The Oklahoma City Thunder didn’t get a superstar or a secondary shot creator to open up their playoff offense, but they did the best they could have with their cap space and assets, using room to get the best attainable player for them on the market (Isaiah Hartenstein), declining options on Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins to lock them in on longer deals at team-friendly numbers and dealing Josh Giddey for Alex Caruso.
Once they extend Caruso in six months, they’ll have a multi-year window with a core of the above players, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Luguentz Dort. If Cason Wallace, Nikola Topić or one of their many future draft picks can join the party, so much the better.
Watching the Thunder play crunchtime of their most important game of the season with two bigs underscored that playing five-out and spamming guard-guard screens wasn’t a 48-minute panacea against every opponent. Hartenstein, in particular, helps two glaring weaknesses — the lack of a decisive short-roller and the team’s pitiful rebounding.
More importantly, the money on the deals of Joe, Wiggins and Hartenstein gives the Thunder a very important currency: tradeable salary. One of the barriers to using their surfeit of future draft choices in a future deal was that they had no plausible means of exchanging one of them for an A-lister because they didn’t have the necessary salary match on hand. Now they do.
To that end: We’re still learning the details, but I would strongly expect a third-year team option on Hartenstein’s deal. The Thunder don’t necessarily want to be paying Holmgren a max and Hartenstein $30 million in the same season in 2026-27, and an option year essentially gives them a two-year window where Hartenstein is plausibly expiring money for a receiving team.
Similarly, let’s see where the guaranteed money ends up on Wiggins’ deal. He was locked in for one year at $2 million, so giving him an extra four years and $45 million on top of that seems pretty extreme for a fungible, fringe-rotation guy who is likely to get lapped by incoming draft picks.
However, if the out years are either non-guarantees or team options, that has the impact of turning the contract into a trade exception that’s usable at whatever moment the Thunder need it. Going that route is far more effective than just locking in the money and then sitting there in 2027 wondering why this guy is on the cap for two more years.
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