AMONG THE MANY photos adorning Sam Presti’s office wall is one particular image of legendary football coach Bill Walsh. In it, Walsh is lying on the ground, hands behind his head, seemingly at peace just before a Super Bowl his San Francisco 49ers were about to play. His calm wasn`t born of overconfidence in victory, but from knowing he was prepared.
For years, that photo has hung in Presti`s office as the executive vice president of the Oklahoma City Thunder, a constant reminder of something to strive for. Yet, when his own moment arrived – the time to relax and trust the meticulous preparation for his team`s championship opportunity in Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers – Presti chose a different path entirely.
The night before the most significant game of his professional life, he went home and unleashed his energy on his drum set.
The music echoed everything that went into building and then rebuilding this Thunder squad. It resonated with the lessons learned from the ascent and eventual dissolution of the Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden era – lessons that shaped the current rebuild centered around a new stellar trio: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren.
Presti is perpetually focused on construction and growth.
Except when he`s playing the drums.
“There’s a different part of your brain,” Presti explained, “that you have to access.”
That specific mental space is precisely what makes this Thunder team distinct.
Both the past and present Thunder iterations were young. Both featured a stylish, ball-dominant point guard. Both had a lanky 7-footer possessing guard-like skills. Both boasted an unconventional wing player capable of creating scoring opportunities with drives to the basket.
The physical parallels are so striking, it almost seems Presti held a casting call for lookalikes back in 2019, but filtered for one critical trait.
This time, Presti cast for humility instead of bravado.
The first three superstars eventually outgrew sharing a single team, each needing a larger stage for their individual growth. They were as competitive with each other as they were with opponents, possessing significant swagger, ambition, and egos.
In contrast, the three stars who delivered the Thunder`s first championship on Sunday night revel in sharing the spotlight. So much so that they often pull their teammates into post-game on-court interviews.
When ABC`s Lisa Salters presented Gilgeous-Alexander with the Finals MVP award and inquired about his partnership with Jalen Williams, Gilgeous-Alexander immediately extended his arm to include his teammate in the moment.
He paused, gathering his thoughts.
“Jalen Williams … is a one-in-a-lifetime player,” he declared.
As the crowd cheered, 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 lifted the gleaming trophy himself, he handed it back to Gilgeous-Alexander, who promptly started sharing it with the rest of the team.
“Pass it around,” he urged. “Pass it around.”
Both within the confines of Paycom Arena and beyond, this spirit of shared purpose is the prevailing 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 commented.
In many respects, they were exactly that: kids playing basketball. This was the youngest team to secure an NBA title in nearly five decades. Williams, at 24, was just 10 when Durant, Westbrook, and Harden fell to LeBron James and the Miami Heat in the 2012 Finals – too young to fully grasp the parallels between that team and this year’s squad.
They were so young, in fact, that Williams had his first taste of alcohol during the champagne celebration in the Thunder locker room on Sunday night.
“That was my first drink,” Williams confessed afterward in the hallway. “Ever.” And they were so unfamiliar with celebratory rituals that 31-year-old veteran Alex Caruso had to show them how to open the champagne bottles.
“I’m old because they just haven’t been around anybody over 30 before,” Caruso joked. “It’s weird.”
But Presti remembers the 2012 Finals vividly. He remembers every detail. And all of it has influenced how and why he constructed this team differently this time around.
Numerous sayings are printed on magnets stuck to the wall of Presti’s office, next to that photo of Bill Walsh. So many maxims, all in black capital letters on white magnets.
CHARACTER IS FATE.
TO BUILD IS IMMORTAL.
AGILITY IS THE QUALITY OF AN OPTIMIST. These are phrases he’s conceived, read, or heard.
POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH.
HARDER BUT SMARTER.
INFORM THE MUSIC.
Presti borrowed the last one from a Fleetwood Mac documentary, where Lindsey Buckingham used it discussing the creation of their album `Rumors.` Presti isn’t a big TV viewer, but he has watched countless music documentaries.
“I just like how art is created,” he mused. “I like to understand the process of creation and construction, and all the backstories. And I enjoy learning about the people behind the creations – what inspires them, what brings that out. Then it’s immortalized; that’s their statement of the time.”
Presti had been contemplating his own statement, fitting for this championship moment, for quite some time. What would he say on the victory dais if the Thunder clinched the title? Ever cautious, he avoided getting ahead of himself; the decisive loss in Game 6 had instilled humility throughout the organization.
Yet, true to his nature, he was also prepared.
“These guys embody everything good about being young,” he stated. “They prioritize winning, they prioritize sacrifice, and it all came together remarkably quickly. Age is just a number. Sacrifice and maturity are characteristics, and these guys possess them in abundance.”
