Latest / Bring The Thunder Podcast / Ajay Mitchell & Jaylin Williams Signed! - Roster Discussion

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Ajay Mitchell & Jaylin Williams Signed! - Roster Discussion · Bring The Thunder Podcast

• 0:01
  What's going on y'all? Welcome to the bring the Thunder
• 0:04
  podcast here. I'm here with Thunder fan zone
• 0:06
  Landon. It's going to bring up offseason
• 0:10
  moves that the Thunder have already started to make,
• 0:12
  starting with signing or re signing Jan Williams to a
• 0:18
  three-year, $24 million contract.
• 0:22
  I think this is super team friendly, super important to
• 0:25
  keep J will on the team. We know how much it means to his
• 0:30
  peers, the team itself, and then also as a player.
• 0:33
  I mean, he played huge minutes in the playoffs, especially
• 0:36
  against Jokic, had three regular season starting triple, double
• 0:40
  S. So there's definitely still more
• 0:42
  potential with Jay Will and obviously just a huge glue guy
• 0:45
  and a team friendly contract. So really excited to get Jay
• 0:50
  Will back on the team. Was a little nervous for a
• 0:52
  second. Well, First off, the day we're
• 0:56
  recording it this, it's his birthday.
• 0:57
  So also happy birthday to Jay Will.
• 1:00
  No better way to spend it than getting a couple M's.
• 1:06
  But yeah, team friendly deal. I wouldn't expect anything less
• 1:11
  from him. He's a team first guy.
• 1:14
  He knows Shay's going to get his super Max, Dove and Ched are
• 1:19
  going to get extended. He's letting the Thunder save
• 1:22
  money, and that's what that guy's all about, is putting his
• 1:25
  team mates first. We've seen him in the team
• 1:27
  interviews guys, one of the most supportive, most energetic guys
• 1:32
  I've ever seen. Always a wide smile on his face.
• 1:36
  And I mean, he's pretty crucial in that Nugget series against
• 1:40
  Yokich, that was pretty big for us.
• 1:44
  A few triple double s throughout the season here and there and
• 1:48
  then just the perfect glue guy. Like I said, always supporting
• 1:51
  his teammates. He embodies everything it means
• 1:55
  to be an OKC Thunder player. Saw it at the championship
• 1:59
  parade with the speech next to the mayor.
• 2:05
  Said some words that I'm not going to repeat, but you've
• 2:08
  probably seen it. Yeah, definitely.
• 2:10
  And I, I another thing is like, I'm super excited for J Will as
• 2:14
  a player. I mean, he's grown over the
• 2:16
  first two seasons. This year he was fantastic
• 2:18
  during the regular season for us.
• 2:20
  And he was one of those guys where he could get a spot start.
• 2:25
  He could play 15 minutes or he could play zero for three
• 2:27
  straight games and he'll give the same production no matter
• 2:30
  when you put him in the lineup. I could see him getting into the
• 2:34
  lineup more often than not next season if we continue to grow
• 2:38
  and dominate through the regular season.
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  I think he's going to be super important for for us throughout
• 2:41
  the season. Not only will he be important
• 2:45
  for the team, he'll be important for Thomas Sorber's development.
• 2:50
  There's some similarities like the size and the way that the
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  way that they play. So I think J Will could sprinkle
• 2:58
  some of the stuff he's learned into Sorber's game.
• 3:02
  Absolutely, and A and a few TikTok dances along the way.
• 3:06
  Yeah. But yeah, I guess we can move
• 3:09
  on. Also, Sam Presti's a beast.
• 3:14
  Fantastic contracts here. Next one AJ Mitchell team
• 3:18
  declined his option, re signed him three years, 9 mil.
• 3:22
  So three years, 3,000,000 a year.
• 3:25
  Fantastic deal. Get to see what the kids about
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  for three years. Obviously out of out of the
• 3:31
  Thunder and the Thunder fans eyes.
• 3:34
  A lot of potential with this kid.
• 3:36
  Expects huge minutes from him next year.
• 3:38
  I mean he was looking great before he hurt his foot in the
• 3:41
  regular season and obviously didn't play much in the
• 3:43
  playoffs. That's a rookie and coming off
• 3:44
  the foot injury. But another really team friendly
• 3:47
  deal where this one could be a real steal.
• 3:50
  This guy could be 6 man material over these next three years in
• 3:53
  my eyes. No, this might be the best
• 3:57
  contract that Sam Presti's ever signed as AGM.
• 4:04
  We had the team option. We could have opted into that.
• 4:09
  AJ signed AAJ, signed a new three-year, three-year, $9
• 4:14
  million total for $9 million total contract.
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  So he's getting 3,000,000 a year, almost 3,000,000 a year
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  anyways in this new contract. And that's what he would have
• 4:25
  got if we opted into the team option.
