FIVE DAYS BEFORE the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder opened coaching camp following the franchise’s first-ever NBA title, Sam Presti sat down at a desk contained in the crew’s apply facility about 10 miles north of the crew’s downtown enviornment.
“Morning all people,” the Thunder’s basic supervisor mentioned at 10 a.m. native time because the assembled media settled in on Sept. 25.
Carrying a black button-up shirt, Presti cleared his throat and reached for a number of sheets of paper in entrance of him, squaring them up.
Presti learn for the subsequent 12 minutes, speaking concerning the development of the NBA and the challenges forward for the Thunder’s forthcoming season, which he known as Chapter 18, a nod to the crew’s 18th season in Oklahoma. The event marked Presti’s annual preseason information convention, one of many uncommon cases by which he publicly addresses the media.
Although he’s maybe probably the most extremely regarded govt within the league, Presti is simply as identified for his discomfort within the highlight. He prefers to stay hidden within the background. However he makes these information conferences depend, they usually typically final for 2 hours.
“As has been the case for the reason that first time I sat in entrance of the media in Oklahoma Metropolis in 2008, I am going to sit right here till the final query is requested, till you guys begin asking me questions like, ‘What books are you studying?’ and issues like that, that is once I’m most likely going to name it,” he mentioned in 2022.
And, regardless of his protestations, that led to an annual custom.
It unfolds like this: On the finish of the information convention, somebody will ask Presti what he has learn over the earlier a number of months, and the GM will oblige.
This season, because the information convention reached almost two hours, that custom started anew.
Presti sat again and commenced to catalog. He “dabbled” in a number of issues, he mentioned, together with work from Joan Didion and a 1923 assortment of essays by the French architect Le Corbusier referred to as “Towards an Structure.” He mentioned he’d learn “The Science of Hitting” by Boston Crimson Sox legend Ted Williams and the writer John Underwood.
The range of topics was typical. In previous periods, he has talked about jazz drummer Artwork Blakey, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and Max Perkins, the editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe.
However there’s one writer whose work Presti has repeatedly cited: a legendary historian who has received two Pulitzer Prizes, and who since 1974 has been engaged on an acclaimed, multivolume biography concerning the life, legacy and affect of former President Lyndon Johnson.
That writer is Robert Caro, and Presti has not solely referred to his books as inspiration, he has additionally steadily cited Caro’s iconic philosophy and course of as a guiding gentle for the way he has constructed the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder into a possible dynasty the franchise and its followers hope will even span a number of volumes.
As for his NBA admirer, Caro mentioned he is honored.
“I’m really touched,” he advised ESPN, “if you wish to know the reality.”
THE PUBLIC ADMIRATION started in 2020.
On a Zoom name in his resort room on the Walt Disney World campus contained in the NBA’s bubble, Presti mentioned he was starting his days by figuring out after which “attempting to make a dent into that Robert Caro e book,” which at the moment was “Grasp of the Senate,” Caro’s third in his sequence about Johnson.
“It is a kind of books the place my wrist will get drained earlier than my eyes,” Presti mentioned of the 1,167-page tome that focuses on Johnson’s tenure within the U.S. Senate from 1949 to 1960, together with his efforts to move the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1957.
4 years later, in his opening assertion on Sept. 24, 2024, because the Thunder had been about to embark upon their inaugural NBA championship season, Presti cited Caro’s mantra.
“Certainly one of my favourite authors, Robert Caro, has an incredible saying about analysis, the place he says, ‘It’s a must to flip each single web page,’ and I actually like that relative to what it’s that we’ve got to do with a purpose to uncover the crew,” Presti mentioned.
“Now we have to actually perceive and undergo each iteration to make sure that we’re not shutting off potential pathways that would actually assist us or get us to a different stage, whether or not it is now or sooner or later. … I feel by turning each web page, you give your self each alternative.”
Later, in the identical opening assertion, as he talked concerning the admirable depth on the Thunder roster and the way he thought the crew may leverage it for a future, Presti repeated Caro’s mantra.
“If we’re turning each web page, as we talked about, we’ll discover some issues out of that, as nicely, if we keep interested in it.”
Minutes later, he repeated it once more. “We acknowledge that with a purpose to be distinctive, with a purpose to be that crew, you need to be prepared to be an exception, and for us meaning staying curious, staying open, figuring out you’ll be able to’t discover it when you’re not trying and turning each web page.”
He wasn’t completed.
Later, when requested about midseason additions by way of commerce, Presti said: “I feel we have to flip each web page, to make use of Caro once more. Now we have to see. As a way to see that, it’s going to take time. I do not know if we’ll have the flexibility to try this. However we’ve got to, as I mentioned earlier than, be interested in that.”
