Thunder Seeking Wing Player Via Trade

10:55pm: The Thunder are shopping for a two-way wing player, and not simply just a shooter, tweets Wojnarowski.

4:32pm: The Thunder are actively seeking a shooter as the deadline draws near, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Oklahoma City has a pair of trade exceptions, and Wojnarowski suggests the team will use those to take back salary in an uneven exchange.

Oklahoma City has a $6.5MM exception left over from the departure of Kevin Martin this past summer, as well as an exception worth $2,338,721 created in last year’s Eric Maynor trade. It’s most likely the Thunder would use the Maynor exception, which expires at the deadline, given the team’s proximity to the $71.748MM luxury tax line. Oklahoma City is about $2.2MM shy of that threshold.

Anyone the Thunder might be specifically targeting hasn’t been linked to the team in rumors of late. Oklahoma City reportedly has interest in Brandon Bass, but presumably the club is looking for an outside threat rather than a player with a mid-range game. The Thunder was eyeing Evan Turner earlier this year, but he’s shooting just 28.5% from behind the arc. The team is investigating the possibility of bringing career 36% three-point shooter Rudy Fernandez over from Spain, but that probably wouldn’t happen until after the season.

The Thunder could wind up with an additional late-first-round pick from Dallas, and GM Sam Presti might use that as trade bait. Oklahoma City gets the Mavs’ 2014 first-rounder if it falls outside the top 20. The pick is currently at No. 23, as our Reverse Standings show.

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