They reached the mountaintop as 2025 NBA champions. The achievement took nearly two decades of work and a recasting of characters. So now what? The obvious answer is you run it back with hopes of a repeat.

"I think the one thing we have to do is get away from the defensive nature of trying to convince people, players and teams that there's no connection between the loads and the injuries," Presti said.

Sam Presti put Oklahoma City's first NBA championship team together in an unconventional way. The Thunder general manager didn’t make any splashy trades or break the bank in free agency.