The bill comes due. Always. The Oklahoma City Thunder have enjoyed some high-winning hoops over the last three years. All on a bargain deal, thanks to their youthful roster being filled with rookie-scale contracts. Now, though, that’s about to change.
The Thunder are about to see their payroll balloon up — even if they finagle through the secondary players. Fresh off an NBA championship, OKC handed out around $765 million in contract extensions for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. That trio is set to make over half a billion dollars for the remainder of the decade.
That’s the price of success. And it starts next year. Holmgren and Williams will kick off their extension with a $41.3 million salary each. Funny enough, Gilgeous-Alexander will make less at $40.8 million before his third contract kicks in during the 2027-28 year at an eye-popping $60.6 million salary.
And with possible contract extensions to contributors like Isaiah Hartenstein, Cason Wallace and Ajay Mitchell over the next two summers, the Thunder are suddenly operating with a ridiculous payroll number. At his 2025-26 end-of-season press conference, Sam Presti alluded to OKC’s ownership group being ready to fork over the dough.
“Let me just say this for the record. Wherever we end up relative to the financial investment in the roster, it’s as much about giving back to the fans as it is about paying for a basketball team. Our fans mean everything to us. We begin and end with them,” Presti said. “We’ve experienced 18 years of Blue. Whatever we can do to keep continuing to create experiences, moments of joy to lift up the community, to give people a place to congregate and watch some great competition, that’s what we’re going to do. It’s always about them.”
We’ll see what that exactly means. The Thunder have a handful of important roster decisions to make this upcoming offseason. Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Holmgren are OKC’s franchise pillars, but the supporting cast could see some changes. Either way, Presti’s words make you think Clay Bennett and company are ready to play ball instead of nickel and diming this championship-caliber group.
Looking at their history, that shouldn’t be shocking. The Thunder had the highest NBA payroll at the time when they helped out Russell Westbrook by adding Paul George and Carmelo Anthony in the same offseason back in 2017. And that was for a team that failed to reach 50 wins in the regular season and was bounced in Round 1. Imagine OKC’s attitude toward a team that has actually brought home one Larry O’Brien already, with the potential for more.
“As I’ve said before, we’ve had ample time to prepare for this scenario,” Presti said. “When we repositioned, replenished, and rebuilt the team, we were well aware of what it would take if we were ever fortunate enough to fall into a perennial contender in Oklahoma City again.”
I really hope the Thunder’s ownership group goes all out. There’s a realistic chance that these are the golden years of OKC basketball. You can’t really get any better than a perennial 60-win team that could win several NBA championships. As long as Gilgeous-Alexander can suit up, they owe it to him and the fanbase to go all out. Right now is the whole point of even owning an NBA franchise. No point in self-closing your own championship window. And I think Presti and others understand what’s in front of them.
“We look at it less about paying for a team as we are giving back to the fans to the best that we can,” Presti said. “We know there’s challenges and there’s going to be limitations, but just because we’re here, I don’t think we should be told that we shouldn’t dream as big or go as hard as a team on the coast.”
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Sam Presti confident OKC Thunder are prepared for upcoming payroll jump
