{"id":120956,"date":"2025-09-05T04:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T04:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120956\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T04:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T04:00:11","slug":"thunder-pulled-off-a-trade-so-lopsided-that-it-is-still-making-headlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120956\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder pulled off a trade so lopsided that it is still making headlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5n\">Sam Presti planned to keep Josh Giddey with the Oklahoma City Thunder, having him come off the bench in the 2024-25 season, but Giddey didn&#8217;t want that. Giddey wanted to maximize his talents elsewhere, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/40396291\/bulls-trading-alex-caruso-thunder-josh-giddey-sources\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">leading to the Thunder-Bulls trade<\/a>. It was a simple Giddey-Caruso swap, one that greatly benefited OKC en route to the 2025 NBA title. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\">The Thunder won the trade before they won the championship, but that was the cherry on top. Caruso is <a href=\"https:\/\/thunderousintentions.com\/okc-thunder-key-role-player-makes-even-more-dangerous-than-last-year\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the perfect role player<\/a> for Oklahoma City. His value is most felt on the defensive end (unlike Giddey), as he&#8217;s the best perimeter defender in the league. He averaged 1.6 steals per game in 54 games, 10th best in the league for players who played at least 50 games. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">The trade was a winning move for the Thunder, and it wouldn&#8217;t have happened if Giddey had been content with coming off the bench. <\/p>\n<p>Trading Josh Giddey for Alex Caruso was a win for the Thunder<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5z\">Giddey got his wish of being the primary ball-handler and a focal point on offense, averaging 14.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.2 assists, and 1.2 steals per game, shooting 46.5% from the field and 37.8% from three for the Bulls. He recorded five triple-doubles in the final 19 games he played in for Chicago. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"62\">The 22-year-old became a restricted free agent this summer, but there is a <a href=\"https:\/\/thunderousintentions.com\/thunder-just-won-josh-giddey-alex-caruso-trade-all-over-again-01jwcj7g1krv\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gap between what he wants<\/a> ($30 million a year) and what the Bulls have offered ($20 million a year). If Giddey and Chicago don&#8217;t agree to a deal in the next few weeks, he could pick up his $11.1 million qualifying offer, allowing him to hit unrestricted free agency next season. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"65\">Bulls fans hope that the team won&#8217;t let things get that far with Giddey, but the organization doesn&#8217;t have a history of making wise decisions.  <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"68\">The restricted free agency saga gives Thunder fans another reason to be thankful for the trade, as it&#8217;s not something OKC needs to worry about. Caruso is signed through the 2028-29 season after the Thunder extended him last December. OKC is built to contend for years. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6b\">Caruso was one of the puzzle pieces that the Thunder didn&#8217;t know they were missing, helping them have the best defense in the NBA. Expect that trend to continue as OKC fights to become the NBA&#8217;s first repeat champion since 2018. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Presti planned to keep Josh Giddey with the Oklahoma City Thunder, having him come off the bench&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-120956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}