THE PHOTO ITSELF is considered one of many who dangle in Sam Presti’s workplace. Legendary soccer coach Invoice Walsh is laying on the bottom, arms behind his head, seemingly at peace with no matter was about to occur within the Tremendous Bowl his San Francisco 49ers had been about to play. Not as a result of he was eminently assured that his crew would win.
As a result of he was ready.
For so long as he has labored from that workplace as the chief vice chairman of the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder Presti, that picture has hung as a reminder, as one thing to attempt for. However when the time got here for him to chill out, to belief in the whole lot he’d achieved to craft and put together his crew for its championship second in Recreation 7 of the NBA Finals in opposition to the Indiana Pacers, as Walsh had achieved earlier than that Tremendous Bowl, Presti did one thing totally completely different.
The evening earlier than the most important recreation of his skilled life, he went residence and rocked out on his drum set.
Every part it had taken to construct after which rebuild this Thunder crew coursed by way of the music. Every part he’d realized from the rise and fall of the Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook-James Harden groups, classes which have knowledgeable the rebuild round this new trio of stars: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren.
Presti is at all times fascinated about constructing.
Besides when he’s taking part in the drums.
“There is a completely different a part of your mind,” Presti instructed ESPN. “That it’s a must to entry.”
That a part of his mind is how this Thunder crew is completely different.
Each groups had been younger. Each groups had a fashion-forward, ball dominant level guard. Each had a thin 7-footer with guard expertise. Each had an eccentric wing participant who may open up a complete new world together with his drives to the basket.
The bodily similarities are so putting, it was virtually as if Presti put a casting name out for look-alikes again in 2019, however screened for one necessary distinction.
This time Presti solid for humility as an alternative of swagger.
The primary three superstars grew too large for one crew and ultimately every wanted an even bigger pot to develop in. They had been as aggressive with one another as they had been with their opponents. That they had swagger and ambition and egos.
The three stars who introduced residence the Thunder’s first championship Sunday evening enjoyment of sharing the highlight with one another. A lot in order that they convey the entire crew into their interviews on the courtroom after video games.
When ABC’s Lisa Salters introduced Gilgeous-Alexander with the Finals MVP award, she requested about his partnership with considered one of his co-stars, Jalen Williams. As she did, he prolonged his left arm to tug his teammate into the ceremony with him.
He paused, accumulating himself.
“Jalen Williams … is a one-in-a-lifetime participant.
As the group erupted, Gilgeous-Alexander paused once more.
“One second, sorry,” he stated. “One second, sorry.”
“With out him, with out his performances, with out his big-time moments, with out his shot-making, defending, the whole lot he brings to this crew, we do not win this championship with out him.
“That is simply as a lot my MVP as it’s his.”
After Williams took his flip elevating the gleaming trophy above his head, he gave it again to Gilgeous-Alexander, who started to share it together with his teammates.
“Go it round,” he stated. “Go it round.”
Throughout the partitions of Paycom Enviornment, and even exterior of them, it’s an ethos.
“Our togetherness on and off the courtroom, how a lot enjoyable now we have, it made it really feel like we had been simply children taking part in basketball,” Gilgeous-Alexander stated.
In lots of ways in which’s precisely what this crew was. Youngsters taking part in basketball. The youngest crew to win an NBA title in almost 50 years. Williams, 23, was simply 10 years outdated when Durant, Westbrook and Harden had been dropping to LeBron James and the Miami Warmth within the 2012 Finals. Too younger to grasp the parallels of that crew to this yr’s crew.
So younger that he took his first drink of an alcoholic beverage Sunday evening within the champagne celebration within the Thunder locker room.
“That was my first drink,” Williams stated within the hallway afterward. “Ever.” So younger that none of them even knew methods to open the champagne bottles till 31-year-old Alex Caruso confirmed them how.
“I am outdated as a result of they simply have not been round anyone over 30 earlier than,” Caruso joked afterwards. “It is bizarre.”
However Presti remembers these 2012 Finals. He remembers all of it. And all of it has knowledgeable how and why he constructed this crew in a different way this time.