ALL SEASON LONG, the persistent question surrounding this Thunder team was whether their youth was a handicap. Would they falter against more experienced opponents? Would the pressure of winning the sixth-most regular-season games in history (68) prove too heavy? Could they win close games after setting an NBA record this season for the largest point differential?
The 2012 team faced similar doubts. Durant and Westbrook were both 23, Harden was 22, and like this year`s squad, they seemed poised for a decade of championship contention.
“I thought we’d be winning two or three championships,” reflected former Thunder guard Reggie Jackson. “But our story didn’t unfold as expected.”
In that initial championship bid, they simply weren`t ready, while LeBron James and the Miami Heat were. The Heat, having lost the Finals the prior season, had spent a year focused on how they would approach a return opportunity differently.
Most assumed the same trajectory for the Thunder after their 2012 loss. They would return, wiser from experience, ready to claim the title. Back then, Presti believed his primary task was maximizing the championship window when his stars reached their prime, typically around ages 26 or 27, mirroring the San Antonio Spurs organization where he`d developed, and their approach with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker.
His homegrown trio was still a few years shy of that prime, necessitating the preservation of financial flexibility in the near term.
Consequently, when Harden`s contract extension was due that summer, Presti adopted a measured stance. He offered a substantial amount, close to the maximum, but not the full figure, hoping Harden would make a small sacrifice for the collective goal.
However, Harden had other aspirations, both personal and financial. He had spent the 2012 Summer Olympics listening to stars like Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul extolling his talent and encouraging him to lead his own team.
Ultimately, the Thunder`s offer of four years and $55 million was just $5 million shy of a full max extension. Crucially, accepting it would have pushed them over the luxury tax threshold they were diligently trying to avoid.
Once Harden declined that offer, Presti felt compelled to trade him to safeguard the long-term organizational plan. He also believed it was necessary because sacrifice was a foundational tenet of the culture he aimed to cultivate.
On Sunday night, Presti invoked that very word, sacrifice, twice during his speech on the championship dais.
This encapsulates the second key lesson Presti derived from his first team build: maturity is a characteristic; age is merely a number.
The first time, he was perhaps too rigidly focused on the belief that the optimal time to win aligned with his stars reaching a certain age. This belief was underpinned by data, as is often the case with Presti’s commitments.
But he didn`t allow sufficient room for an alternative reality to manifest – a reality that became strikingly evident this time, the more he observed how rapidly this team matured and how inherently selfless they were.
“They’re young, but their maturity, selflessness, and genuine affection for one another are truly remarkable and unique,” Presti told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt Sunday night. “Their age is a fact, but they’ve never allowed it to define them.”
Newer magnets on his office wall reflect this shift in perspective.
IN ORDER TO BE EXCEPTIONAL, YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO BE THE EXCEPTION.
MARK DAIGNEAULT HAS visited Presti’s office so frequently that its distinctiveness no longer overwhelms him.
Presti had specifically groomed Daigneault to become the Thunder’s head coach, much like RC Buford, Gregg Popovich, and the San Antonio Spurs had prepared Presti to lead a front office two decades prior.
Presti consistently admired Daigneault’s demeanor, his insights into the game, and his strategic thinking. He discovered Daigneault on Billy Donovan’s coaching staff at the University of Florida and brought him to Oklahoma City to work with the team’s younger players.
For five years, Daigneault directed the Thunder’s developmental program, the Blue. He genuinely loved coaching the Blue and still occasionally wears their apparel to Thunder practices.
“I hated leaving the G League,” Daigneault admitted. “Ask my wife. She’ll tell you how much I loved it.”
Presti recognized that passion. And the more time he spent with Daigneault, the more he envisioned him as the leader of his next major rebuild.
So, Presti joined the Blue on a road trip to observe more closely and evaluate Daigneault’s potential as a future NBA head coach.
“I had no idea,” Daigneault recalled when asked if he realized he was being considered for the top job. “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, located in a former roller-skating rink downwind from the local dog food plant. Every player who passes through the program inevitably mentions the smell.
Earning a promotion from the Blue to the Thunder meant escaping that aroma forever. Yet, in Daigneault’s second year as head coach, he decided to ground his new team in that origin story.
The Thunder had finished the previous season with a 22-50 record, a stark contrast to the team that had nearly upset Harden’s Houston Rockets in the 2020 playoffs.
Following that 2020 season, Presti fully committed to the rebuild, trading Chris Paul to the Phoenix Suns and replacing Billy Donovan with Daigneault, the young player development specialist, at the helm.
