Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2025

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3781 - Oklahoma City Thunder 2024-25 NBA Champs!!


A Sense of Doubt blog post #3781 - Oklahoma City Thunder 2024-25 NBA Champs!!

This is not my team, but I do love this team.

I had my eye on them last year and thought they could win it all.

And then they improved.

Once my teams were out (Pistons and Warriors), I was rooting for the Celtics in the East and the Thunder in the West.

I like the Pacers, which is a bold statement coming from a life-long and die-hard Pistons fan. But I told people who would listen all season to watch the Pacers as a dark horse in the East. I was not surprised when they made the finals, and they forced a Game Seven, which means they had a very good chance to win it all.

Could they have that game had Halliburton not been injured so badly he couldn't play on in the first quarter?

Maybe.

I do think the Thunder is the better and more complete team with more depth, but the Pacers are scary good.

I am really happy for the Thunder winning the championship. 

I know, I know, bittersweet for people out here in Washington because this team WAS the Seattle Sonics, but that was years ago. They ship has sailed. That's over.


Congratulations OKC Thunder!

Thanks for tuning in.






Game 7: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scores 29 points and Thunder beat Pacers 103-91 for NBA title

OKLAHOMA CITY -- — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander walked off the court for the final time this season, collapsed into the arms of coach Mark Daigneault and finally smiled.

It was over.

The climb is complete. The rebuild is done. The Oklahoma City Thunder are champions.

The best team all season was the best team at the end, bringing the NBA title to Oklahoma City for the first time. Gilgeous-Alexander finished off his MVP season with 29 points and 12 assists, and the Thunder beat the Indiana Pacers — who lost Tyrese Haliburton to a serious leg injury in the opening minutes — 103-91 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night.

“It doesn’t feel real,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, the Finals MVP. “So many hours. So many moments. So many emotions. So many nights of disbelief. So many nights of belief. It’s crazy to know that we’re all here, but this group worked for it. This group put in the hours and we deserve this.”

Jalen Williams scored 20 points and Chet Holmgren had 18 for the Thunder, who finished off a season for the ages. Oklahoma City won 84 games between the regular season and the playoffs, tying the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls for third most in any season.

Only Golden State (88 in 2016-17) and the Bulls (87 in 2015-16) won more.

It’s the second championship for the franchise. The Seattle SuperSonics won the NBA title in 1979; the team was moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. There’s nothing in the rafters in Oklahoma City to commemorate that title.

In October, a championship banner is finally coming. A Thunder banner.

“They behave like champions. They compete like champions,” Daigneault said. “They root for each other’s success, which is rare in professional sports. I’ve said it many times and now I’m going to say it one more time. They are an uncommon team and now they’re champions.”

The Pacers led 48-47 at the half even after losing Haliburton to what his father said was an Achilles tendon injury about seven minutes into the game. But they were outscored 34-20 in the third quarter as the Thunder built a 13-point lead and began to run away.

“Deflated, but proud of everything we’ve accomplished,” Pacers guard TJ McConnell said.

Bennedict Mathurin had 24 points and 13 rebounds for Indiana, which still is waiting for its first NBA title. The Pacers — who were 10-15 after 25 games and were bidding to be the first team in NBA history to turn that bad of a start into a championship — had leads of 1-0 and 2-1 in the series, but they simply didn’t have enough in the end.

Home teams improved to 16-4 in NBA Finals Game 7s. And the Thunder became the seventh champion in the last seven seasons, a run of parity like none other in NBA history.

Pacers forward Pascal Siakam was part of the Toronto team that won in 2019, Thunder guard Alex Caruso was part of the Los Angeles Lakers team that won in the pandemic “bubble” in 2020, Milwaukee won in 2021, Golden State in 2022, Pacers forward Thomas Bryant and Denver prevailed in 2023, and Boston won last year’s title.

And now, the Thunder get their turn. The youngest team to win a title in nearly a half-century has reached the NBA mountaintop.

The Thunder are the ninth franchise to win a title in NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's 12 seasons. His predecessor, David Stern, saw eight franchises win titles in his 30 seasons as commissioner.

“It really hurts on the one hand,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “On the other hand, this team has given all of Pacer Nation something to be very proud of.”

https://www.espn.com/nba/game/_/gameId/401766128/pacers-thunder




The Oklahoma City Thunder's 103-91 victory in Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday was a collective coronation for the franchise, which won its first title since moving to OKC.