There are such a lot of sayings printed out on the wall of Presti’s workplace, subsequent to that picture of Invoice Walsh on the Tremendous Bowl. So many sayings, all printed out in black capital letters on white magnets.
CHARACTER IS FATE.
TO BUILD IS IMMORTAL.
AGILITY IS THE QUALITY OF AN OPTIMIST. These are sayings he is provide you with or learn someplace or heard someplace.
POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH.
HARDER BUT SMARTER.
INFORM THE MUSIC.
Presti obtained that final one from a documentary on Fleetwood Mac. Lyndsey Buckingham stated it when he was speaking about the whole lot that went into their album, ‘Rumors.’ Presti would not watch TV, however he is watched numerous music documentaries.
“I similar to how artwork is created,” he stated. “I like to grasp how issues are created and constructed and all of the completely different tales behind the creation. And I prefer to know in regards to the individuals which are placing that stuff collectively. What’s inspiring them and what’s bringing that out of them. After which it is memorialized and that is their assertion. That is their assertion of the time.”
Presti has been fascinated about his assertion, for this time, for some time. What he would say up on the championship dais, if the Thunder managed to win the title. He was cautious, as he at all times is, about getting forward of himself; the blowout loss in Recreation 6 had humbled everybody within the group.
However he was additionally, in fact, ready.
“These guys symbolize all that is good at a younger age,” he stated. “They prioritize successful, they prioritize sacrifice, and it simply type of unfolded in a short time. “Age is a quantity. Sacrifice and maturity is a attribute, and these guys have it in spades.”
ALL SEASON THE greatest query about this Thunder crew was whether or not they had been too younger to win. Whether or not they’d blink in opposition to a extra seasoned opponent. Whether or not the strain of successful the sixth most common season video games in historical past (68) would weaken their stomachs. Whether or not they may win shut video games after successful by the most important level differential in NBA historical past.
The 2012 crew confronted related questions. Durant and Westbrook had been each 23, Harden was 22, and similar to this yr’s crew, it appeared like they’d have alternatives to win championships for the following decade.
“I assumed we might be successful two or three championships,” former Thunder guard Reggie Jackson instructed ESPN. “However our story did not go as anticipated.”
That first yr they merely weren’t able to win, whereas LeBron James and the Miami Warmth had been. The Warmth had misplaced to the Dallas Mavericks within the Finals the earlier season and spent all yr fascinated about what they’d do in a different way if they’d one other shot at it.
That is what most assumed would occur for the Thunder after dropping in 2012. They’d be again once more, classes realized, able to win. Again then Presti believed his job was to maximise the window to win as soon as his stars hit their “prime,” round age 26 or 27, simply because the San Antonio Spurs — the group that had raised him — had achieved with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.
His homegrown threesome was nonetheless just a few years away from that, which meant preserving monetary flexibility within the brief time period.
So when Harden got here up for an extension that summer season, Presti took a measured strategy. He supplied him near the utmost, however not the complete most, hoping that Harden would sacrifice a bit for a bigger widespread objective.
Harden had different ambitions although, personally and financially. He’d spent the 2012 Summer time Olympics listening to stars like Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul inform him how gifted he was, and inspiring him to guide his personal crew.
In the long run, the Thunder’s supply of 4 years, $55 million was simply $5 million wanting a full max extension. And extra importantly, it might’ve put them over the posh tax they had been so diligently attempting to keep away from.
As soon as Harden turned down that provide, Presti felt he needed to commerce him to maintain the long-term plan intact. But in addition as a result of sacrifice was a key tenet of the tradition he was attempting to construct.
On Sunday evening, Presti used that phrase twice when he made his assertion on the championship dais.
That’s the second lesson Presti realized from his first construct. Maturity is a attribute. Age is only a quantity.
The primary time round he’d been too wedded to the concept the time to win was when his stars hit a sure age. There was information behind that concept, as there at all times is when Presti commits to one thing.