Players arriving for the first day of camp in the fall of 2021 were surprised to find buses waiting outside, ready to transport them to the old Blue facility. This was where the very first Thunder teams practiced after the franchise relocated from Seattle in 2007. So, this new group would also begin there.
It was a motivational strategy, not punitive. And it left a lasting impression.
“My rookie year we did a whole thing,” Aaron Wiggins explained. “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 among all the magnets in Presti’s office. Each visit reveals something new, but one line always resonates, taken from a speech by Christopher Walken in the movie `Poolhall Junkies.`
SOMETIMES THE LION HAS TO SHOW THE JACKALS WHO HE IS.
THE SUMMER OF 2019 marked the unofficial conclusion of the first Thunder era and the dawn of this one.
That was the summer Russell Westbrook was traded, fulfilling his request, to the Houston Rockets – just seven days after Presti had traded Paul George, also per his wishes, to the Los Angeles Clippers in a blockbuster deal. That trade brought back Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the draft pick that would later become Jalen Williams, and a treasure trove of future draft selections that jump-started the Thunder rebuild.
At the time, Presti had no inkling he had just acquired a future MVP and All-NBA talent.
He believed Gilgeous-Alexander would be a good player. He hoped he might develop into a very good one someday. But League MVP? That seemed far-fetched.
In April 2022, Presti recounted a story about the first time he saw Gilgeous-Alexander at the Thunder facility after the trade. It was late, and Presti was emotionally and physically drained from finalizing the Westbrook deal. But he heard a basketball bouncing somewhere inside and looked out an office window to see Gilgeous-Alexander getting shots up.
“He didn’t even have Thunder gear on,” Presti recalled. “That stuck with me because I thought, ‘Why doesn’t this guy have Thunder gear on? What is this? What kind of operation are we running here?’
“It struck me as ironic, and I thought, ‘If this guy ever becomes a significant player, I need to remember this story.’”
Presti didn’t share this anecdote until after the 2022-23 season, by which time Gilgeous-Alexander had established himself as a bona fide rising star and the Thunder had improved to 40 wins, earning a spot in the play-in tournament.
Even then, Presti didn’t fully appreciate the extent of Gilgeous-Alexander’s future growth. Nor did he realize how unusual it was to see Shai dressed so casually.
That moment represented the low point at the beginning of a long climb for both of them. For the future MVP, it was a difficult period; being traded was painful. He questioned if there was a flaw in his game or character that led to it, and his only known coping mechanism was to head to the gym and work through the emotions.
Gilgeous-Alexander rarely speaks about that feeling of rejection, but he did address it during a visit to Los Angeles this season.
“Their front office made a trade that they believed was best for their team,” he said. “The same goes for the Thunder. Since then, over the past five years, I’ve concentrated on my development and the team’s growth. I’ve strived to be the best basketball player possible for the Oklahoma City Thunder. And I’d say that approach has benefited me.”
Gilgeous-Alexander is almost never dressed down like he was that first day in the gym post-trade.
Growing up, his mother, Charmaine Gilgeous, insisted her sons wouldn’t leave the house until they were “fixed up,” as she put it.
“We always tried to dress and look presentable,” Gilgeous-Alexander shared last season. “When you step out, you represent your family. That idea kind of evolved into what it is today.”
He has been named GQ’s most stylish player twice. He meticulously plans his outfits weeks in advance, paying as much attention to sartorial details as he does to eating a red apple before every game.
Naturally, he planned what he would wear for the potential championship-clinching game.
“Yeah, but once I was in the moment, I wanted to win so badly that I just threw something on quickly,” Gilgeous-Alexander admitted. By his own standards, the black leather pants and dark gray sweatshirt he wore for Game 7 were quite understated.
“It was supposed to be a much bolder look, but this morning I woke up, and all I could think about was winning, so I didn’t have time to put effort into it.”
“I was just like, ‘Let’s go win this thing.’”
PRESTI CULTIVATES A distinct atmosphere in his home office in Oklahoma City.
It is designed to resemble the cabin where 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 writings for years.
There is no technology in Presti’s room. Just a desk, bare walls, and plain floors. Outside, a deck overlooks 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 retreats to this space deliberately, too.
To think without overthinking.
It serves as an antidote to the multitude of magnets bearing lessons on his office wall.
It’s an escape from the Bill Walsh photo and the architecture books by Frank Lloyd Wright and Bauhaus master Ludwig Mies van der Rohe neatly arranged on his primary office desk.
It’s quiet. Spartan. Simple. And sometimes, that is the most effective foundation from which to build.
This time, he built differently, with longevity in mind. He selected players who would grow together, not drift apart.