Prior to the start of the 2024-25 season, the Oklahoma City Thunder made two crucial moves that enabled their leap from good to great team. They acquired Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency to patch up their rebounding woes, and then in a bit of a surprise, they traded away Josh Giddey , a member of their prized young core, to the Chicago Bulls in a straight-up deal for Alex Caruso.

Suffice to say, those moves worked out wonderfully for the Thunder. They won the NBA title, with Caruso and Hartenstein being instrumental in that playoff run of theirs. Caruso, in particular, was defending everyone from Nikola Jokic to Tyrese Haliburton. But one has to feel for Giddey — he toiled away on a bad Thunder squad to begin the 2020s, only for him to be the first casualty in OKC's bid to win a

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