The Oklahoma City Thunder are picking in the lottery for the fourth straight season. This time around, there is one key difference — it’s via the Houston Rockets.
Oklahoma City is still pushing for an appearance in the NBA finals, but due to the Russell Westbrook-Chris Paul trade, the Thunder was once again a participant in the lottery festivities.
The way it fell, OKC will be picking twelfth, the same pick that it used to move up and select Cason Wallace last season, and pick Jalen Williams the year prior.
It is the last draft pick that OKC will receive outright from Houston by way of the Westbrook trade, although the Thunder is currently slated to receive the lowest between the Los Angeles Clippers and Rockets picks in the 2025 draft.
With the volume of draft picks OKC possesses, it is by no means stuck at twelve, and with a healthy amount of cap space, and a war chest of future draft picks, the pick could be used to move up and secure a player OKC hones in on, or it could be used as another asset in a larger trade.
Needless to say, having a lottery pick in the NBA is never a bad thing, and while it may seem like an afterthought in OKC due to the team’s success this season, players like Wallace and Williams are reminders never to take a pick in the early teens lightly.
Due to the Utah Jazz keeping its pick due to it being top ten protected, OKC now possesses a top-eight protected Jazz pick in next year’s draft, along with its own and the aforementioned best of the Clippers and Rockets.
