Oklahoma City had spent years building a roster that seemed to have an answer for everything.

If a starter went down, another capable player was ready to step in. If the offense stalled, there was more shooting on the bench. If someone else's star got hot, Mark Daigneault had multiple defenders he could throw at him.

That kind of depth is what made the Thunder so difficult to beat. It’s also what made this summer so surprising.

Oklahoma City traded Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, and Lu Dort, sending away three proven rotation players without bringing back a single established player who can help them win a playoff game right now. In return, they received seven second-round picks, three trade exceptions, and a massive amount of financial relief.

At first, it really does look like the Thunder made themselves worse after winning 64 games and coming within one game of another NBA Finals appearance.

But this wasn’t Sam Presti randomly tearing apart a championship roster. It was the first real cost of keeping Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren together.

The Thunder chose their Big Three.

Now they have to prove they didn’t give up too much to keep them.

The Bill Came Due All At Once

Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams, and Holmgren made roughly $58.5 million combined last season.

That number jumps to about $123.8 million in 2026-27 and could climb past $150 million the year after that. The three extensions Oklahoma City handed out in 2025 could be worth as much as $822 million altogether.

That's a lot of money, but it’s hard to argue the Thunder paid the wrong players.

Gilgeous-Alexander won back-to-back MVP awards and just averaged 31.1 points on 55.3% shooting. Williams is already an All-NBA two-way star. Holmgren put up 17.1 points, 8.9 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks. He gives Oklahoma City something most teams simply don’t have: a rim protector who doesn’t clog up the offense on the other end.

Those are exactly the kinds of players a championship team's supposed to keep.

The problem is that once you pay three stars, the rest of the roster eventually starts feeling the squeeze.

Wiggins was the first to go, landing in Atlanta for two future second-round picks. Moving his $9.2 million salary reportedly dropped Oklahoma City’s projected luxury-tax bill from $213 million to $152 million.

Joe followed four days later, heading to Detroit for two more second-rounders. Then came the biggest move of the summer: Dort, a longtime starter and one of the Thunder’s most trusted defenders, was sent to Atlanta in a three-team trade for three second-round picks.

Taken together, those deals moved Oklahoma City below the NBA’s $221.7 million second apron and reportedly wiped more than $220 million off their projected salary and tax costs.

Presti also didn’t try to dress up the Dort trade as something more complicated than it was:

This was a financial decision.

And honestly, that’s the important difference between this Thunder team and the one that traded James Harden in 2012.

Oklahoma City isn’t letting money break apart another young star trio. They decided that Shai, Jalen, and Chet were the three players worth building around.

The supporting cast is the one paying the price now.

Those Weren't Spare Parts

It’d be easy to look at the Thunder’s roster and decide Joe, Wiggins, and Dort were replaceable because OKC still has plenty of familiar names left.

That’s also missing the point of what made this team so good.

Isaiah Joe averaged a career-high 11.1 points last season while shooting 42.3% from three. He wasn’t just a guy standing in the corner while Shai drew two defenders. Joe was one of the league’s best movement shooters, and whenever Oklahoma City’s half-court offense started to bog down, he could come flying off a screen and change the whole possession.

Aaron Wiggins gave the Thunder something different. He averaged 9.4 points in 21.8 minutes and could step into the starting lineup without needing a bunch of plays called for him. He defended, moved the ball, attacked open space, and really just made the game easier for everyone else.

His playoff role had already gotten smaller, which made him the easiest of the three to understand as a trade candidate. Wiggins averaged just 5.8 minutes through the last postseason.

Even so, not many contenders have a player who can score 18 points in an NBA Finals game sitting that far down the depth chart. The Thunder did. That kind of luxury was a big part of why they were so difficult to prepare for.

Dort's the loss that changes the Thunder the most.

His offense slipped to 8.3 points per game last season, and he shot just 34.4% from three. There were playoff matchups where teams were perfectly happy to leave him open and dare him to make shots.