It was also a coronation for star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who just capped one of the NBA history's most successful individual seasons with 29 points and 12 assists in the finale, becoming only the fifth player with a 20-10 performance in Game 7 of the Finals.

In the 2024-25 campaign, Gilgeous-Alexander won the scoring title, the MVP and the championship while leading his team to the best-ever point differential. And he could soon finish this wonderful year by signing a four-year, $293.4 million extension, which would give him the highest average salary in the history of the sport.

Gilgeous-Alexander is still just 26 years old, but he's rapidly rising the list of all-time greats. He and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are the only players in NBA history to win MVP, Finals MVP and a scoring title by age 26. (Bob Pettit would have this trifecta, too, but the Finals MVP award didn't exist yet when he was the best player on the title-winning St. Louis Hawks in 1958.)

On the heels of his historic accomplishment and Oklahoma City's crowning moment, let's analyze Gilgeous-Alexander's surprising ascent, budding legacy and lofty statistical comps.

SGA passed NBA legends on way to the title

Gilgeous-Alexander faced long odds to reach this NBA peak. He was the 30th-ranked recruit in his high school class, behind 10 prospects who didn't make it to the NBA. In his lone college season, he wasn't even the highest-scoring freshman on his own team, finishing second behind future lottery bust Kevin Knox II.

And although Gilgeous-Alexander was himself a lottery pick, at No. 11, he was traded twice in his first year as an NBA player: first on draft night, as the Charlotte Hornets flipped his rights to the LA Clippers for Miles Bridges, and then the following summer, as part of Oklahoma City's return for Paul George. Despite impressing in his first NBA season, he made only second-team All-Rookie, as Marvin Bagley III grabbed the final spot on the first team.

SGA is not the most obscure MVP winner and champion. Just this decade, Nikola Jokic (who was drafted in the second round) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (who stumbled into playing basketball as a teenager in Greece) have him beat.

But for an indication of how far Gilgeous-Alexander has surpassed expectations, note that during the 2018 predraft process, ESPN chose Shaun Livingston and Patrick McCaw as his comps -- two players who never averaged double-digit points in a single season in their careers. (Both Livingston and McCaw were coming off championship wins with the Warriors in 2018.)

Seven years later, Gilgeous-Alexander is a surefire Hall of Famer even if he never plays another game. Derrick Rose is the only retired MVP in league history who's not in the Hall, and Gilgeous-Alexander's résumé far outstrips that of Rose, who never made another All-NBA team after his breakthrough in 2011.

More remarkable is how Gilgeous-Alexander now measures against many of the best players in league history. Compared to guards who made the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team, he already has as many first-team All-NBA nods (three) as Isiah Thomas, Steve Nash, Allen Iverson and Tiny Archibald. And SGA has more than Lenny Wilkens, Russell Westbrook, Dwyane Wade, John Stockton, Gary Payton, Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Reggie Miller, Damian Lillard, Sam Jones, Hal Greer, Dave Bing and Ray Allen.

In other words, Gilgeous-Alexander isn't merely a surefire Hall of Famer, but a top-50-or-so player, depending on how one weighs peak value against overall career value. At 26, he doesn't have the sort of overall counting stats that many of those aforementioned legends possess.

Yet with first-, second- and fifth-place MVP finishes, Gilgeous-Alexander already ranks 35th in career MVP award shares -- a measure of the percentage of possible votes that a player received. One more decent season would vault him into the top 30 on the all-time MVP shares leaderboard. Two more strong seasons would likely push him into the top 20.

SGA's supreme scoring skills

Gilgeous-Alexander is a well-rounded star -- he led the league in steals last season -- but his greatest skill is scoring. He's now one of 15 players in NBA history to average at least 30 points in three separate seasons.

The Thunder guard compounds his impressive volume scoring with elite efficiency, thanks to his midrange mastery, finishing finesse and ability to convert his many free throw attempts at a near-90% clip. Gilgeous-Alexander and Adrian Dantley are the only players in NBA history with at least three seasons of 30 points per game on 62% or better true shooting.

