Baxter HolmesApr 24, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseBaxter Holmes (@Baxter) is a senior writer for ESPN Digital and Print, focusing on the NBA. He has covered the Lakers, the Celtics and previously worked for The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times.Follow on XMultiple Authors
Phoenix Suns vs. Oklahoma City Thunder: Game Highlights (1:18)Phoenix Suns vs. Oklahoma City Thunder: Game Highlights (1:18)
RASHARD LEWIS NEVER played a game for the Oklahoma City Thunder. But in one obscure way, the two-time All-Star, who spent the first nine of his 16 NBA seasons with the Seattle SuperSonics — the precursor to the OKC franchise — is directly connected to the defending champions.
Random fans have presented it to him more and more in recent years as the Thunder have ascended, winning an NBA title in 2025 while barreling toward a potential repeat this season.
They point out the ridiculous, unlikely nature of it all — how a 2007 sign-and-trade that sent Lewis from Seattle to the Orlando Magic marked the first of five moves, all of them connected, that helped form the foundation of the Thunder’s current championship core. And they ask Lewis if he can believe it.
Lewis thought back, connecting the past and the present, and thought of the through line: the architect behind each transaction and the Thunder team that has earned the top seed in the Western Conference for the past three seasons.
It wasn’t hard for Dutt to imagine that Lewis’ time with Seattle, which had drafted Lewis in 1998, might be over. Lewis himself had been contemplating that very idea. He was 27, and the Sonics had posted losing records in four of their past five seasons. He wanted to win.
Four days later, Lewis opted out of the final two years of his contract, becoming an unrestricted free agent that summer. But with whom Dutt and Lewis would be negotiating from the Sonics was unclear.
Two months after Clay Bennett — who led a group of Oklahoma City businessmen to buy the Sonics in July 2006 — ousted the team’s general manager, Rick Sund, he had yet to land on a replacement despite months of searching.
A former San Antonio Spurs minority owner during the mid-1990s, Bennett had asked Spurs general manager R.C. Buford if he’d be interested. It was a bold request; the Spurs had won three titles since 1999 and were en route to winning a fourth that season, but Bennett figured he had nothing to lose.
“R.C. was courteous and professional and said while he was in a very good place in San Antonio, he had someone in mind,” Bennett recalled during Presti’s induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in November 2025. “He said the candidate was young but exceptional, with enormous promise: Sam Presti.”
Presti was then a vice president and assistant general manager who had joined the Spurs as an intern in 2000, initially making $250 per month. He had earned four promotions since and a reputation for his knowledge of the salary cap. He also helped design the team’s scouting database, and he was credited for the decision to draft French point guard and future Hall of Famer Tony Parker in 2001.
Bennett knew Presti a little. The two had met during the 2006-07 season in San Antonio when the Spurs were hosting the Sonics. After Buford’s recommendation, Bennett met with Presti at a hotel in Irving, Texas.
Presti was hired three weeks after the draft lottery, becoming Seattle’s 11th general manager and the second youngest in league history.
At his introductory news conference, Presti, who was part of three championships in San Antonio, quickly dispelled the notion that he’d try to re-create the Spurs culture in Seattle.
Three weeks later, on June 28, the Sonics drafted Durant with the No. 2 pick as many expected, but then Presti made the first unexpected move of his career, trading star shooting guard Ray Allen, the team’s leading scorer, along with the 35th overall pick, to the Boston Celtics in return for Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and the No. 5 pick, which Seattle used to draft promising Georgetown forward Jeff Green.
The move signaled, in many ways, the start of a rebuild with the team now centered on two talented rookies in Durant and Green.
Along with a few members from the Sonics’ coaching staff and front office, Presti joined Dutt and Lewis in a Houston hotel room. Dutt knew Presti from his time working with the Spurs under San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich.
During the meeting, Presti explained how much the team liked Lewis and how it would love to have him back, but Dutt and Lewis knew the Sonics were financially limited.
Days later, the Magic offered Lewis a six-year, $118 million contract. The Sonics couldn’t match it, and Presti asked Dutt to work with the team on a sign-and-trade, just so Seattle could get something in return for Lewis’ departure. Dutt agreed.
On July 11, the Sonics traded Lewis to Orlando for a second-round pick, carving out a $9 million trade exception.
It wasn’t a huge haul, but given his interaction with Presti, Dutt imagined that Presti would use it wisely — that “it would have an impact down the road,” and he told him so.
