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The Oklahoma City Thunder made a move to land center Enes Kanter last year to boost an offense marred by injury. This summer, they were debating whether to pay up to keep the big man. It was an understandable inner debate, as Kanter is a young, rising big man that can score at an elite level, but he would cost a lot and doesn’t provide any resistance on defense.
Whether to give themselves a strong post presence on offense, appease Kevin Durant (or both), OKC saw keeping Kanter as a no-brainer. That’s precisely what the Thunder did on Monday morning, when they officially matched the Portland Trail Blazers’ offer.
Thunder GM Sam Presti said it best, saying, “We traded for Enes [Kanter] last year with the intention of keeping him as a member of the Thunder for several years to come, and we are excited that he will continue with us”.
As they should be. Or at least Thunder fans would hope they’d be excited, especially after signing the beastly center to a massive four-year, $70 million extension.
There are multiple ways to look at this deal, and three scream the loudest. For one, this is at first a somewhat questionable move considering how much Kanter costs and the fact that OKC already has plenty of talented bigs in Serge Ibaka, Mitch McGary and Steven Adams. More importantly, Ibaka and McGary both have sound offensive games and all three play far better defense than it seems Kanter could ever hope to play.
That one blemish leaks into two very good reasons to keep Kanter, of course. The first is that all three of the guys the Thunder already have in the post struggled to stay healthy a year ago. By passing on Kanter, the Thunder would be playing with fire by assuming all of their bigs would be healthy all of the time going forward. On top of that, as solid as they are on offense, and even though they are superior defenders to Kanter, none touch what he’s capable of now (or in the future) offensively.
The other big positive out of this deal is that it shows Durant that OKC is serious about winning and they’re (possibly) even more serious about keeping him in town. With Durant scheduled to hit free agency next summer, there has been a growing thought that the Thunder had to make a move (or moves) to prove to KD that they’re willing to do whatever it takes to both please him and get closer to winning a title.
Firing head coach Scott Brooks last year and replacing him with former Florida Gators coach Billy Donovan was the first step, and not one necessarily Durant was a fan of. Holding onto Kanter appears to be a move that sets the odds of keeping Durant in OKC back into the green, though. The best part? Even if it doesn’t, Kanter is a strong young talent to built with, so if Durant jets in free agency, the Thunder would at the very worst still have a solid core of Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and Kanter to work with.
Now it’s all about what the Thunder can do in the 2015-16 season. It starts with Durant and co. actually staying healthy, but if they can, they appear to have the roster to make a run at a title. That alone is good enough reason to support the Kanter signing.