• 4:27
  So it's basically the same thing, except we're just getting
• 4:30
  him for longer. I have no doubt in my mind after
• 4:34
  some of the stuff he did at the beginning of the season and some
• 4:36
  of the flashes of potential he showed that he could have got a
• 4:41
  bag elsewhere. There's a lot of, I mean,
• 4:44
  there's a lot of bottom feeder teams looking for a guard like
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  the young guard like that that can play, make that can score.
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  He showed scoring potentially. So play making potential I would
• 4:59
  have to think he plays in the summer league next.
• 5:01
  This year him and him and Topich in the back court could be real
• 5:07
  interesting. Could you believe that Oklahoma
• 5:10
  City just won a championship? And this is one of, if not the
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  most excited I've been for a summer league in a while.
• 5:17
  And we got AJ coming into his second year, Topich coming into
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  his second year, but really his first rookie season because he
• 5:23
  was out all last year. I mean, we got some serious guys
• 5:25
  that could really play valuable minutes in this upcoming season.
• 5:29
  We're just the rich keep getting richer, I guess.
• 5:32
  Yeah. And then we signed all those
• 5:34
  older Exhibit 10 guys that are last chance to prove themselves,
• 5:39
  Sanford from Iowa and then a bunch of other guys.
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  So it'll be so I assume Barnheiser will fill one of the
• 5:47
  two way spots, but it'll be interesting to see who fills the
• 5:50
  other two, two way spots because I assume it might be one or two
• 5:56
  of those summer league guys. But yeah, this contract like I
• 6:00
  couldn't give it anything other than a plus.
• 6:03
  I think in three years AJ will be a foundational role,
• 6:07
  foundational role player for us off the bench all.
• 6:10
  Right. You know what looks great, both
• 6:12
  of those. So you give AJ contract an A
• 6:14
  plus. I'm also going to give it an A
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  plus. I love AJ Mitchell.
• 6:18
  I think he has serious potential And for three years, 9 million.
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  I mean, you don't get much better than that.
• 6:26
  J Will, I'm going to let you grade it first.
• 6:27
  I know we already talked about it, but we should grade them, so
• 6:30
  go ahead. I mean, another A plus J Will, J
• 6:37
  Will could be AJ Will could be a starting center on some teams
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  and to be a starting caliber Center for 8 million a year,
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  that's crazy to think about. I think this is also an A plus.
• 6:51
  I think losing J will would have been a problem for this team.
• 6:56
  Blue guy also serious potential, good play, smart player.
• 7:01
  I also think it's an A plus for the money as well.
• 7:05
  I mean three years, 20, four, $8 million a year.
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  And a team and a team option if something was to go wrong.
• 7:12
  I don't think anything's going wrong.
• 7:14
  You can always move off of him in two years.
• 7:16
  Right, you have. The team the wrong, the wrong
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  the wrong would be that we have to spend money on other players
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  and unfortunately we'd have to let go of him.
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  But thankfully that would be Sorber.
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  That would be Sorber's third year in the league, so he if
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  Sorber's what he's supposed to be, the timing would be good on
• 7:33
  that. Right.
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  Another thing with these contracts is as of right now, it
• 7:37
  keeps us under tax. So even when we extend Shay,
• 7:40
  Chet and Jada, those won't kick in for another year.
• 7:43
  So going into the season, we're still under tax.
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  So outstanding master class by Sam Presti again.
• 7:51
  Can't doubt the man. And then finally, upsetting but
• 7:58
  understandable. Dylan Jones traded to the
• 8:01
  Washington Wizards for Kobe Jones.
• 8:02
  Dylan Jones and a second round pick traded to the Wizards for
• 8:05
  Kobe Jones and obviously we waved Kobe Jones to make things
• 8:09
  cheaper. You got a feel for the kid.
• 8:13
  I mean, just coming off the championship, this is rookie
• 8:15
  year. He gets moved.
• 8:17
  But unfortunately there there was always going to be an odd
• 8:20
  man out on this team just to clear up the roster space for
• 8:22
  the rookies and it had to be Dylan.
• 8:26
  I mean, out of all the guys, J Will, AJ Ooze and Dylan Presti
• 8:32
  had to make his pick and obviously he he chose Dylan.
• 8:37
  Yeah, you said it perfectly. But drafting Sorber obviously is
• 8:43
  the first round guy. He's going to be on a standard
• 8:45
  contract. And then taking J, Will and AJ
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  back in, that would have made it 16 guys.
• 8:51
  Someone had to go. That's why we facilitated the
• 8:54
  Jones Jones trade, as I like to call it, to put it back down to
• 8:59
  15 guys on standard contracts. Of course, the full team's 18
• 9:04
  guys with three two way contract players, which isn't determined
• 9:09
  yet, but we should know who those guys are relatively soon.
• 9:15
  Jones was an older rookie, 23 or 24 I want to say.
• 9:20
  He played here and there throughout the season, mainly
• 9:23
  scrub up minutes. I mean, yeah, I just, I mean,
• 9:28
  based on what I saw, I just never really saw a guy that was
• 9:32
  ever going to become a rotational player on this team.
