If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the hypothetical scenarios and fan fantasies dominating the talk leading up to Thursday night’s NBA draft, you probably realize it’s a bit of a crapshoot. It’s nearly impossible for pundits, insiders, or any head given a microphone and a backdrop to predict, with consistency, what NBA teams are going to do. And it’s even harder to determine which teenagers and 20-somethings will be as good as advertised and which will be colossal busts.
So how lucky we all are that I don’t consider myself a pundit, insider, or expert! I will not be so bold as to suggest I know what’s going on inside Sam Presti’s well-groomed head. (Besides, there’s a chance the Thunder might try to trade their pick, thereby indirectly rendering said speculation worthless.) So let’s do the next best thing: look back at some of OKC’s most memorable draft picks.
Cole Aldrich (aka “Mysterious White Dude”), 11th pick, 2010
First things first: Aldrich was actually drafted by New Orleans before being traded to the Thunder for Craig Brackins. My buddies and I call him “Mysterious White Dude” because he was a monster on College Hoops 2k8, despite being a no-name freshman stuck behind future Thunder pick Sasha Kaun on the depth chart of a national championship team. Seriously, we didn’t know his name. He was just “C #45.” Anyway, he didn’t do much for the Thunder other than play the role of the human victory cigar/bloody towel. But whenever he did get in the game, he tried really hard. Like, to the point where Scott Brooks couldn’t even compliment him for his effort. He just had be like, “Dude, chill. The game is over. That’s the only reason you’re playing.” Aldrich’s most memorable moment in OKC came when he was included in the James Harden trade. He now plays for the Knicks, where he’s had a few decent games but also does stuff like this.
Robert Swift, 12th pick, 2004
OK, OK. I know. Technically Swift wasn’t a Thunder pick either — they were still the Supersonics when they drafted the 7-foot-1 center straight out of high school. But Swift’s story is just too juicy to disqualify with a technicality. Why, you ask? Because he looked like this; he drove this truck (and parked it next to the downtown office I worked at when I was in high school); and when his disappointing basketball career came to end, he refused to vacate his foreclosed Seattle home and then trashed the place like a drunk frat guy before he left. After that, his story trends toward the tragic, and I’m not about to make fun of someone for succumbing to addiction. But the Birdman-Shaun White hybrid was one of the last high school busts before the league implemented its “one-and-done rule” in 2006, and it stands to reason he probably was a catalyst in that decision.
The 2008 Draft
This one can’t be summarized with a single pick. It was the Thunder’s first class of rookies — the team officially became the Thunder six days after the draft — and it consisted of six (six!) picks, which included future superstars Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka, three scrubs, and the aforementioned Russian, Sasha Kaun. It’s crazy to think that back then neither Westbrook nor Ibaka were sure things. Westbrook, the No. 4 pick, was an ultra-athletic shooting guard who was projected to be a defensive stopper. Ibaka, snagged at No. 24, was an 18-year-old Congolese project who would spend a season playing in Spain before the Thunder decided to bring him to OKC. You’ve probably heard all that before, but it’s important to realize just how lucky the Thunder got with this draft. Rarely do top-five picks end up exceeding a team’s already high expectations, and even less frequently do teenage Euro-stashes develop into franchise cornerstones. But OKC got both in the same draft class. That’s insane.
James Harden, 3rd pick, 2009
I’m sorry, but we have to talk about this one. There was actually a time when people (17-year-old me may or may not have been one of them) were pretty upset that the Thunder took James Harden. We needed a post scorer — you know, an NBA-ready body like Hasheem Thabeet! Not some tall-T-wearing, unclutch, overrated ball hog who got shut down by Syracuse and would take precious touches away from Russ and KD. Why didn’t we trade up for this guy?! Yeah, I was (and still am) an idiot. By 2012, Harden appeared to complete OKC’s quatrain of championship basketball poetry, in part because of his admirable selflessness and low-key attitude. (In retrospect, LOL.) But things weren’t meant to be.
Still yet, in consecutive drafts, the Thunder picked up an MVP, a scoring champion, an All-NBA Defense first-teamer, and a Sixth Man of the Year. That’s absolutely unreal. Teams are thrilled to draft one of those types of players every decade, and OKC got four in three years. It’s a shame the band didn’t stick together long enough to hang a championship banner from the rafters at The ‘Peake, but the core is still here. So let’s remember the good times, realize how lucky we were as fans to experience them, and recognize that, when healthy, this team is still one of the baddest bunches in the league. And whomever the Thunder pick Thursday won’t change that.