UNDER NBA RULES, teams have one full year to use a trade exception. Presti didn’t wait nearly that long.
Nine days after the Lewis sign-and-trade, Presti used the exception to take on Kurt Thomas’ contract from the Phoenix Suns, getting two first-round picks, one each in 2008 and 2010, for giving Phoenix the salary relief. The swap gave the Sonics five first-round picks over the next three drafts — the start of a war chest.
Later that fall, in an interview with The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, Presti laid out his philosophy:
“Our approach to building a team and improving our basketball decisions is to look to make sound decisions on a daily basis — not to be hunting the grand slam or the big fish,” Presti told the newspaper. “But we will try to accumulate a number of very good decisions that culminate in consistency over the long term.”
The following summer, Presti used the first of those two first-round picks to draft center Serge Ibaka, who, as fate would have it, became the last player the Sonics would ever draft in the first round. The team officially relocated to Oklahoma City, where it would become known as the Thunder, just six days after the draft.
In the years ahead, the Thunder quickly ascended, with Durant, Ibaka, Russell Westbrook and James Harden leading the team to the 2012 NBA Finals against LeBron James and the Miami Heat in what seemed to mark the beginning of a potential dynastic run.
But the Thunder lost to Miami, and Presti traded Harden to Houston a few months later, in part to keep Ibaka — both players were eligible for contract extensions, and keeping both of them would have pushed OKC into the luxury tax.
Ibaka played four more seasons with the Thunder, never returning to the Finals. On the night of the 2016 draft, Presti traded Ibaka to the Magic for power forward Ersan İlyasova, guard Victor Oladipo and the draft rights to forward Domantas Sabonis. (Lewis was long gone by then, having played his final NBA game in 2014.)
The next year, Presti traded Oladipo and Sabonis to Indiana for star swingman Paul George. It was seen as a risky move at the time because many around the NBA believed George wanted to play in Los Angeles and would leave OKC as soon as he got the chance. Instead, he signed a four-year, $136.9 million contract in the summer of 2018 to remain with the Thunder.
However, the euphoria from that move was short-lived. In 2019, George’s agent approached Presti with news: George wanted out.
LA CLIPPERS PRESIDENT of basketball operations Lawrence Frank recalled the particulars during a 2022 deposition as part of a lawsuit — later dismissed — surrounding the team’s pursuit of star forward Kawhi Leonard.
As Frank recalled, the Clippers were in talks in the summer of 2019 with Leonard, a free agent who had just won a championship with the Toronto Raptors.
But Leonard wanted the team to pursue another star player to play alongside him. The Clippers presented options, one of them being George, then with the Thunder.
Frank continued, “Also unbeknownst to us, Paul George spoke to his agent and had his agent call the general manager of Oklahoma City Thunder, where Paul George was playing at the time and asked for a trade.”
Frank added, “Also unbeknownst to us, that general manager/president, Sam Presti, met with Paul George to confirm he wanted a trade.”
After all the unbeknownst-to-the-Clippers elements unfolded, Frank said the Clippers received a call from Presti “saying they were going to trade Paul George, that they were going to make him available to a couple of teams, and that we should make our best offer.”
Team sources previously said the Clippers feared that Leonard would sign elsewhere, particularly with the Lakers, which provided the Thunder with considerable leverage.
The Clippers sent Gilgeous-Alexander, forward Danilo Gallinari, a then-unprecedented five first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps for George.
The titanic haul, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, created an enviable collection of assets, one of which was used in 2022 to draft future NBA All-Star Jalen Williams with the 12th pick.
A RIVAL EXECUTIVE who was on the other side of one of the five transactions between the Lewis sign-and-trade and the Clippers-Thunder swap in 2019 said it’s not unusual for teams to look back on specific deals and see how aspects of them branch out over time.
And another team executive said that anyone could look at the moves Presti made across that span and assess specific patterns in his decision-making.
The executive added, “People would say it’s obvious when he took over the Sonics to trade Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis and do a rebuild, but at the time it was not obvious. They were only one year removed from having a pretty good team, and [Allen and Lewis] were regarded as good players and the rebuild was regarded as uncertain.”
The moves were bold; Presti had quickly parted ways with the Sonics’ two best players, both of whom went on to have immediate success elsewhere. Allen won a title in Boston the next season. Lewis, meanwhile, led the NBA in 3-pointers made (220) in 2009 and reached the Finals with the Magic the year after that. He also won a title with the Heat in 2013.