4 MVPs in 18 years, Best Manager in History

On May 29, 2025, the Oklahoma City Paycom Center witnessed the birth of the New Co Western Championship. The crowd was filled with the joy of victory. They chose to use beer and singing to highlight the excitement of returning to the finals stage after 13 years.

The Western Conference champion in 2025 is the Oklahoma City Thunder. When Mark Dignot came on stage as a representative to accept worship from fans, he said, "It was Sam who spent 17 years integrating the city and the team to reach the heights of today."

Then, more than 18,000 fans in the stadium burst into thunderous applause.

The Sam mentioned by Dagenut is Sam Presty, general manager of the Thunder's basketball affairs. Presti has been the person who said the team since the Thunder took root in Oklahoma in 2008. In 1889, the United States of America, whose economic strength and ambitions rapidly expanded, began to expand to the world, but internal integration would usher in the final madness before the United States announced the "frontier closure" in 1890: The word Oklahoma originated from the native language of the Indian native Choctaw tribe, meaning "land of the red people." But the American Westward Movement that began in the late 18th century changed everything. The white colonists who developed rapidly through the industrial revolution expanded their markets in various ways, and a large area of ​​undeveloped land in the western continent of America was the wealth they coveted.

In that year, the U.S. government overturned its previous commitment to protection of Indian Aboriginal territories and opened up the land in central Oklahoma to those white colonists who were full of minds of moving westward to clearing the land, triggering a "land snap-up wave", and Oklahoma City was born.

But it is not only the capitalists who have become rich first in the west. If we can live and work in peace, who is willing to abandon our hometown where we grew up and gamble for life in a strange and barren land? Those poor and poor peddlers who cannot survive are the main force of this westward movement.

So Oklahoma's history is also an encyclopedia of "seeking a way out" to some extent. Two and a half centuries later, Oklahoma's basketball has actually been seeking a way to settle down in the NBA.

And Sam Presty found the answer for them.

In this small, small place with a single industrial structure and can only rely on the energy industry to maintain a decent position, the Thunder, which has not started at a high level, has touched the stage of the finals twice in the 17 years since its establishment. Moreover, through patient operations and smart strategies, Presti has operated two different 60-win lineups in 2013 and 2025 respectively.

Before this, only three managers had done similar things - Auerbach, Jerry West, Pat Riley - they were all big names in NBA history.

And Presti's achievements may be more admirable in some aspects. Given the Thunder's market and historical background, you can even say that Presti created this foundation in a "ruins".

When San Antonio had Popovich and Duncan, they remained in the league's first-tier tier for 20 years evergreen. Presti also made Ox City's 17-year team building have only been in the playoffs for five years.

Coincidentally, Presti witnessed and deeply participated in the process of San Antonio building the Evergreen Spurs.

Popovich and RC Buford, the gold medal combo of the Spurs uniforms, has been fixed in the summer to Colorado for several years. In the first midsummer of the 21st century, they conducted courses at a school in Aspen, and that year Popovich and Buford didn't open much time and needed an assistant. They found the head of the school and informed them of their needs.

The person who matched the Spurs executives was called Tommy Farrell, his son Tommy Farrell Jr., who had tried to withdraw from the school team due to training injury not long ago, but one of his teammates tried his best to comfort and persuade him to dispel the idea - and this person was Sam Presti.

Because Presti helped his son get out of the predicament, Old Tommy thought the boy was good, so he recommended Presti to Buford and Popovich. But the high school where Presti attended is Boston, 3,000 kilometers away from Aspen. In order to make up for the long-distance travel fee, Presti made a lawn and fairways to go to the golf course, and sold his beloved drum set (he was a person who loved music very much). When he arrived in Aspen, in order to save money from staying in a hotel, Presti slept in the school classroom at night. These efforts were worth it to him because he was very impressed by the world of professional basketball. He wanted to see what the highest level of basketball concept was different from what he imagined.

But what made Presti very angry was that he did not see two bosses in the first three days of the training camp. He even doubted whether he had been deceived? Is all the hard work done to be useless?

Finally, on the fourth day of the training camp, Buford finally showed up, and Presti didn't care about things like face. He pestered Buford for a whole day. Even when Buford came on the court to serve as a referee for the students, he wanted to run while begging Buford to give him an internship at the Spurs.

He doesn't want salary or promises, he just wants to go to San Antonio to see what real basketball looks like.

Although Buford was really annoyed with the guy at the time, in the end, Presty fulfilled his wish. Moreover, Buford realized that he had discovered a good seedling unexpectedly.

Presti is like a sponge with a big appetite in San Antonio. In order to satisfy his curiosity, he took all the work of the interns. Even if he had nothing to do with basketball, he would accept it all..

And Presti's first deal in Seattle was crazy enough: he sent off the team's boss Ray Allen.

The second transaction, Presti continued to take action against the stars. He exchanged No. 2 Rashad Lewis for draft picks and trade specials.