Name it executive-speak, name it pointless repetition, name it the largest of clichés, however Presti and the Thunder consider in it — and it informs every thing they do.
From there, the mentions have continued, together with on June 30, simply eight days after the Thunder defeated the Pacers in Sport 7 of the NBA Finals, when he described how proud he was of what the crew had completed, and the way everybody was consumed with the pursuit of progress, somewhat than outcomes or adulation.
“I feel that could be a credit score to their maturity and a credit score to the management that [Thunder coach Mark Daigneault] and his teaching workers demonstrated, not simply this 12 months however over the course of time,” Presti mentioned.
“Very a lot pace-setting and never clock-watching, not timelines or exterior expectations, actually simply turning each web page.”
PRESTI IS FAR from alone in his admiration for Caro.
Caro’s four-volume sequence on Johnson has bought greater than 1 million copies, and there are museum reveals dedicated to the author and his work.
All six of his books have been featured on the duvet of The New York Instances Guide Evaluation, and the final one, launched in 2012, was reviewed in The Instances by former President Invoice Clinton. None has gone out of print; final 12 months, “The Energy Dealer,” which turned 50, bought greater than 40,000 copies in its 74th printing.
Late evening talk-show host Conan O’Brien, considered one of Caro’s greatest followers, advised The Instances of Caro’s work, “The Lyndon Johnson books by Caro, it is our Harry Potter.”
However it’s Presti’s repeated vocal appreciation of Caro’s exhaustive method that’s notable.
Over his 60-year reporting profession, Caro has interviewed 1000’s of individuals and turned over a whole bunch of 1000’s of pages.
Take into account his first e book, “The Energy Dealer,” a biography of Robert Moses, an city planner who wielded extraordinary energy over New York Metropolis and throughout the state. Over a seven-year interval, Caro carried out 522 interviews and wrote greater than 1 million phrases. He additionally went broke, and his spouse, Ina, was compelled to promote their residence.
However the 1,296-page tome was groundbreaking. It received a Pulitzer Prize, amongst quite a few different awards, and is taken into account one of many biggest biographies in historical past.
The e book modified Caro’s life.
Presti is not the one Caro fan within the NBA, both; his former boss in San Antonio, Gregg Popovich, can be an admirer.
Within the Venn diagram of the NBA and Caro aficionados, you would be hard-pressed to discover a extra ardent admirer than Sam Hinkie, the previous president and basic supervisor of “The Course of” Philadelphia 76ers from 2013 to 2016.
“Robert Caro,” Hinkie advised ESPN in 2015, “is my favourite writer.”
Such a fan of Caro is Hinkie that, in 2020, Hinkie named the Menlo Park, California-based funding agency he based 87 Capital, a reference to Caro’s second e book on Johnson, “Technique of Ascent.”
In Silicon Valley, if somebody begins studying Caro’s work, odds are that they’re going to be linked to Hinkie. Final 12 months, Hinkie ran a e book membership the place members learn 100 pages of “The Energy Dealer” every month, then gathered to speak about it.
Hinkie first encountered Caro’s books in his late 20s. He devoured them shortly.
“I am drawn to the doggedness and the period of what he did,” Hinkie mentioned.
To Hinkie, Caro is singular — a “one-in-a-million author, and a one-in-a-billion researcher — in the identical particular person,” Hinkie mentioned. “Then you definately get this nonfiction that reads like literature, which he purposely educated himself to do, which makes it extra fascinating and extra memorable and makes the 1,200-page e book not as daunting because it in any other case may be.”
Because it pertains to the NBA, team-building and the function of a basic supervisor, Hinkie mentioned Caro’s “flip each web page” mantra — the considered one of which Presti is so fond — may very well be translated to easily staying open-minded to what may be discovered.
Or, as Presti typically says, to remaining curious.
However simply as Presti holds Caro in excessive regard, Caro feels the identical about basketball.
The sport, he says, has lengthy served as an undercurrent to his life and his work.
IT’S EARLY ON Might 24, and the evening earlier than, Caro’s beloved New York Knicks had misplaced one other shut Jap Convention finals sport at residence towards the Indiana Pacers. He’d watched at residence because the Pacers received 114-109, taking a 2-0 lead within the best-of-seven sequence.
“That was a foul evening,” the then-89-year-old advised ESPN. “It is actually worse than the primary sport, since you felt they’re simply quicker than us, youthful than us.”
Today, tales about Caro concentrate on his efforts to complete the fifth and closing quantity of his sequence about Johnson. At present, Caro says he is on web page 982.
“I am not almost accomplished but,” he provides. “It may be one other very lengthy e book. A part of the reason being once I did the analysis, I attempted to show each web page.”
He takes a uncommon break, although, to debate a ardour exterior his decades-long examination of energy.
“I love basketball,” Caro says. “I am not excellent at it, however I like it.”