Granted, scoring efficiency is higher now than ever before, so Gilgeous-Alexander's true shooting is partly a reflection of leaguewide context. But that evolution just means he has taken advantage of his surroundings to become one of the most efficient high-volume scorers ever.

Gilgeous-Alexander excels in all of the most important play types in the modern NBA. Over the past three seasons, per GeniusIQ, he ranks second out of 128 players with at least 300 isolations in points per iso. He also ranks fourth out of 100 players with at least 1,500 screens as the ball handler in points per pick. (Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton is first in both categories.) And Gilgeous-Alexander is the league's undisputed driving king, leading in that category every season; over the past half-decade, he's more than 1,000 total drives ahead of second-place Luka Doncic.

High point totals don't always go hand in hand with postseason triumphs; Michael Jordan famously didn't win a championship in his three highest-scoring seasons. Yet Gilgeous-Alexander has paired that individual success with even greater team success. Since the invention of the shot clock, only Gilgeous-Alexander, Jordan (six times), Shaquille O'Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have won the scoring title and the championship in the same season.

And SGA has them beat in actual scoring: His 32.7 points per game in the 2024-25 regular season are the most for any player in NBA history who won a championship that season, edging out Jordan's 32.6 points per game in 1992-93.

Gilgeous-Alexander also narrowly beats Jordan in the highest usage rate for a champion, at 34.8% to Jordan's 34.7% in 1992-93.

Speaking of Jordan, because his name has come up a lot in these lists of historical comps, here is a downright sacrilegious chart, comparing Gilgeous-Alexander's past three seasons to Jordan's from 1991 to 1993 -- arguably the most successful three-season run by a guard in NBA history.

Jordan won three titles in this span to Gilgeous-Alexander's one, of course, and he was a superior defender, with All-Defensive first-team honors in each of those three seasons. But on offense, their numbers are eerily similar, including identical points-per-game figures, down to the decimal point, and the exact same league-adjusted efficiency figure.

What's next for SGA's legacy?

Amid the rightful celebration of Oklahoma City's comprehensive roster construction, with all the shrewd trades, undrafted finds and clever extensions, Gilgeous-Alexander's presence seems almost undersold.

Yet imagine, for a moment, a world in which the Thunder had pulled off the same George blockbuster without Gilgeous-Alexander included. A team with Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren and a bushel of picks would still be full of promise -- but would that multiversal iteration of the Thunder be anything better than, say, a Western Conference version of the Orlando Magic, with Williams and Holmgren as young rising stars, a la Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner?

They certainly wouldn't be NBA champions with the best regular-season point differential in league history. Depth and youth are great fun, but ultimately, winning the title requires an MVP-level talent, and that's the greatest advantage Gilgeous-Alexander gives the Thunder. He's the main reason they vaulted so quickly from rebuilding to hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

However, all that depth and youth, to say nothing of rapidly improving sidekicks Williams and Holmgren, should prove vital to burnish Gilgeous-Alexander's legacy. It's a mutually beneficial relationship, because for SGA to rise higher up the NBA's all-time ranks, he will essentially require more championships. That's a difficult task in the modern NBA, which has had a record seven different champions in seven years. But Oklahoma City is the best-positioned team since the mid-2010s Golden State Warriors to use its first title to initiate a dynasty.

NBA fans have been spoiled by numerous all-time greats in recent years, with Jokic, Antetokounmpo and, of course, LeBron James and Stephen Curry winning titles and multiple MVP trophies. It's far too early to place Gilgeous-Alexander on their historical pedestal.

Yet given his youth, accomplishments to date and opportunity for sustained team success, that pedestal is his for the taking.




SGA joins NBA championship, MVP and scoring champions list


Shai Gilgeous-Alexander joined elite company in 2025, capping off a historic season by bringing Oklahoma City its first NBA title since becoming the Thunder. With the win, he's one of a few players who have won an NBA championship, league MVP and scoring title in a single season. Who else is on the list?

