The era of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden being members of the OKC Thunder resulted in the Thunder constantly being one of the best teams in the entire NBA and reaching the NBA Finals in 2012, but they were unable to capture a title then, losing to LeBron James and the Miami Heat. 

Since then, all three guys have moved on from Oklahoma City and while other key stars like Paul George, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul have been a part of this franchise since, the Thunder have still been looking to rebuild over the years. Last year resulted in them missing the playoffs for the first-time since the 2014-15 season and they will likely miss the playoffs again during the 2021-22 season, but GM Sam Presti has this franchise in a perfect spot. 

The job Presti has done constructing this young roster over the years has been impressive, but the most impressive part is the fact that they have 35 total draft picks through the 2028 NBA Draft. They have enough draft capital to field two different NBA teams over the next seven NBA Drafts, which is mind-blowing! 

Looking at their roster now, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Darius Bazley, Luguentz Dort, Aleksej Pokusevski, Josh Giddey, Tre Mann and others are all high-potential young talents that are only going to get better with time. Oklahoma City has a chance to be a very special team for decades to come, but their roster is not yet done being constructed for the 2021-22 season. .

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This upcoming year is going to be devoted to developing their young talents even further and even though they may not have an emphasis on winning right now, the Thunder still have to allocate more money to their roster. Oklahoma City is currently sitting around $77M in total payroll for the 2021-22 season and they need to have at least a minimum team salary of $101.2M since that is the NBA’s minimum team salary for next season. 

With 15 players already under-contract for next season and two players filling out their two-way contract spots, the Thunder do not have many options in terms of adding bigger contracts to their roster, but there is time for them to do so since they would need to cross this minimum team salary threshold by June 30, 2022. 

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At some point during the 2021-22 season, the OKC Thunder will be a team that will “take on” a larger contract or two that teams are looking to dump, so let’s take a look at three players the Thunder could wind up adding to their roster in order to get above the salary cap floor.