• 9:37
  I just don't really know who he would play over.
• 9:41
  He would probably like for the next three years, you'd probably
• 9:44
  always be an 11th, 12th guy on this team.
• 9:47
  So it's probably in our best interest to move on from him.
• 9:52
  If he does stay on the Wizards, there's no better team than the
• 9:54
  Wizards. They can definitely give him a
• 9:57
  handful of minutes that we wouldn't be able to give him.
• 10:02
  But yeah, it just makes things cheaper.
• 10:03
  That's the whole reason we we could have easily just waved
• 10:06
  him, but we did that trade because it makes things cheaper.
• 10:09
  Presty doing presting, presty things, thinking outside the
• 10:12
  box, no. Just like another thing is like
• 10:19
  you said, I mean we have so many guys on this team.
• 10:22
  If you were to stay on, he would have probably never gotten like
• 10:26
  real minutes. I just want to make like a shout
• 10:32
  out to Dylan Jones because he was outside of J Will off the
• 10:36
  bench. The energy that he was, he was
• 10:37
  standing on every play, every possession.
• 10:38
  He was screaming, cheering his team.
• 10:41
  Definitely good. I have no hate in my heart for
• 10:44
  him. He always seemed like a
• 10:45
  passionate guy, always rooting for his teammates.
• 10:48
  But like I said, at the end of the day, it's a business and
• 10:53
  pressed he has to make business decisions in the best interest
• 10:56
  of the franchise. Yeah.
• 10:59
  So Speaking of business decisions looking forward,
• 11:02
  obviously we're not going to get into them yet because it hasn't
• 11:04
  happened, but there are some extensions that need to be done.
• 11:08
  JW needs to get his extension. Shay's looking at the supermax
• 11:11
  extension. And then Chet, we'll see.
• 11:14
  They give him, you know what they give him.
• 11:17
  Those are the three guys we'll be looking for.
• 11:19
  And then obviously we'll have other roster moves that may be
• 11:25
  made, but we're getting close to the Summer League and we got
• 11:29
  some players we got. I think we're practically done.
• 11:34
  I mean, I've heard, I've heard a lot of people, I've heard a
• 11:37
  Gopher shooter crowd, but I'm just I'm just kind of against
• 11:42
  it. I think he roll with what you
• 11:43
  know works. You have Topich coming in for a
• 11:46
  full season, which is automatically which
• 11:49
  automatically makes us a better team in theory.
• 11:51
  He was the 12th pick. So obviously he's a talented
• 11:54
  basketball player. You add Sorber gives us more,
• 11:59
  gives us more positional size, gives us more depth down low.
• 12:04
  And then a lot of shooting is just comes with experience like
• 12:07
  we're we're we were the youngest team in the league in the 202425
• 12:13
  season and I only see our shooting getting better.
• 12:17
  Chip England's a proven shooting coach.
• 12:20
  I think it will come around the corner.
• 12:21
  I mean, I think it was we were ranked 6th or 7th and
• 12:24
  three-point percentage as a team during the regular season.
• 12:27
  I really think some of it was just playoff pressure, to be
• 12:30
  honest. I agree.
• 12:32
  Playoff pressure and also a little bit of fatigue.
• 12:34
  I mean, we went to seven game series all the way to the
• 12:37
  finals. Field goal percentage is going
• 12:40
  to go down the further you go. But yeah, I mean, I agree.
• 12:44
  I think they're going to rock with what they got.
• 12:46
  Lou Dortz shot 43 1/2% from three and he shot about that in
• 12:51
  the finals as well. So I think you look for
• 12:56
  improvement out of you guys today.
• 12:57
  Aaron Wiggins, Lou Dort, Shay's still improving his three.
• 13:01
  J Dub's still improving his shot.
• 13:03
  AJ Mitchell could shoot, Cayson still improving.
• 13:06
  So they don't have to go out yet and do anything.
• 13:08
  Obviously for just a shooter. They already have Isaiah Joe for
• 13:10
  the regular season and yet I'm just super excited for again,
• 13:14
  summer league Sorber topic AJ this it's going to be a fun
• 13:22
  summer, but we'll we'll keep you guys.
• 13:23
  Updated with Barnheiser too, don't forget.
• 13:26
  I'm Barnheiser. Barnheiser I, I, I apologize.
• 13:30
  I did forget. But yeah, we'll keep you guys
• 13:34
  updated on all the breaking news, all the extensions,
• 13:36
  because they're coming soon and appreciate y'all watching.
• 13:39
  If you are enjoying the content, hit the subscribe button.
• 13:42
  It's super free to do and just you get all of our updates when
• 13:47
  we go live and when we post videos like this.
• 13:50
  It's a busy time. So I'd want to be subscribed if
• 13:52
  I were you guys. But anyway, appreciate y'all
• 13:55
  watching and listen. I I'm not going to get as hype
• 13:58
  as I used to during the season, but Thunder up baby.
• 14:01
  Let's go. Let's let's just keep it
• 14:02
  rolling.