Offseason Approach

Run it back

Actual Cap Space

-$33.3 million

Practical Cap Space

-$32.2 million

Projected Luxury Tax Space

$3.6 million

Under Contract (13)

Alex Caruso
Ousmane Dieng
Lu Dort
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Isaiah Hartenstein
Chet Holmgren
Isaiah Joe
Dillon Jones
Nikola Topic
Cason Wallace
Aaron Wiggins
Jalen Williams
Kenrich Williams

View Roster

Potential Free Agents (5)

Branden Carlson (restricted – two-way)
Alex Ducas (restricted – two-way)
Adam Flagler (restricted – two-way)
Ajay Mitchell (restricted – team option)
Jaylin Williams (restricted – team option)

View Free Agents

Dead Cap (0)

None

Projected Signing Exceptions

Non-Taxpayer MLE ($14.1 million)
Bi-Annual Exception ($5.1 million)

Notable Trade Exceptions

None

First Round Draft Pick

#15
#24

Notable Extension Candidates

Ousmane Dieng (rookie scale extension)
Lu Dort (veteran extension)
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (veteran extension)
Chet Holmgren (rookie scale extension)
Jalen Williams (rookie scale extension)
Jaylin Williams (veteran extension)
Kenrich Williams (veteran extension)

Analysis

After one of the quickest, and most successful, full rebuilds we’ve ever seen the Oklahoma City Thunder are the 2025 NBA champions. A deep, versatile roster led by MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished off a dominant run to the title with a hard-fought seven-game victory over the Indiana Pacers.

The scary thing for the rest of the NBA? The Thunder aren’t going away anytime soon.

Oklahoma City has a whopping 13 players under contract for next season already. They also have full control over the free agency process for their five pending free agents. That means that the Thunder could literally run it back with the exact same team as next season, accounting for Nikola Topic being healthy and ready to play this time around.

That’s probably not going to be how it goes. The Thunder have been here before with too many players for too few roster spots. That’s led to trading away some of the young guys who never quite cracked the rotation. That’s probably how this is going to play out again.

Sam Presti also is sitting on two first-round picks at the 2025 NBA Draft, because of course he is. Expect one of those picks to get moved, probably in a deal that returns even more future picks, because that’s what Presti does better than anyone else in the NBA. The team doesn’t really have room for two rookies, so why not kick the can down the road with at least one pick?

Free agency is probably going to be relatively non-descript for the Thunder. As referenced above, the team is out of roster spots. But the Thunder do like Ajay Mitchell and Jaylin Williams quite a bit. They could pick up team options for both, then figure out the roster issues as they go. They could also decline their team options for either player, make them restricted free agents, and work out long-term deals. Either way, OKC can control this process.

The two-way free agents could all be back in the fold next year too, because the Thunder have seen all of them flash at various times. Expect that to be things at least start out, with potential for some movement later in the offseason or during training camp.

If the team does need a roster spot to fit in a 2025 first-rounder, it might mean moving on from Ousmane Dieng. Doing so would also clear up one of the team’s three rookie scale extensions that need handled this offseason. Dieng may still have some untapped potential, but he looks like one of those guys who might not get there while with OKC. The playing time simply isn’t there for him. The Thunder are also unlikely to extend Dieng, as the terms would have to be so team-friendly that Dieng would be best to bet on himself.

Nothing will probably happen with Lu Dort, Kenrich Williams or Jaylin Williams (if the team picks up his option) as far as extensions go. By now you probably get that roster spots are an issue, so that impacts both Kenrich and Jaylin Williams long-term. Dort still has two years left on his deal, so the Thunder don’t need to extend him yet, and can handle that next offseason. Or even later this season, if they decline Dort’s team option for 2026-27.

But three major extensions still loom. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is super max eligible after winning MVP this season. This summer, Gilgeous-Alexander could sign a projected four-year, $293 million extension. That deal would start with the 2027-28 season as Gilgeous-Alexander is under contract through the 2026-27 season without any options. The Year 1 salary in that four-year extension would be a projected $65.5 million, with a final year salary in 2030-31 of $81.2 million.

Yeah…we’re closing in on the first single-season $100 million player.

If Gilgeous-Alexander wants to fully cash in on the longest and largest extension possible, he could delay and sign that deal in the summer of 2026. That would be a five-year, $379.8 million deal. The starting salary would be the same, but in 2031-32, that contract would finish up at $86.5 million.

Bet on the MVP cashing in now. There’s no reason to not take that incredible long-term, generational security now. Plus, SGA should command a player option on the final year, which would allow him to cash in one more time before his age-32 season.

The other two big extensions coming for Oklahoma City are for Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams. The easy answer is to give both players max deals. Williams has certainly earned a max extension. Coming off an All-NBA nod, expect Williams’ extension to also include Designated Player language, so he can bump up to 30% of the cap in his new deal.

Holmgren’s situation is a little different. His potential is so great that you probably don’t balk at giving him a max deal. Holding firm at a 25% of the cap max for Holmgren is probably fair, given he’s building a somewhat serious injury history already.

The other option is to pitch that building a team around three max guys, especially given Gilgeous-Alexander will be on a 35% max, and Williams could easily jump to a 30% max, is going to cost the Thunder down the line. Would one, or more, of the trio sacrifice a little bit to help keep this team together longer? We haven’t really seen that for players this young, but this OKC group is so tight-knit and feels a bit different than other situations.

If max deals are a must, the Thunder are still set up better to handle that than most teams. As they get increasingly expensive, they’ll have to move off some future salary. But Presti is still sitting on up to 11 first-round picks over the next six drafts after this one. And don’t be surprised if he adds a few more to that mix. That plethora of picks will allow Oklahoma City to replace outgoing talent in a way that other teams can’t match, even as the team nudges up against the aprons in the future.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are now beginning the process of being the defending champions. No one has repeated in the NBA since the 2018 Golden State Warriors. The Thunder are going to get really expensive, but that’s not coming until 2026-27 at the earliest. There might not be a ton of roster movement this offseason, even if a lot of spending gets locked in for the future. But this team doesn’t really need a whole lot. Everything is set up for run at back-to-back titles in Oklahoma City.