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder (2025)

  • 2025: 32.7 PPG, 5 RPG, 6.4 APG

  • Notable achievements: One-time MVP, one-time scoring champion, one-time NBA champion, three-time All-Star

Shaquille O'Neal, Los Angeles Lakers (2000)

  • 2000: 29.7 PPG, 13.6 RPG, 3.8 APG

  • Notable achievements: Hall of Fame, one-time MVP, two-time scoring champion, four-time NBA champion, 15-time All-Star

Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls (1998, 1996, 1992, 1991)

  • 1998: 28.7 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 3.5 APG

  • 1996: 30.4 PPG, 6.6 RPG, 4.3 APG

  • 1992: 30.1 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 6.1 APG

  • 1991: 31.5 PPG, 6 RPG, 5.5 APG

  • Notable achievements: Hall of Fame, five-time MVP, 10-time scoring champion, six-time NBA champion, 14-time All-Star

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (known at the time as Lew Alcindor), Milwaukee Bucks (1971)

  • 1971: 31.7 PPG, 16 RPG, 3.3 APG

  • Notable achievements: Hall of Fame, six-time MVP, two-time scoring championship, six-time NBA champion, 19-time All-Star

Check out the ESPN NBA hub page for the latest news, stats, standings and more.







NBA Finals 2025: Why this Oklahoma City Thunder big 3 might be the one to start a dynasty

Ramona Shelburne
Jun 23, 2025, 11:30 AM ET


THE PHOTO ITSELF is one of many that hang in Sam Presti's office. Legendary football coach Bill Walsh is laying on the ground, hands behind his head, seemingly at peace with whatever was about to happen in the Super Bowl his San Francisco 49ers were about to play. Not because he was eminently confident that his team would win.

Because he was prepared.

For as long as Presti has worked from that office as the executive vice president of the Oklahoma City Thunder, that photo has hung as a reminder, as something to strive for. But when the time came for him to relax, to trust in everything he'd done to craft and prepare his team for its championship moment in Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers, as Walsh had done before that Super Bowl, Presti did something entirely different.

The night before the biggest game of his professional life, he went home and rocked out on his drum set.

Everything it had taken to build and then rebuild this Thunder team coursed through the music. Everything he'd learned from the rise and fall of the Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook-James Harden teams, lessons that have informed the rebuild around this new trio of stars: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren.

Presti is always thinking about building.

Except when he is playing the drums.

"There's a different part of your brain," Presti told ESPN, "that you have to access."

That part of his brain is how this Thunder team is different.

Both teams were young. Both teams had a fashion-forward, ball-dominant point guard. Both had a skinny 7-footer with guard skills. Both had an eccentric wing player who could open up a whole new world with his drives to the basket.

The physical similarities are so striking, it was almost as if Presti put a casting call out for lookalikes back in 2019 but screened for one important difference.

This time Presti cast for humility instead of swagger.

The first three superstars grew too big for one team and eventually each needed a bigger pot to grow in. They were as competitive with each other as they were with their opponents. They had swagger and ambition and egos.

The three stars who brought home the Thunder's first championship Sunday night delight in sharing the spotlight with each other. So much so that they bring the whole team into their interviews on the court after games.

When ABC's Lisa Salters presented Gilgeous-Alexander with the Finals MVP award, she asked about his partnership with one of his co-stars, Jalen Williams. As she did, Gilgeous-Alexander extended his left arm to pull his teammate into the ceremony with him.

He paused, collecting himself.

"Jalen Williams ... is a one-in-a-lifetime player," he said.

As the crowd erupted, Gilgeous-Alexander paused again.

"One second, sorry," he said. "One second, sorry.

"Without him, without his performances, without his big-time moments, without his shotmaking, defending, everything he brings to this team, we don't win this championship without him.

"This is just as much my MVP as it is his."

After Williams took his turn raising the gleaming trophy above his head, he gave it back to Gilgeous-Alexander, who began to share it with his teammates.

"Pass it around," he said. "Pass it around."

Within the walls of Paycom Arena, and even outside of them, it is an ethos.

"Our togetherness on and off the court, how much fun we have, it made it feel like we were just kids playing basketball," Gilgeous-Alexander said.

In many ways that's exactly what this team was. Kids playing basketball. The youngest team to win an NBA title in nearly 50 years. Williams, 24, was just 10 years old when Durant, Westbrook and Harden were losing to LeBron James and the Miami Heat in the 2012 Finals. Too young to understand the parallels of that team to this year's team.

So young that he took his first drink of an alcoholic beverage Sunday night in the champagne celebration in the Thunder locker room.

"That was my first drink," Williams said in the hallway afterward. "Ever." So young that none of them even knew how to open the champagne bottles until 31-year-old Alex Caruso showed them.