However he hadn’t left sufficient room for an alternate actuality to current itself — a actuality that smacked him upside the top this time round, the extra he watched how rapidly this crew got here of age and the way mature they already had been.
“They’re younger, however their maturity, selflessness, and real love for each other is basically distinctive and particular,” Presti stated in an interview with ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt Sunday evening. “The age is what it’s. They’ve by no means let that outline them.”
There are newer magnets up on his workplace wall to mirror that shift.
IN ORDER TO BE EXCEPTIONAL, YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO BE THE EXCEPTION
0:46
JWill: ‘Sam Presti has the very best rebuild within the fashionable NBA period’
Jay Williams provides basic supervisor Sam Presti and the Thunder their flowers after successful the NBA Finals.
MARK DAIGNEAULT HAS been to Presti’s workplace so many occasions he is not overwhelmed by it anymore.
Presti had groomed him to be the Thunder’s head coach, very similar to RC Buford, Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs groomed him to run a entrance workplace twenty years earlier.
Presti at all times appreciated the way in which Daigneault carried himself, how he talked in regards to the recreation and the way his thoughts labored. He discovered him on the again bench of Billy Donovan’s workers on the College of Florida and introduced him to Oklahoma Metropolis to work with the crew’s youthful gamers.
For 5 years Daigneault ran the Thunder’s developmental program, the Blue. He beloved teaching the Blue and nonetheless wears their gear to Thunder practices generally.
“I hated leaving the G-League,” Daigneault stated. “Ask my spouse. She’ll inform you how a lot I beloved it.”
Presti may see it, too. And the extra he was round Daigneault, the extra he may envision him because the chief of his subsequent rebuild.
So he went out on a street journey with the Blue to look at extra carefully and consider whether or not Daigneault might be a future head coach.
“I had no thought,” Daigneault stated, when requested if he understood he was being thought of for such a promotion. “I wasn’t pondering that was a risk in any respect. I simply beloved teaching within the G-League.”
The Blue follow on the Thunder’s unique facility, a rollerskating rink downwind of the Purina pet food plant. Each participant who comes by way of this system talks in regards to the odor.
Incomes a promotion from the Blue to the Thunder means by no means having to odor that once more. However in Daigneault’s second yr as head coach, he wished to floor everybody in it.
The crew had gone 22-50 the earlier season, an enormous departure from the 50-win crew that just about knocked off Harden’s Rockets within the 2020 playoffs.
After that season Presti started the complete rebuild in earnest, buying and selling away Chris Paul to the Phoenix Suns and changing Donovan with the younger participant growth specialist, Daigneault, on the entrance of the bench.
Gamers confirmed up on the primary day of camp within the fall of 2021 stunned to see buses parked exterior, ready to take them to the Blue facility. This was the place the primary Thunder groups practiced after the franchise moved from Seattle in 2007. So this was the place this group would start, too.
It was a motivational tactic, not a punitive one. And it was memorable.
“My rookie yr we did a complete factor,” Aaron Wiggins instructed ESPN. “We simply type of went by way of the way in which that they had been in a position to pave the way in which for us to be right here, and we acknowledged the whole lot they went by way of, completely different components of the historical past and. the place Oklahoma Metropolis began. “Our teaching workers simply wished to prioritize that baseline.”
Daigneault has a favourite line from all of the magnets in Presti’s workplace. Every time he goes in there, he notices one thing completely different. However the one that stands proud comes from a speech Christopher Walken delivers within the film, Poolhall Junkies.
SOMETIMES THE LION HAS TO SHOW THE JACKALS WHO HE IS.
THE SUMMER OF 2019 marked the unofficial finish of the primary Thunder period and the start of this one.
That was the summer season Westbrook was traded, in accordance with his needs, to the Houston Rockets, seven days after Presti had traded Paul George, additionally per his needs, to the Los Angeles Clippers in a deal that will convey again Gilgeous-Alexander, the draft decide that later grew to become Williams and a treasure trove of picks that jump-started the Thunder rebuild.
Presti had no thought he’d simply traded for a future MVP and All-NBA participant.
