Sam Presti Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Thunder Notes: Westbrook, McGary, Presti, Oladipo

September 24th, 2016 at 6:18pm CST by Arthur Hill

Russell Westbrook‘s efforts to become a more vocal leader have already given him laryngitis, writes Brett Dawson of The Oklahoman. The star point guard could barely speak after the first of two practices today, a result of his plan to talk more on the court in the absence of Kevin Durant. That commitment to leadership started with the three-year extension Westbrook signed in August, one month after Durant announced that he was leaving for the Warriors. “He, I think, is setting a tone in terms of that, at least from a defensive standpoint, we’ve got to communicate,” coach Billy Donovan said of Westbrook. “And I think when you’re the caliber of player like Russell who’s doing it every single time and communicating it and expressing and pointing out the value and the importance of that, I think it carries a large weight.”

There’s more news from Oklahoma City:

Mitch McGary vows he has “turned over a new leaf” after two drug suspensions this summer that will sideline him for the season’s first 15 games, relays Erik Horne of The Oklahoman. McGary confirmed that the five-game ban he received this summer was for failing a drug test, while the 10-game suspension imposed last week was for not taking enough tests to comply with the NBA’s drug program. The third-year center may be near the end of his time in Oklahoma City. He is guaranteed more than $1.5MM this season, but has a team option worth more than $2.4MM for 2017/18. “I’d love to stay with this organization,” McGary said. “This is hands down like the best organization that had treats for you, cares for you, does everything for you, pretty much hand feeds you. I’ve known that from guys around the league have said this is the organization to be with, so obviously I don’t want to leave.”
“Disappointed” was the word GM Sam Presti used to describe his reaction to McGary’s latest drug issues, according to Cliff Brunt of The Associated Press. Presti also insinuated that the Thunder have lost patience with McGary. “We’re not privy to the NBA’s program, so I don’t have a whole lot of information,” Presti said. “All I can say to you is that I’m disappointed. Then from there, I don’t think I have to expand past that.”
Victor Oladipo said he had thoughts about joining the Thunder a year before the draft-day trade from Orlando. In a video posted on The Oklahoman’s website, the new OKC guard addresses a number of topics, including his longtime interest in joining the Thunder. “I literally thought about being here a year ago,” Oladipo said, “and thought what it would be like to be on this team. And for it to actually happen is a surreal experience, and I know that it’s supposed to be the way it is now.”

Thunder Notes: Presti, Westbrook, Huestis, Christon

September 18th, 2016 at 7:22pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Thunder never gave much consideration to trading Russell Westbrook after Kevin Durant announced he was leaving for the Warriors, relays Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Because Westbrook was headed for free agency next summer, there was speculation that Oklahoma City might try to move him instead of risking another huge loss. Instead, Westbrook agreed to a three-year extension and will try to lead the Thunder into a new era without Durant or Serge Ibaka. “The first thing is Russell is a tremendous competitor but also highly intelligent,” said GM Sam Presti. “He understands that the approach that we have to take in order to maximize ourselves is going to be one first, making sure we’re sound fundamentally and we’re continually growing through the season. That’s always kind of been a staple of the organization.”

There’s more news out of Oklahoma City:

The departure of Durant and Ibaka may open some opportunities for Josh Huestis, according to Erik Horne of The Oklahoman. The 6’7″ power forward has seen almost no NBA action since being drafted 29th overall by Oklahoma City in 2014. He has spent most of his career in the D-League, logging just 55 minutes in five games with the Thunder last season. “Of course we’re gonna miss those guys on and off the court,” Huestis said of Durant and Ibaka, “but it is, it’s exciting. It’s a new look for us. A lot of new players. But it’s still exciting to see what everything is going to be like, how everybody’s going to work together when it all gets started.”
Semaj Christon is facing long odds to make the Thunder roster once again, Horne writes in a separate piece. A second-round pick in 2014, Oklahoma City thought Christon might be ready last year after a strong showing in summer league, but he opted to play in Italy instead. With D.J. Augustin traded and Randy Foye leaving in free agency, it appeared an opportunity might be created for the 23-year-old Christon, but this summer’s signing of Ronnie Price may have changed that. Still, Christon remains optimistic as he prepares for his first training camp with the Thunder. “I don’t have to score the ball or do a lot of different things … just getting guys open and getting them in the right position where they’re comfortable,” Christon said. “That was the biggest thing for me, and playing defense, being a lockdown defender.”

