With the Oklahoma City Thunder looking to assess their future, Josh Giddey trade news wasn’t hard to come across online.
The former lottery pick was played off the court versus the Dallas Mavericks, up to the point where coach Mark Daigneault tweaked his starting lineup and sent him to the bench for the first time in his career.
The move seemed to work at first, but it also paved the way for a bigger question about his fit next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
The team has enough assets to trade for a star, and the Thunder offseason plans might also include going after some of the best free agents available. With that in mind, let’s make a case for the team to move on from the Australian guard.
Why the Thunder should trade Giddey now
For starters, the fact that Giddey got the benefit of the doubt after everything that transpired earlier in the season was, for the lack of a better word, odd by NBA standards.
But off-court rumors aside, his production was significantly less impressive this season.
He’s shown the ability to fill up the stat sheet, and while he’s not a scorer, he can knock down threes every now and then and is a good free-throw shooter and finisher.
However, he will also be eligible for an extension this summer, and the Thunder might be wary about offering him a huge bag.
He’s going to become a restricted free agent, and the team might well let him gauge the free-agent market before matching any offer that might come his way.
They could also use the Giddey contract as a part of a bigger move to perform a sign-and-trade and land a player who fits their needs better.
The Thunder need size
The OKC Thunder have built their roster quite patiently, and Sam Presti deserves plenty of credit for being perhaps the best GM in the entire league. Nonetheless, their series against the Dallas Mavericks exposed their lack of size.
Of course, they could use some of their countless draft picks to get one in the Draft or trade for one, as there won’t be that many prominent big men entering free agency this summer.
Perhaps they could keep stacking assets by working out a deal to send Giddey to the Phoenix Suns — who desperately need a lead guard — to land Jusuf Nurkic and some draft capital, even if it’s to demote him to the second unit or to slide Chet Homlgren to the four.
Giddey isn’t what’s going to stand in the way of the Thunder winning a championship, and he does take some pressure and playmaking duties off Gilgeous-Alexander, but it’s not easy to have two non-shooters in the backcourt in today’s pace-and-space NBA.
The Thunder seemed to figure it out and even were the most efficient three-point shooting team in the league this season, but things got way tougher once teams started taking that away from them.
Chet is a great rim protector with a bright future in the league, but he’s not beefy or a bruiser. They need a Jonas Valanciunas, Steven Adams, Jalen Duren kind of guy.
Perhaps they could target Jarrett Allen, who could be a trade candidate, or make a run at Nic Claxton or Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency.
Whatever the case, the fact of the matter is that if Giddey isn’t willing to embrace a role coming off the bench or if the Thunder gets forced to overpay for his services, they would be better off by just moving on from him.