He thought Gilgeous-Alexander could be good. He hoped he could be superb someday. However league MVP? No approach.
In April of 2022 Presti instructed a narrative in regards to the first day he noticed Gilgeous-Alexander on the Thunder facility after that commerce. It was late and he was exhausted, emotionally and bodily, after wrapping up the Westbrook commerce. However he heard a ball bouncing someplace within the facility and appeared out an workplace that had a window to see Gilgeous-Alexander getting some pictures up.
“He did not even have Thunder gear on,” Presti stated. “That I bear in mind as a result of I used to be like, ‘Why would not this man have Thunder gear on? What is that this? What sort of store are we working right here?
“It was ironic to me, and I assumed, if this man ever turns into a participant, I’ve obtained to recollect this story.”
Presti did not inform this story till after the 2022 season when Gilgeous-Alexander had established himself as a rising star on this league and the Thunder had gained 44 video games to earn their approach again to the play-in match.
Even then, he did not understand how rather more Gilgeous-Alexander would develop. Nor did he perceive what an aberration it was to see Gilgrous-Alexander dressed so merely.
This was the underside of an extended climb they each had been about to make. For the long run MVP, it was a low second; it damage him to be traded. He questioned whether or not he had a flaw that precipitated it, and the one approach he knew methods to cope with that feeling was to go to the gymnasium and work by way of it.
Gilgeous-Alexander hardly ever talks about that feeling of rejection, however on his approach by way of Los Angeles this season he did.
“Their entrance workplace made a commerce that they thought was the very best for his or her crew,” he stated. “Similar with the Thunder. Then the final 5 years I’ve tried to concentrate on my growth and the crew’s growth. I’ve tried to be the very best basketball participant for the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder. And I might say that it labored out in my favor.”
Gilgeous-Alexander by no means is dressed down like he was that first day within the gymnasium after the commerce.
Rising up his mom Charmaine Gilgeous would not let her sons depart the home till they, ‘fastened up,’ as she used to place it.
“Rising up we might at all times attempt to costume and look the half,” Gilgeous-Alexander instructed ESPN final season.
“You step out of the home, you look the half. You are representing the household. And that type of transferred into what it’s now.”
He has twice been named GQ’s most fashionable participant. He plans out his outfits weeks upfront and is as meticulous in regards to the particulars as he’s about consuming a purple apple earlier than video games.
In fact he deliberate what he would put on to the sport when he may win his first NBA championship.
“Yeah, however as soon as I used to be within the second, I simply wished to win so unhealthy that I simply put one thing collectively fast,” Gilgeous Alexander instructed ESPN.
By his requirements, the black leather-based pants and darkish gray sweatshirt he wore to Recreation 7 had been relatively bland.
“It was imagined to be a lot louder than this, however this morning I wakened and all I wished to do was win, so I did not even have time to place effort into that.
“I used to be similar to, ‘Let’s simply go win this factor.'”
PRESTI HAS A very completely different type of vibe in his residence workplace in Oklahoma Metropolis.
It’s modeled after the cabin through which Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden, or Life within the Woods in 1845.
Presti grew up in close by Harmony, Massachusetts, and has visited the positioning and studied Thoreau’s work for years.
There is no such thing as a know-how in Presti’s room. Only a desk, naked partitions and flooring. Out again there’s a deck overlooking a stream.
Thoreau as soon as wrote, “I went to the woods as a result of I wanted to dwell intentionally, to entrance solely the important information of life, and see if I couldn’t be taught what it needed to educate.”
Presti involves this place intentionally, too.
To assume with out overthinking.
As an antidote to all of the magnets with all the teachings he is realized on the wall.
As an escape from the Invoice Walsh picture and the structure books by Frank Lloyd Wright and Bauhaus grasp Ludwig Mies van der Rohe he is learn which are neatly organized on his desk.
It is quiet. Spartan. Easy. And generally that is the very best place to construct from.
This time he constructed in a different way, to final. He selected gamers who grew collectively, not aside.