Northwest Notes: Singler, Donovan, Draft, Gee

May 6th, 2015 at 12:14pm CST by Chuck Myron

Thunder GM Sam Presti reiterated that the Thunder are committed to re-signing Enes Kanter and hope to do so with Kyle Singler as well, pointing to Singler’s shooting, versatility and height in an email interview with Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. Presti also told Mayberry that he sought input from Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and other Thunder players about the qualities they’d like to see in a coach even though he found it unwise to discuss specific candidates for the team’s coaching vacancy, which he filled with Billy Donovan. Here’s more from around the Northwest Division:

Incarnate Word combo guard Denzel Livingston, Ohio power forward Maurice Ndour, Penn State shooting guard D.J. Newbill, Illinois shooting guard Rayvonte Rice and TCU shooting guard Trey Zeigler are scheduled to work out for the Jazz today, the team announced (Twitter link). Michigan State swingman Russell Byrd will join them, as Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops reported Tuesday.
It’s not out of the question that the Trail Blazers will re-sign Alonzo Gee this summer, but it’s doubtful, writes Jabari Young of CSNNW.com, speculating that the Hawks, Spurs and Jazz might be decent bets to sign him instead. Gee remained on an NBA roster all season after signing a non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract the Nuggets, who traded him to the Blazers in the Arron Afflalo deal.
The Timberwolves made a “colossal blunder” not once but twice in the 2009 draft when they passed over MVP Stephen Curry for point guards Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn, as Michael Rand of the Star Tribune examines.

Reaction To Thunder’s Billy Donovan Hiring

May 1st, 2015 at 9:53am CST by Chuck Myron

People around former Thunder coach Scott Brooks believe he never had a chance this year and that GM Sam Presti had long planned to replace him with Billy Donovan or Kevin Ollie, writes Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Ollie’s sizable buyout, which Wojnarowski refers to as $5MM but previous reporting indicated was $4MM, was a “non-starter” for the Thunder, according to Wojnarowski. The Pistons made a run at hiring Donovan last year, Wojnarowski reveals in the same piece. Here’s more in the wake of the Thunder’s hiring of Donovan on Thursday:

Kevin Durant tells Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com that he wants to gather as much information on Donovan as possible and that he isn’t thinking about how the hire could affect his decision as free agency looms in a year (See all six Twitter links here). He also expressed a trust in Presti, who didn’t consult with him during the hiring process. “I know what my job is,” Durant said to Goodman. “I let him do his.”
Durant downplayed Donovan’s lack of NBA experience in an interview with Royce Young of ESPN.com and said he spoke with Mike Miller and Chandler Parsons, both of whom played under Donovan at Florida. “I met him one time out in Vegas. He was there for USA Basketball,” Durant said of Donovan in his chat with Young. “And I’ve heard good things about him. I’m sure we’ll click pretty quickly. But I don’t have a relationship with him. I don’t know him. He didn’t recruit me at Florida, so I don’t really know him too well. I’m just going off of what guys that played for him said. And I’m looking forward to meeting him and getting a feel for him myself.”
The Thunder’s choice of Donovan is a bold but worthwhile gamble, USA Today’s Sam Amick argues. There’s risk in hiring just about any coach, The Oklahoman’s Berry Tramel believes, but Donovan’s success with and without NBA talent made him stand out to Presti, Tramel writes.

Sam Presti On Brooks, Coaching Search

April 22nd, 2015 at 10:52pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Thunder fired coach Scott Brooks earlier today after the team failed to make the playoffs this season. GM Sam Presti held a press conference this evening to address the team letting Brooks go, as well as what the future holds for the franchise. Here are some of the highlights from Presti’s media session as relayed by Royce Young of Daily Thunder, who has more where this came from in his transcription.

On letting Brooks go:

“I want to stress this decision is not connected or related the results of last season. In fact, I’m not sure that anybody could’ve done a better job than what Scott was able to do and what the team was able to do given the circumstances we encountered. Change in organizations are necessary at times. As much as continuity is required for lasting success, change and transition are the engine for progress and evolution. And so we’re embracing that change and looking toward the next stage of our development of our organization in Oklahoma City.”

On the timing of Brooks’ firing:

“I looked at the option and studied the option of Scott returning very closely. But it would’ve been entering the final year of a four-year contract and after a lot of thought and deliberation, and although I think Scott would’ve been very comfortable coaching on that, I did not feel we were in a position to make another long-term commitment based on what I felt was simply a natural need for transition.”

On whether or not the team would consider hiring a college coach to replace Brooks:

“We’re not going to limit ourselves, or limit the scope of people we would look at for this position. It’s going to, at the end of the day, be directed by the vision of our team, the values of our organization, and the best person we feel like can assume a leadership role for this organization going forward. Not based on one season, but someone we feel like can re-establish our continuity and who is a fit for so many aspects of what it is here.”

