Sam Amick

Because if you are kind of quietly giving up hope that you can actually catch the thunder, then does that change the timeline of your strategy?

Does that change the way that you move?

It would make sense for the answer to be yes, because they've just been that good.

It is, but it's not.

It's funny because that word, you know, or that phrase, Dave, competitive balance.

Again, we heard that with the Warriors, right?

When they got Kevin Durant, it was unfair.

The free agency, you know, the cap spike that led to Kevin being able to sign with the Warriors.

That was an outlier.

And that was where people, I think, had a reasonable argument to say,

Well, this is, you know, unfair competitive balance.

This is not that.

This is just incredible management by Sam Presti and his front office staff to a degree where they are really the only team in the NBA that, again, through their own merit, has a cheat code in relation to this current salary cap situation.

situation and the CBA and the way that the league works right now, everybody else is, you know, it picks her at a premium, having a hard time, you know, figuring out the aprons and the thunder, knowing that inevitably they will lose some of their, uh, if not their core guys and their role players because of the finances that they have this incredible, uh, you know, a hall of draft picks waiting in the, in the wing.

And like you said to the idea that

I mean, you're talking about potentially three first-round picks with Clippers, Sixers, and Jazz next year coming their way, depending on how the standings fall.

It's unfair, but again, this is not the type of unfair where they got gifted anything.

They did this.

Again, it might, you know, you can call it stuck or you can call it like extending their runway or their timeline.

Dallas is a good example.