"I'm old because they just haven't been around anybody over 30 before," Caruso joked afterward. "It's weird."

But Presti remembers those 2012 Finals. He remembers all of it. And all of it has informed how and why he built this team differently this time.

There are so many sayings printed out on the wall of Presti's office, next to that photo of Bill Walsh at the Super Bowl. So many sayings, all printed out in black capital letters on white magnets.

CHARACTER IS FATE.

TO BUILD IS IMMORTAL.

AGILITY IS THE QUALITY OF AN OPTIMIST. These are sayings he has come up with or read or heard somewhere.

POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH.

HARDER BUT SMARTER.

INFORM THE MUSIC.

Presti got that last one from a documentary on Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey Buckingham said it when he was talking about everything that went into their album "Rumors." Presti doesn't really watch TV, but he has seen countless music documentaries.

"I just like how art is created," he said. "I like to understand how things are created and built and all the different stories behind the creation. And I like to know about the people that are putting that stuff together. What's inspiring them and what's bringing that out of them. And then it's memorialized and that's their statement. That's their statement of the time."

Presti has been thinking about his statement, for this time, for a while. What he would say up on the championship dais if the Thunder managed to win the title. He was cautious, as he always is, about getting ahead of himself; the blowout loss in Game 6 had humbled everyone in the organization.

But he was also, of course, prepared.

"These guys represent all that's good at a young age," he said. "They prioritize winning, they prioritize sacrifice, and it just kind of unfolded very quickly.
 "Age is a number. Sacrifice and maturity is a characteristic, and these guys have it in spades."

ALL SEASON THE biggest question about this Thunder team was whether they were too young to win. Whether they'd blink against a more seasoned opponent. Whether the pressure of winning the sixth-most regular-season games in history (68) would weaken their stomachs. Whether they could win close games after breaking the record this season for the largest point differential in NBA history.

The 2012 team faced similar questions. Durant and Westbrook were both 23, Harden was 22, and just like this year's team, it seemed as if they'd have opportunities to win championships for the next decade.

"I thought we'd be winning two or three championships," former Thunder guard Reggie Jackson told ESPN. "But our story didn't go as expected."

That first year they simply weren't ready to win, while LeBron James and the Miami Heat were. The Heat had lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the Finals the previous season and spent all year thinking about what they'd do differently if they had another shot at it.

That's what most assumed would happen for the Thunder after losing in 2012. They'd be back again, lessons learned, ready to win. Back then Presti believed his job was to maximize the window to win once his stars hit their prime, around age 26 or 27, just as the San Antonio Spurs -- the organization that had raised him -- had done with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

His homegrown threesome was still a few years away from that, which meant preserving financial flexibility in the short term.

So when Harden came up for an extension that summer, Presti took a measured approach. He offered him close to the maximum, but not the full amount, hoping Harden would sacrifice a little for a larger common goal.

Harden had other ambitions though, personally and financially. He'd spent the 2012 Summer Olympics listening to stars such as Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul telling him how talented he was and encouraging him to lead his own team.

In the end, the Thunder's offer of four years, $55 million was just $5 million short of a full max extension. And more importantly, it would've put them over the luxury tax they were so diligently trying to avoid.

Once Harden turned down that offer, Presti believed he had to trade him to keep the long-term plan intact. But also because sacrifice was a key tenet of the culture he was trying to build.

On Sunday night, Presti used that word twice when he made his statement on the championship dais.

That is the second lesson Presti learned from his first build. Maturity is a characteristic. Age is just a number.

The first time around he'd been too wedded to the idea that the time to win was when his stars hit a certain age. There was data behind that idea, as there always is when Presti commits to something.

But he hadn't left enough room for an alternate reality to present itself -- a reality that smacked him upside the head this time around, the more he watched how quickly this team came of age and how mature it already was.

"They're young, but their maturity, selflessness and true love for one another is really unique and special," Presti said in an interview with ESPN's Scott Van Pelt Sunday night. "The age is what it is. They've never let that define them."

There are newer magnets up on his office wall to reflect that shift.

IN ORDER TO BE EXCEPTIONAL, YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO BE THE EXCEPTION


MARK DAIGNEAULT HAS been to Presti's office so many times he's not overwhelmed by it anymore.