"Disappointment" is the fans' reaction to these two deals. In the context of the team relocating, people feel that they are deliberately hollowing out the team. Presti did it again in 2019 when selling stars. He exchanged Paul George, who had a place in the MVP list at the time, for Alexander, Gallinari and five first rounds.

This has caused the same doubts as 12 years ago. Many people say that the Thunder should not be bad. Why should we push it back and start over after finally collecting stars?

Presti's choice was to not respond, he digested all the sounds by himself. He would bring his headphones and take out the drums he had been playing since he was a child, and knock him down with a fast-paced beat. Or meditate and relax your body and mind. At the same time, Presti developed a paranoid eating habit of long-term self-discipline and completely refusing to refine carbs - to a certain extent, this requires strong willpower, which also helped him to be able to see the truth under the cover of countless noises.

And facts have also proved that Presti's judgment of player ability and potential is very accurate and keen:

He saw Parker at the Spurs, and Parker eventually became one of the best point guards in basketball history;

He sent Ray Allen away, making room for Durant's future growth. Rashad Lewis seems to have changed the air, but the draft pick in 2008, which ended up being Sergi Ibaka;

Then in 2007, 2008 and 2009, Presti selected three future MVPs in a row.

Westbrook, who was selected in the fourth pick in 2008, was also a choice that was completed under pressure. But Westbrook and Ibaka selected this year have both become representative works of Thunder Draft Draft philosophy in the future. Presti adopted the idea of ​​deputy Troy Weaver (who is also considered the behind-the-scenes hero of the Thunder’s ability to win the draft) - pick players in good health and teach them shots and skills.

Selecting an MVP can be luck, but choosing three MVPs is not.

With Alexander becoming the new MVP in 2025, the number of MVPs Presti trained has increased to 4. Do you know that the NBA has a long history and there are still 8 teams that have never produced MVP so far?

The accumulation of video editor's debut, years of in-depth research, and a unique evaluation system for players. These things give Presti a valuation skills that are beyond the reach of ordinary people.

In the 2019 deal with the Clippers, Presti's attitude was very clear. If the Thunder did not get Alexander, they would never do any kind of negotiations.

And in the summer of 2024, when people were puzzled by Thunder's move to exchange Gidey for Caruso, Presti made it clear that "it would definitely be a win-win deal." When everyone saw Caruso as the best defensive player in the playoffs in 2025, they naturally shut up.

But did Presti make no mistakes?

If he has achieved perfection in every decision in 17 years. Then there are only two possibilities: He came here through the timeline, or he was an omniscient and omnipotent God.

In fact, we don't have to deify this 47-year-old man. During his 17-year management career, there are also some unsatisfactory trades and drafts:

Although selecting three MVPs in 2007, 2008 and 2009 is definitely a deity. But for a long time after choosing Adams in 2013, Presti didn't choose any truly valuable players.

In 2016, Presti used Ibaka to exchange the No. 11 draw from the Magic, and Sabonis, who was selected for this draw, could have been a very exciting bargain. But in the summer of 2017, he and Oladipo packed up for George, and then both became All-Stars in Indiana.

And the biggest disappointment in the Thunder's history actually comes from Presti's work. In 2012, his decision to trade Harden to the Rockets was the biggest regret in the Thunder's history.

Although Presty always seized every opportunity to ask Buford for knowledge about the labor agreement, Presty still did not make the right choice when renewing Harden.

The identity of the small ball market made Presti fear the rapid expansion of payroll tax bills in the future. At the same time, he did not expect that four years after he chose to give up Harden, the salary cap would rise from 58 million to 94 million due to the rapid increase in the league's income.

This made their petty concern about Harden's salary at that time become an insignificant joke...

If history had a rearview mirror, then Presti really missed a huge historical opportunity at that time node - if Presti gritted his teeth and kept Harden on the parallel timeline, maybe they would get the Warriors' script from 2014 to 2019 and become the most legendary team in the NBA since 2010.

, even, even more so.

In this way, Durant will not choose the "hardest" path to surrender to the enemy because of losing to the Warriors - let Durant leave the Thunder freely and leave nothing behind, perhaps another rare stain in Presti's management career.

This probably also made Presti prefer to take the lead in every subsequent transaction involving stars (George, Westbrook, Paul), right?

But who has not made any mistakes?

is like that joke - "This is not my dark history, but my way of coming."

Regrets have always been the norm in life, but when Presti collected the past shortcomings and lessons one by one, studied and polished the goblins for 17 years, and adapted this year's 68-win team, which seemed to be without weaknesses, he was ready to leave no regrets.

Compared with the famous legends in history, Presti is probably missing the NBA championship trophy.

Perhaps when he holds up the O'Brien Cup this summer, which symbolizes honor and glory. We have reason to respect him, the best general manager in NBA history, right?