But Dort had started 408 games for OKC and made first-team All-Defense during the Thunder’s championship season. He spent years taking the toughest assignment on the other side of the floor.

He was the guy asked to chase Steph Curry around screens, absorb Luka Dončić’s shoulder for seven games, and make life miserable for whichever star happened to be in town. That work doesn’t always show up in the box score, but it matters a lot when the games get tight.

And Oklahoma City’s depth wasn’t just something people talked about because the roster looked good on paper.

During the first two rounds of last season’s playoffs, the Thunder’s 10-man rotation overwhelmed Phoenix and Los Angeles. By the time they reached the Western Conference Finals, their reserves had posted a plus-7.8 net rating.

Most teams are just trying to survive the minutes without their stars. The Thunder were winning those minutes, too. Sometimes they were turning them into the stretch of the game that decided everything.

None of those three are individually impossible to replace. The Thunder have young players who can take on bigger roles, and they still have enough talent to build a very good rotation.

But losing all three in the same offseason is where this starts to feel like a real gamble.

They've Already Picked The Replacements

The reason Presti felt comfortable making these moves is that the Thunder still have plenty of players ready to take on bigger roles.

Cason Wallace is the obvious place to start. He averaged 1.9 steals, earned second-team All-Defensive honors, and shot 48.4% from three during the playoffs. He also scored 17 points in Oklahoma City’s Game 7 loss to San Antonio, which was a pretty good reminder that he’s capable of more than just defending and making the safe pass.

Wallace won’t replace Dort in exactly the same way, but replacing one All-Defensive guard with another is about as reasonable as this could get.

Ajay Mitchell has also moved well beyond the “interesting second-round pick” stage. He averaged 13.6 points, 3.6 assists, and 1.2 steals last season, then bumped that up to 15.1 points a game in the playoffs. The Thunder clearly trust him, and now he’ll have a chance to show what he can do with a little more responsibility.

Jared McCain gives them another young shooter who can get hot in a hurry. His overall numbers dipped during an injury-plagued second season, but he still scored 24 points off the bench in a Western Conference Finals win over San Antonio. That kind of scoring punch is exactly what OKC will need to find after losing Joe and Wiggins.

The Thunder also kept Alex Caruso, who's still one of the smartest and most annoying perimeter defenders in the league. There’s a reason they didn’t want to lose every veteran who knows how to make a playoff possession miserable for somebody.

They also gave Isaiah Hartenstein a new three-year, $75 million contract instead of giving up the size and passing he brings next to Holmgren. That decision looks even more important after the loss to Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs made one thing pretty clear: in the Western Conference, having multiple playable big men isn’t some nice bonus anymore. It’s becoming a requirement.

There’s another rookie class coming too, led by 7-foot-3 lottery pick Aday Mara.

None of this feels accidental.

Oklahoma City spent years drafting and developing players before there was an obvious role waiting for them. Now those roles are finally opening up. Wallace can take on more of Dort’s defensive work. Mitchell and McCain can help replace the scoring that left with Joe and Wiggins. Caruso is still there whenever Mark Daigneault needs a veteran he trusts in a big moment.

On paper, the plan makes sense.

The problem is that it also asks a lot from players who haven’t had to carry this much before.

Mitchell's never entered a season with this kind of responsibility. McCain's only played 82 career games. Wallace is ready for more, but his next contract could just end up creating another tough financial decision as soon as next summer.

The Thunder are still deep. They just aren’t quite as protected from injuries, cold shooting nights, and bad playoff matchups as they were before.

If one of the Big Three misses time, they won't be able to just coast comfortably at the top of the conference. If the shooting disappears in a playoff series, Joe won’t be there to come off a screen and punish a defense for helping too far.

That doesn’t make the trades wrong.

Keeping the entire roster together was never realistic once the extensions kicked in. Moving some of the supporting players before their contracts became even harder to move was probably the responsible thing to do, especially if the goal is to keep this core together for the long haul.

But for the first time in this championship era, OKC made themselves a little more fragile in order to protect the players who matter most.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com.

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