The GM had groomed him to be the Thunder's head coach, much like RC Buford, Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs had prepared Presti to run a front office two decades earlier.

Presti always liked the way Daigneault carried himself, how he talked about the game and how his mind worked. Presti found him on the back bench of Billy Donovan's staff at the University of Florida and brought him to Oklahoma City to work with the team's younger players.

For five years Daigneault ran the Thunder's developmental program, the Blue. He loved coaching the Blue and still wears their gear to Thunder practices sometimes.

"I hated leaving the G League," Daigneault said. "Ask my wife. She'll tell you how much I loved it."

Presti could see it, too. And the more he was around Daigneault, the more he could envision him as the leader of his next rebuild.

So he went out on a road trip with the Blue to observe more closely and evaluate whether Daigneault could be a future NBA head coach.

"I had no idea," Daigneault said, when asked if he understood he was being considered for such a promotion. "I wasn't thinking that was a possibility at all. I just loved coaching in the G League."

The Blue practice at the Thunder's original facility, a roller-skating rink downwind of the Purina dog food plant. Every player who comes through the program talks about the smell.

Earning a promotion from the Blue to the Thunder means never having to smell that again. But in Daigneault's second year as head coach, he wanted to ground everyone in it.

The Thunder had gone 22-50 the previous season, a huge departure from the team that nearly knocked off Harden's Rockets in the 2020 playoffs.

After that season Presti began the full rebuild in earnest, trading Paul to the Phoenix Suns and replacing Donovan with the young player development specialist, Daigneault, at the front of the bench.

Players showed up on the first day of camp in the fall of 2021 surprised to see buses parked outside, waiting to take them to the Blue facility. That was where the first Thunder teams practiced after the franchise moved from Seattle in 2007. So that was where this group would begin, too.

It was a motivational tactic, not a punitive one. And it was memorable.

"My rookie year we did a whole thing," Aaron Wiggins told ESPN. "We just kind of went through the way that they were able to pave the way for us to be here, and we acknowledged everything they went through, different parts of the history and where Oklahoma City started. Our coaching staff just wanted to prioritize that baseline."

Daigneault has a favorite line from all the magnets in Presti's office. Each time he goes in there, he notices something different. But the one that sticks out comes from a speech Christopher Walken delivers in the movie "Poolhall Junkies."

SOMETIMES THE LION HAS TO SHOW THE JACKALS WHO HE IS.

THE SUMMER OF 2019 marked the unofficial end of the first Thunder era and the beginning of this one.

That was the summer Westbrook was traded, according to his wishes, to the Houston Rockets -- seven days after Presti had traded Paul George, also per his wishes, to the Los Angeles Clippers in a deal that would bring back Gilgeous-Alexander, the draft pick that later became Williams and a treasure trove of picks that jump-started the Thunder rebuild.

Presti had no idea he'd just traded for a future MVP and All-NBA player.

He thought Gilgeous-Alexander would be good. The GM hoped he might be very good one day. But league MVP? No way.

In April 2022, Presti told a story about the first day he saw Gilgeous-Alexander at the Thunder facility after that trade. It was late and Presti was exhausted, emotionally and physically, after wrapping up the Westbrook trade. But he heard a ball bouncing somewhere in the facility and looked out an office that had a window to see Gilgeous-Alexander getting some shots up.

"He didn't even have Thunder gear on," Presti said. "That I remember because I was like, 'Why doesn't this guy have Thunder gear on? What is this? What kind of shop are we running here?'

"It was ironic to me, and I thought, 'If this guy ever becomes a player, I've got to remember this story.'"

Presti didn't tell this story until after the 2022-23 season when Gilgeous-Alexander had established himself as a rising star in this league and the Thunder had won 40 games to earn their way back to the play-in tournament.

Even then, he didn't realize how much more Gilgeous-Alexander would grow. Nor did he understand what an aberration it was to see Gilgeous-Alexander dressed so simply.

This was the bottom of a long climb they both were about to make. For the future MVP, it was a low moment; it hurt him to be traded. He questioned whether he had a flaw that caused it, and the only way he knew how to deal with that feeling was to go to the gym and work through it.

Gilgeous-Alexander rarely talks about that feeling of rejection, but on his way through Los Angeles this season he did.