On what the franchise is looking for in its next coach:

“We’ve got a pretty clear identity of the type of person and specific vision for that role going forward, but I’m hesitant to speak directly about it because I don’t want to get into comparing and contrasting what we’re looking for and what we had in that position prior in Scott. The team is a local team that competes nationally. It has a civic purpose to it, I believe, because it exists for the people. Because of the people that come every night. So to work here in a position like a head coach, I think it’s important that person really embraces the overall purpose of the work that gets done with the Thunder and I think it’s a privilege to work here for that reason.”

On the pressure the next coach will be under in 2015/16:

“Certainly, heading into that season, listen, we understand there will be an incredible amount of attention paid to next season. There will be a lot of different distractions that will be our job to try and manage. Not to eliminate, but try to manage so that we can play our best basketball. I think at times, the risk is not in moving forward, but I think the risk can be in being fearful of moving forward. If you identify somebody you feel like can help the organization that is a good fit here, I believe that’s kind of part of the job. But no matter what the circumstances are we have to be able to put it in the proper place and understand we have to play good basketball knowing there will be an interpretation [of] anything that happens outside, or what the weather is, or those types of things. But we’re prepared for that to the best of our ability and we’ll go about our business that way.”

And-Ones: Boylen, Silver, Diogu

April 29th, 2014 at 11:08pm CST by Ryan Raroque

You can find tonight’s miscellaneous notes worth passing along below:

While it’s anyone’s guess as to who the next head coach of the Jazz will be, it’ll be surprising if the team ultimately decides to hire Jim Boylen, as Mike Sorensen of the Deseret News explains.
Following Adam Silver’s decisive ruling over Donald Sterling, J.A. Adande of ESPN wonders how much this enhances Silver’s credibility with the players and how it’ll factor in during the next round of collective bargaining.
Ike Diogu has signed on with Leones de Ponce of the Puerto Rican league, reports Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Earlier this month, the Knicks mulled signing the 6’8 forward to a deal that would have extended into next season.
Emerson College has become a breeding ground for front office positions around the NBA, details Liam Boylan-Pett of SB Nation. Thunder GM Sam Presti and Magic GM Rob Hennigan are among the school’s most recent notable alumni.

Western Notes: Mavs, Lakers, Presti

March 12th, 2014 at 9:21pm CST by Eddie Scarito

It doesn’t matter whether the Mavericks go one-and-done, miss the playoffs or end up in the conference finals, the offseason game plan is the same, writes Eddie Sefko of Dallas Morning News. He says they are going to figure out a way to use the $34MM dollars of cap space they anticipate having to try and add a premier small forward and/or center. Sefko floats the possibility of Luol Deng and Marcin Gortat being their prime free-agent targets. The article also mentions that the deeper the team goes in the playoffs, the more appealing they will become to any free agent, including LeBron James, though Sefko admits that landing LeBron is a long shot at best.

Here’s some more from out west:

With the news from earlier that Kobe Bryant wants Mike D’Antoni gone, it seems that he’s not the only Lakers player that would feel that way, tweets Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. He mentions that Pau Gasol and Jordan Hill would also like to see a new coach next season.
Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times supports Bryant calling out Lakers management. He hopes the star player’s comments bring about the needed changes in the organization. Plaschke also thinks that it’s a good thing for the team that Kobe is done for the year as it will help them secure a higher lottery pick. The article also questions the decision to re-sign Bryant when they did. Plaschke believes that Bryant would have signed for less now in order to free up cap space to help the team sign players to make a run during his final years.
Thunder GM Sam Presti shared his thoughts on tanking with Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. Presti said, “Oddly enough, I think it’s a narrative that was created to tweak the league office, and they are showing to be quite reflexive to it. I’m actually a bit surprised they have fed into it and devoted so much public energy to it given the lack of evidence. The records of the teams in the bottom four of the league are in line with those over the last 20 seasons. If anything, they are actually slightly above those averages. I’m missing the epidemic on this, really. I would hope we’d focus our attention on a lot of the great things our players are ding and that the league has in place now.“

Sam Presti Talks Luxury Tax, Draft, Amnesty

May 19th, 2013 at 9:45pm CST by Spencer Lund

The Thunder were eliminated from the playoffs a lot sooner than expected this year, losing to the Grizzlies in the conference semifinals after just five games. The largest reason for the Thunder falling short of last season's Western Conference title was the loss of Russell Westbrook to a lateral meniscus tear just two games into the 2013 postseason.

Now the Thunder have a longer offseason than expected, which will give general manager Sam Presti more time for this June's draft while he continues to sculpt the direction the Thunder go after their first major setback since moving to Oklahoma City. The Oklahoman's Darnell Mayberry spoke with Presti about his plans for the team this summer.

