Matching Kanter Offer Sheet The Right Move For Thunder

This offseason has been fairly predictable for Oklahoma City.

There was never any doubt what the Thunder wanted to do during its unusually long summer—re-sign Kyle Singler and Enes Kanter, as well as make a good draft pick.

Sunday evening, the Thunder took care of the last of those goals, matching Portland’s offer sheet to Enes Kanter and keeping the big man in OKC.

Related Story: OKC Matches Offer Sheet On Kanter

The Thunder has said all along they would match whatever offer came Kanter’s way, but the offer Portland threw at Kanter probably made the OKC brass at least slightly uneasy. A four-year, $70 million max contract is nothing to sneeze at, plus it contains a player option in year four, something an OKC player has never had on their contract, not even Kevin Durant.

(Don’t expect the Thunder to be able to keep everyone else it signs in the future from having a player option in their contract. That toothpaste is out of the tube and there’s no putting it back in.)

There’s also the concern of Kanter’s defense, which was dreadful a year ago, as well as how many touches he’ll get with a fully healthy Thunder roster. Will he be happy coming off the bench if that’s how the rotation shakes out? There’s simply a lot we don’t know yet.

But in the grand scheme of things, the deal makes a lot of sense and is one the Thunder had to make. There was much more risk in not matching the offer sheet than matching it, even though there are still questions.

First, it shows Durant (and Russell Westbrook for that matter) that the franchise is willing to do what it takes to win. Plus, if the Thunder re-sign Kevin Durant next summer, the Thunder will still be under the luxury tax next season thanks to the sky-rocketing salary cap.

Second, the Thunder keeps an enormously talented offensive center who had 11 20-point, 10-rebound games in 26 games in OKC last season. In fact, he has every 20-10 game by an OKC center in franchise history.

Yes, Kanter’s defense is a big liability, but he’s not the first offensive-minded player to struggle on defense. Steph Curry and James Harden make that list as well.

The pros outweighed the cons in this situation, one the Thunder had anticipated since the organization traded for Kanter back in February. It’s moves like this that could keep Durant around for the rest of his career. Not making this move very well could have given Durant all the proof he needed the organization wasn’t willing to do what it takes to win a championship.

Now, there are a lot of questions about this deal, but the only one that really matters is can the Thunder win an NBA title? That’s always the question in the NBA, and matching Portland’s offer to Kanter moved the answer even more toward yes for OKC.