Why OKC’s Success Proves NBA Lottery Reform Is Unnecessary

OKC Was Ahead Of The Curve

The Thunder hard-launched their rebuild after the 2019-20 season. Over the next five years, they had exactly one top-five pick and two top-10 picks.

The top-five pick was Holmgren, whom the Thunder took second overall in 2022. The other top-10 pick was Josh Giddey, whom the Thunder selected sixth overall in 2021. Three years later, OKC traded Giddey to the Chicago Bulls for veteran reserve Alex Caruso.

Gilgeous-Alexander and Holmgren helped give the Thunder a championship foundation, but that was only a piece of the puzzle.

Ten picks after taking Holmgren, the Thunder landed Williams at No. 12 in 2022. Although injuries submarined his 2025-26 campaign—perhaps to the Thunder’s long-term benefit—he earned his first All-Star and All-NBA selections in 2024-25. If he stays healthy next year, Williams should be right back in the All-Star mix.

Williams was hardly the Thunder’s only draft-day steal in recent years, though.

In the same draft that netted them Holmgren and Williams, the Thunder also landed Arkansas center Jaylin Williams with the No. 34 overall pick. He plays far more sparingly than those two, but he’s impactful in his bench role behind Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein.

The Thunder have also snagged Aaron Wiggins (No. 55 in 2021) and Ajay Mitchell (No. 38 in 2024) in the second round over the past few years. Wiggins is now on the fringes of the rotation, but he was a key piece off their bench in their run to the title last season. OKC signed him to a five-year, $45 million contract in July 2024 that descends in value by nearly $900,000 over each of its first four seasons.

Mitchell was an even better find—and a more prescient evaluation.

The Thunder originally signed Mitchell to a two-way contract after drafting him. After the 2025 NBA trade deadline, they gave him a two-year, $6 million rest-of-season contract that included a $3.0 million team option in 2025-26.

Mitchell averaged 6.5 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 16.6 minutes per game across 36 appearances as a rookie. When the Thunder declined their team option on him this past offseason to sign him to a three-year, $8.7 million contract with a $2.85 million team option in 2027-28, it hardly registered on the national landscape.

With Jalen Williams sidelined for a majority of the season this past year, Mitchell slid into a far bigger role than expected and averaged 13.6 points, 3.6 assists and 3.3 rebounds in only 25.8 minutes per game. He finished fifth in Sixth Man of the Year voting and is now set to earn a fraction of his would-be market value for each of the next two seasons.

The Thunder aren’t just cleaning up in the draft. They’ve hit some home runs on the trade and free-agent markets, too.

The Thunder scooped up sharpshooter Isaiah Joe off waivers in 2023 after the Sixers cut him right before the start of the regular season. After shooting only 34.9% from deep on 2.5 attempts per game during his two years in Philadelphia, Joe has knocked down 41.5% of his 5.5 three-point attempts per game in OKC. He hasn’t shot worse than 40.9% from downtown in any of his four seasons with the Thunder.

The Thunder weren’t done pilfering the Sixers there, though. They also dipped into their surplus of draft picks to acquire second-year guard Jared McCain at this year’s trade deadline. Although McCain played sparingly in their first-round sweep of the Phoenix Suns, he came off the bench to score 46 points in only 59 minutes in their sweep of LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals.

The Thunder aren’t afraid to take risks on the trade market, either. Flipping the then-21-year-old Giddey for a then-30-year-old Caruso had the potential to tremendously backfire. But the Thunder saw Giddey’s lack of shooting get exposed during the 2023-24 playoffs, and they were willing to sacrifice the higher-ceiling prospect for an older veteran who could fill a specific need.

Caruso has never averaged more than 10.1 points per game in any of his nine NBA seasons. However, he has earned two All-Defensive team nods, and he likely would have in each of the past two years as well had he played enough games and minutes to qualify. His hellacious brand of defense is a nightmare for opposing benches in particular.

The Thunder also took a big swing on Isaiah Hartenstein as a free agent in 2024. They signed him to a three-year, $87.0 million contract, which was arguably an overpay relative to his production, but they had the financial flexibility to do so with Holmgren, Williams and their other recent draft picks still on rookie-scale contracts.

That isn’t to say the Thunder have nailed all of their moves. They traded the draft pick that the Houston Rockets used to select Alperen Şengün for two conditional first-rounders, one of which didn’t wind up conveying. They also shipped out both Immanuel Quickley and Jaden McDaniels in their trade-up for Aleksej Pokusevski, a toolsy 7-footer who crashed out of the NBA within four years.

But the Thunder have had far more hits than misses in recent years, which is a testament both to their scouting department and player development staff.

Can Other Teams Follow OKC’s Model?

The Thunder are proof that teams don’t need to land multiple high-lottery picks to rebuild on the fly. Granted, their team-building model is not exactly replicable.

They began this era by trading Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers for Gilgeous-Alexander, five first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps. That wound up being one of the most lopsided trades in NBA history. (The Thunder used one of those picks to select Williams.)

Teams might not take risks like that moving forward, particularly if the NBA’s proposed draft-lottery reform comes to pass. Various NBA executives told Jake Fischer of The Stein Line that they think “we’re going to see fewer future picks traded for star players in the near term…at least until front offices get a better feel for how the looming tweaks to the NBA’s lottery system affect proceedings.”

Unless another team goes on a generational heater in the draft and on the trade and free-agent markets, it might not be possible to assemble a core quite as stacked as OKC’s current group.

Even the Thunder won’t be able to sustain this forever. Holmgren and Williams are both beginning max contract extensions in 2026-27, while Gilgeous-Alexander’s supermax deal starts in 2027-28. Those three alone will be earning roughly 80% of the salary cap moving forward, which means the Thunder will have to start picking and choosing which members of their supporting cast to keep around long-term.

That could begin this as early as this offseason. The Thunder have to decide whether to pick up their team options on Hartenstein ($28.5 million), Lu Dort ($18.2 million) and Kenrich Williams ($7.2 million). Cason Wallace will also be eligible for an extension.

But even if they begin to hemorrhage talent from their supporting cast, inexpensive replacements such as Mitchell and McCain could help them sustain their success moving forward. In essence, they’re designed to disrupt the NBA’s push for leaguewide parity.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

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