The Oklahoma City Thunder are one of the best basketball teams we have seen in quite some time and have played elite on both sides of the ball.

Led by head coach Mark Daigneault and front by 2025 NBA Most Valuable Player recipient Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City has steamrolled its way through the regular season and the playoffs.

But how did the this team that has lost so many star players over the years (including Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Paul George, and Chris Paul) turn into the juggernaut they are today?

It involves plenty of savvy moves along the way by 2025 NBA Executive of the Year winner Sam Presti, some luck, and some excellent player development.

Here are a few of the most notable decisions that Oklahoma City has made recently, though Presti's genius goes back far before just this season.

1. Trading for Alex Caruso

While he was once selected at No. 6 overall in the NBA Draft and had a promising start to his career in the United States, the Thunder decided to trade away Josh Giddey rather than offer him a contract extension.

Giddey was solid during his first season in Chicago and showed occasional flashes but he wasn’t what Oklahoma City needed during their postseason run last year and it showed before their eventual elimination.

Even though Giddey is younger and has more potential, someone like Alex Caruso is incredibly valuable for a team looking to win a championship.

He already has experience winning the 2020 NBA Finals, and coming off back-to-back NBA All-Defense nods, he brought another edge to what the Thunder can throw at opponents.

While he didn’t qualify for the 65-game rule and couldn’t get a nod this year, Caruso led the league in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus in 2024-25.

This season, Oklahoma City had two other players (Luguentz Dort and Jalen Williams) earn All-Defense honors. Dort typically guards the best player on the other team, so to have another elite defender like Caruso to that group is a nightmare for opposing players.

2. Signing Isaiah Hartenstein

It seemed like a home run decision right when it happened, but Oklahoma City’s decision to sign former New York Knicks big man Isaiah Hartenstein paid dividends.

Hartenstein averaged a double-double during his first season with the Thunder, putting up career-high numbers in points and rebounds and assists per game.

It was initially unclear if he would come off the bench or play in the starting lineup alongside Chet Holmgren, but Holmgren was limited by injury and only played 32 games in the regular season.

When including the regular season and postseason, Oklahoma City has outscored opponents by a whopping 11.4 points per 100 possessions with Hartenstein on the court without Holmgren, per PBPStats.

This was an urgent need for the Thunder considering that last postseason, they were outscored by 5.06 points per 100 possessions with Holmgren on the bench.

Holmgren and Hartenstein can coexist and play together, too, and he added tremendous versatility to the roster on both sides of the ball.

3. Empowering The Man Who Saved Basketball

For a long time, Aaron Wiggins didn’t have an official nickname on his Basketball Reference biography. It was recently changed to The Man Who Saved Basketball.

Wiggins is a bit of an unsung hero for the Thunder who averaged 7.3 points per game during his first three seasons in the NBA. The front office signed him to a team-friendly 5-year, $45 million deal. It will keep him around on a de-escalating, reasonable contract for the foreseeable future.

This year was a genuine coming out party for Wiggins, who managed to nearly double that rate to 12.0 points per game in 2024-25.

That included three games between February and April in which he had at least 30 points, notching a career-high 41 points. That is incredible from someone who is not one of your star players, especially someone who was selected with one of the last picks in the NBA draft.

Wiggins averaged 1.95 dribbles per touch before the 2025 NBA All-Star Game. After that date, however, he averaged 2.72 dribbles per touch. The difference (0.77 dribbles per touch) was the third-most among the 178 players who logged at least 500 minutes in each time period.

He trailed only Bogdan Bogdanović (who went from the Atlanta Hawks to the L.A. Clippers) and Quentin Grimes (who went from the Dallas Mavericks to the Philadelphia 76ers) in that span.

Among players on the Thunder, only Shai Gilgeus-Alexander and Jalen Williams averaged more pull-up jumpers made per game than Wiggins (0.9) did after the All-Star break.

While he was relatively quiet against the Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, he also had some big games against the Memphis Grizzlies and the Denver Nugget in the opening rounds of the playoffs.

The fact that even someone as deep as Wiggins in the rotation is still liable to potentially have an explosive performance against the Pacers is indicative of just how deep the roster Sam Presti built for the Thunder. It also represents the player development that Oklahoma City has within its organization.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: 3 smart decisions the Thunder made to get to the 2025 NBA Finals

Reporting by Bryan Kalbrosky, For The Win / For The Win

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect