Constantly in a financial crunch for the foreseeable future, the Oklahoma City Thunder might be forced to make unconventional moves to avoid the luxury tax and second apron penalties. Especially with their payroll about to balloon for the remainder of the decade.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams will take up most of OKC's payroll for the foreseeable future. All will have contract extensions kick in soon — if they haven't already. Also, Cason Wallace's latest deal further complicates things. That's a lot of money tied up in four players. It's an unsustainable roster-building method.
As things stand right now, the Thunder would fork over an eye-popping $500-plus million payroll for the 2027-28 season. That's just not going to happen. Never has in the NBA before. It suddenly won't be the case in small-market OKC. That's why ESPN's Brian Windhorst had intel to back up a unique theory.
The Thunder could decline the 2027-28 team options of either/both of Nikola Topic and Thomas Sorber. Topic has a $7.5 million option and Sorber has a $5.1 million option. That's not nothing. Both were recent top-15 picks in back-to-back NBA drafts. Especially for a team whose counting every cent spent from here on out in their payroll.
"They will not be paying that much, so it comes down to who and how they cut some of it," a rival executive told ESPN. "Sam (Presti) I'm sure has studied it at length and will develop two or three paths out and will look for the cleanest option over the next year."
If the Thunder cut bait with Topic and Sorber — who both have struggled to stay healthy with virtually zero real games under their belt — then that'll save $60 million in payroll when you consider the taxes saved. It would be a little unorthodox to see player-development-friendly OKC be so harsh and quick, but those are the pressures you work with in the NBA's pseudo-hard-cap world.
"We all have our problems," an Eastern Conference executive told ESPN. "We'd all love to have theirs."
I think it'd make more sense to move on from Topic than Sorber. The former is buried on the depth chart. Meanwhile, the latter still has a little bit of runway to make things work in OKC. That said, it's been disappointing to see such little contribution from essentially two recent lottery picks. Those types of draft misses haunt you.
I guess we'll see what happens with Topic and Sorber. The Thunder have until Monday, Nov. 2, to make a decision on their respective team options for the 2027-28 season. What they decide will peel back the curtain on their financial pressure from OKC ownership.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Rumor: OKC Thunder could move on from 2 NBA players over financial constraints