On whether the Thunder are prepared to go into luxury tax territory this summer:

We will continue to look at and evaluate all of the opportunities that present themselves to our team. As a result of our commitments to our core players, the organization will ultimately end up as tax payers. However, given that our goal is to have a team capable of contention for a sustained period of years, when to proactively enter the tax and how realistic it is for a team in Oklahoma City to sustain successive taxable seasons will have to be carefully examined.

On using the amnesty clause this summer:

The amnesty clause is not something we have deeply considered as an organization. We understand that there is a lot of misinformation as to its intent, and as a mechanism. The majority of the teams that have used it have done so when they were under the salary cap or when they have exceeded the luxury tax to a degree in which the player's salary is less expensive than that of the luxury tax penalty itself. We do not fall into either dynamic, therefore it has not been something deeply explored by our organization.

On whether the team has a roster spot for the three picks they have this summer:

The draft presents all kinds of opportunities, we will explore all of them. Our decisions will be driven by who is available, and the value we place on them fitting with our team, organization and community. We will remain open-minded about the different ways we can utilize our draft picks but also recognize that teams that sustain success over time are built with a consistent stream of players that were drafted and developed internally.

On evaluating the team without Westbrook during the playoffs:

The team we finished with was of course not the team we are, but that is part of sports. We all face things that are out of our control but we still need to deal with them by coming to work the next day and maintaining our standards to the best of our ability. Given the limited amount of time that our players and coaches had to adjust to the absence of Russell, I think they did an excellent job of working to maximize the group in place and we need to continue to look to do that when the next unforeseen circumstances or situation arises in the future.

On the biggest offseason need this summer:

First and foremost, we need to maintain the efficiency that has been developed on both ends of the floor. From there I think we have made strides in reducing our turnover percentage, while also increasing our assist percentage across the board, but we need to continue to build on the progress of this season because that will only raise the efficiency that we have demonstrated that we are capable of. Whether we do that through outside acquisitions or internally, these will be key aspects to our improvement next season.

Odds & Ends: Jackson, Wall, Hunt, Sixers

April 18th, 2013 at 11:23pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Here are a few more miscellaneous notes to pass along tonight:

With the Nets basketball operations staff on expiring deals, Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News (via Twitter) wonders if Mikhail Prokhorov is preparing to offer Phil Jackson an offer to run the team and make his own hires.
Wizards guard John Wall tells J. Michael of CSN Washington that he won't be one to recruit free agents, and would rather have players want to join his team.
RealGM's Sham Charania mentions Nuggets assistant coach Melvin Hunt as someone who could draw interest from teams with head coaching vacancies (Twitter link).
Tom Moore of PhillyBurbs outlines a list of potential coaching candidates for the 76ers, mentioning team assistant Aaron Mckie, Villanova coach Jay Wright, Michael Curry (who will be interviewed for the head coaching job), Warriors assistant Mike Malone, and Spurs assistant Mike Budenholzer as names that could be considered.
Grantland's Bill Simmons says that when Thunder GM Sam Presti was quietly shopping James Harden last October, he was quickly rebuffed after calling the Raptors to inquire about a deal involving a package centered on Jonas Valanciunas.

Odds & Ends: Celtics, Raptors, Trail Blazers

November 29th, 2012 at 5:42pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston heard from head coach Doc Rivers that the Celtics could decide to recall Kris Joseph and possibly Fab Melo up from the D-League while Jeff Green and Chris Wilcox are out of action. More notably, after Danny Ainge told WEEI radio that Rajon Rondo would be given a two game suspension (Twitter link), Rivers gave the impression that the team won't necessarily try to make any subsequent roster moves anytime soon. You can find more of tonight's miscellaneous links from the Association here:

HoopsWorld's Alex Kennedy says (via Twitter) that the Raptors are weighing their free agent options at the small forward position.
Trail Blazers GM Neil Olshey told Joe Freeman of The Oregonian of his plans to use D-League assignments accordingly for Victor Claver, Joel Freeland, Will Barton, and Nolan Smith. While Olshey thinks that his young players are currently benefitting through their NBA experience, he believes the best time to send them to the Idaho Stampede (their D-League affiliate) would be after they have built a good enough foundation with the coaching staff and need significant minutes to continue developing.
According to Anthony Slater of NewsOK, Thunder GM Sam Presti was spotted at Oklahoma State University's basketball practice to supposedly begin scouting Marcus Smart and Le'Bryan Nash, two college prospects who are currently touted as potential first round picks.
The Nets announced that the right foot sprain which Brook Lopez suffered during last night's game is unrelated to the foot injury he sustained last season, and added that he is only expected to miss the next two games (Howard Beck of the New York Times reports).