"Their front office made a trade that they thought was the best for their team," he said. "Same with the Thunder. Then the last five years I've tried to focus on my development and the team's development. I've tried to be the best basketball player for the Oklahoma City Thunder. And I'd say that it worked out in my favor."

Gilgeous-Alexander never is dressed down like he was that first day in the gym after the trade.

When he was growing up, his mother, Charmaine Gilgeous, wouldn't let her sons leave the house until they "fixed up," as she used to put it.

"Growing up we'd always try to dress and look the part," Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN last season.

"You step out of the house, you look the part. You're representing the family. And that kind of transferred into what it is now."

He has twice been named GQ's most stylish player. He plans out his outfits weeks in advance and is as meticulous about the details as he is about eating a red apple before games.

Of course he planned what he would wear to the game when he could win his first NBA championship.

"Yeah, but once I was in the moment, I just wanted to win so bad that I just put something together quick," Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN.

By his standards, the black leather pants and dark gray sweatshirt he wore to Game 7 were rather bland.

"It was supposed to be so much louder than this, but this morning I woke up and all I wanted to do was win, so I didn't even have time to put effort into that.

"I was just like, 'Let's just go win this thing.'"

PRESTI HAS A very different kind of vibe in his home office in Oklahoma City.

It is modeled after the cabin in which Henry David Thoreau wrote "Walden, or Life in the Woods" in 1845.

Presti grew up in nearby Concord, Massachusetts, and has visited the site and studied Thoreau's work for years.

There is no technology in Presti's room. Just a desk, bare walls and floors. Out back there is a deck overlooking a stream.

Thoreau once wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach."

Presti comes to this place deliberately, too.

To think without overthinking.

As an antidote to all the magnets with all the lessons he has learned on the wall.

As an escape from the Bill Walsh photo and the architecture books by Frank Lloyd Wright and Bauhaus master Ludwig Mies van der Rohe he has read that are neatly arranged on his desk.

It's quiet. Spartan. Simple. And sometimes that's the best place to build from.

This time he built differently, to last. He chose players who grew together, not apart.



https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45576780/thunder-celebrate-first-nba-title-fans-downtown-parade


A shirtless Shai Gilgeous-Alexander toted the NBA Finals MVP trophy behind a parade float Tuesday, raising his left hand to the beat of chants of "MVP, MVP" from the crowd as Oklahoma City turned out in temperatures approaching triple digits to celebrate the Thunder's first championship since the franchise moved to Oklahoma.

Gilgeous-Alexander, who began the day in a white tank with his Canadian flag shirt tied around his waist, carried the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy to the barricade so fans could touch the hardware.

Accounting for humidity, the heat index at the peak of the parade was 101 degrees according to AccuWeather. Thick air didn't slow down the party for the Thunder or the thousands of fans assembled for a celebration that started in Midtown on Tuesday morning.

Defensive stopper Lu Dort and 7-footer Chet Holmgren showered attendees with champagne, first from the second level of the team's double-decker bus and later from the top of a golf cart.

"It's very hot out here, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet," Jalen Williams said. "Without this, none of this is possible without you guys. You guys have been through the ups and downs of the Thunder organization. We appreciate you guys. We love you guys."

Isaiah Hartenstein said he hadn't slept for 36 hours, unlike his young son, who was fast asleep in his father's arms in the immediate aftermath of the team's Game 7 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday.

"It's amazing. To experience it with the family, with the community, it's been really special," Hartenstein said.

The celebration included a stage for the closing ceremony at Scissortail Park. Thunder fans packed close to the stage, and again Gilgeous-Alexander entered the crowd, bringing the team trophy through throngs of supporters for pictures and an up-close opportunity with the NBA's championship prize.

Aaron Wiggins ignited the crowd with a brief speech that touched on humble beginnings as the 55th pick to a franchise that won 24 games during his rookie season.

"There was a point where they tried to call us the black hole of the NBA," Wiggins said. "But four years later, when they mention the Thunder organization when they mention [owner] Clay Bennett, [general manager] Sam Presti, [head coach] Mark Daigneault and every single one of you in this arena, they've got to mention you as NBA champs. And that's it!"

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Dad would appreciate that a post about basketball, that he loved, would land 300 days after he died.

I miss talking to him about these games.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.25 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3646 days ago & DAD = 300 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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