vs the Spurs and I think we should replace his minutes and give Krich a look. He did give the Thunder some solid spot minutes vs the Twolves in the WCF last season

The Spurs starters are averaging around 43 minutes in the first 2 games

While OKC only has Shai with the 40 minute mark

Our bench has outscored the Spurs by 70+ points
Eventually fatigue will play a role.
Even whenever Fox comes back the Spurs aren’t going to play him 40+ minutes which means someone else that’s already playing a lot of minutes will

Trading either pick 12 or 17 for a future pick/swap makes much more sense than trading up imo.

Trading up for 7 or 8 doesn’t really make much sense given than we don’t need guards.
Okc also has pick 37 in the 2nd round

Trade one of those picks for a future and add the 2nd rounder
Looking at our roster and with Sorber coming in as well I think we will decline Kenrich’s team option

We might also look into trading Wiggins or Joe, if we can trade Joe for a future protected first that would be great too.

We will need to make room for at least 2 roster spots

Will Adam Silver finally give our franchise some luck with a top 4 pick

Shai hasn’t been a negative 3 points in a game since November

Unfortunately for the Lakers they did not take advantage of a rare bad Shai game
I expect Shai to be back to his normal self after he watches film and studies today’s defensive coverages from JJ Redick