Throughout his teenage years on the Horace Mann Faculty in New York, Caro additionally liked soccer, however he says he wasn’t excellent at that both, so he turned a sportswriter.
He maintained that custom at Princeton, the place he filed an 800-word sports activities column titled Ivy Inklings thrice per week for The Every day Princetonian newspaper. (“It was all the time working too lengthy,” he says of his column.)
Within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, Caro started a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard College, the place he stored a small workplace on campus whereas enjoying on a neighborhood basketball crew.
“I’ve a tip in your readers: On the age of 30, do not play basketball,” Caro mentioned. “I harm my again [and] my Nieman 12 months was dropped at an finish. Buddies of mine needed to deliver me residence mendacity behind a automotive. That was type of the tip. I do need to say, although, that I had a terrific leap shot. I am unsure all people appreciated it, however I did, anyway.”
Caro’s love of the sport continued in New York within the early Seventies when he attended video games throughout the Knicks’ championship seasons in 1970 and 1973.
“Walt Frazier, to me, was one thing so particular,” Caro mentioned earlier than digging into the particulars of Sport 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals, when the Knicks beat the Lakers to win their first NBA title.
“You already know, in that sport the numbers that got here out — I am going to always remember — are 36 and 19. Walt Frazier scored 36 factors and had 19 assists. I can keep in mind to today. Between the 36 factors of his personal and the 38 factors that he obtained for different guys, that is 74 factors! And he would come down the court docket and virtually intentionally go alongside the baseline and, very slowly, as if he had an entire half court docket specified by entrance of him, he would make the move or rating.
“It is one of many memorable nights of my life.”
Caro’s philosophy, he mentioned, started in 1959, when he labored as a younger reporter at Newsday on Lengthy Island.
“One weekend, as a result of everybody else was on trip, I obtained to do an investigative story,” he mentioned.
The paper’s managing editor was a veteran journalist from Chicago named Alan Hathaway. Caro advised him he did not know something about investigative reporting.
“And he regarded up at me [and said], ‘Simply keep in mind one factor — flip each web page, by no means assume something, flip each goddamn web page,'” Caro mentioned.
That precept would form Caro’s method and his profession.
“And there are occasions in my life once I hear his voice saying that, like if you’re down on the Lyndon Johnson Library [in Austin, Texas], and also you name for the recordsdata on one thing they usually deliver you out 8 million items of paper that you will undergo,” Caro mentioned. “And also you say, ‘Oh, I’ll skip this field.’ And then you definitely abruptly hear Alan’s voice — ‘Flip each web page, do every thing.’ And I am unable to inform you what number of instances by doing that I discovered stuff that helped my work, helped me perceive Lyndon Johnson.”
Over time, Caro has repeatedly heard from individuals in all walks of life who’ve conveyed how a lot his analysis course of has meant to them.
“I’ve to inform you, with out exaggerating, I get a variety of letters from individuals saying they’ve adopted that as their motto or they perceive what it meant. So to have [Presti], who is a good basketball govt, say that, I am very touched by it.”
And relating to his mantra’s place within the Thunder’s 2025 championship?
“It is flattering to assume my motto performed a job,” Caro mentioned, “nevertheless it’s gamers and coaches that win championships — not authors.”
AS THE THUNDER had been within the midst of their postseason run to a championship, a person named Steven Taylor loved breakfast at a diner in downtown Oklahoma Metropolis.
Taylor, a former Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom, is the daddy of Wilson Taylor, the Thunder’s director of logistics.
He is additionally shut pals with Presti and loves Presti’s hourslong information conferences. A few years in the past, Taylor advised him somebody should have the transcripts printed and sure right into a e book of their very own, maybe one that would assist train administration or management.
In September, as Presti sat earlier than the media, his opening assertion referenced a selected theme — that the crew’s success from the earlier season would not carry over.
Right here, he used a play on the Caro philosophy.
The Thunder, Presti mentioned, wanted this time to show the web page.
“Successfully turning the web page permits us the required renewal to deal with this coming season with the respect it deserves. To maximise this coming season, we’ve got to voluntarily divorce ourselves from the success of final season or it is going to maintain us again.”
As he completed his opening salvo, after discovering the miniscule area between turning each web page and turning the web page, and repeating it many times, he outlined his expectations for the approaching season and the Caro-inspired course of he believed the Thunder would wish to undertake to fulfill them.
“If we need to pursue excellence, we’ve got to let go of final 12 months and begin once more, turning each web page, stacking every single day with no ensures, and naturally, no silver platters,” he mentioned, including, “Chapter 18 is but to be written. Final season we talked about nothing being anticipated however something being doable, and that is how we really feel once more this 12 months.”
Then he thanked everybody and opened it as much as questions, saying he’d keep there so long as they needed.