Maybe the Thunder could have stopped the Mavericks by not helping them at the NBA trade deadline

The Thunder saw their season end in a one-point loss against the Mavericks in the NBA playoffs, and feasibly could have given themselves a bit more margin for error by... not helping Dallas improve at the NBA trade deadline.

Somewhere in the world, there is a current high schooler who the Oklahoma City Thunder might be able to select with the 2028 first-round pick swap they got from the Mavericks at the NBA trade deadline, and maybe they were even watching the series-deciding Game 6 between the two teams on Saturday night.

Unfortunately for the Thunder’s current roster, however, that player was unable to help them on Saturday while midseason Mavs acquisitions Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington helped Dallas eliminate Oklahoma City from the NBA playoffs with a 4-2 series win.

In a somewhat fitting ending to the series, Washington scored 6 of his 9 points in the fourth quarter, including the two game-deciding free throws with 2.1 seconds remaining after a pivotal offensive rebound to generate a three for himself a few possessions earlier. His intentional miss of the third free throw was even right on the money, leaving the Thunder short on time to generate a potential game-winning basket (Jalen Williams missed a 64-foot desperation heave) in the 117-116 loss.

Gafford was much less critical than Washington in the series — he finished with a negative plus-minus in every game — but his addition allowed the Mavericks to move precocious rookie Dereck Lively II to the bench, where he ravaged the Thunder’s undersized second units for offensive rebounds to help swing the series.

And beyond the plus-minus, Gafford’s presence also gave the Mavericks 48 minutes of capable center play rather than what they were dealing with before.

Now, why is that relevant to the Thunder beyond the result? Well, there is a world where the Mavericks had to potentially choose between Gafford and Washington, or were at the very least unable to acquire the former. Let me explain.

How the Mavericks got Washington and Lively

Back in February, on the day of the NBA trade deadline, the Mavericks pulled off two separate trades: One for Washington, and one for Gafford. It was the latter move that the Thunder helped directly facilitate, accepting a 2028 first-round pick swap opportunity from the Mavericks in exchange for their own first-round pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, which was rerouted to the Washington Wizards for Gafford.

The Thunder, facing a surplus of draft picks that includes nearly too many to count over the next several years, decided to trade out of a 2024 draft widely seen as weak in order to get the opportunity to swap picks with Dallas in 2028, when it’s possible Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are no longer playing for them. It was a transaction in which one team chose to get as good as it could now, and one chose to add a theoretical high schooler four years from now. That kind of business happens all the time in the NBA, but usually it’s not a No. 1 seed taking on the long-term potential asset to help a play-in team go on a run that would ultimately leave them in range to upset them in the playoffs.

Now, maybe that decision works out for OKC in the long run. But in a series during which the Mavericks won 4-2 despite both teams scoring exactly 636 points total over the six games... it’s fair to wonder if the Thunder helping the Mavericks get better by literally any margin was the difference.

Washington was the hero, yes, and again, the Thunder didn’t directly facilitate his acquisition. But if they had not given Dallas the pick needed to get Gafford — in a deal that was reported as complete several hours before the Washington one on deadline day — it’s at least possible the Mavericks would have been forced to choose between the two players. It’s impossible to predict how things go from here, and maybe Luka leaves and Dallas implodes to make that 2024 swap juicy... but it’s hard not to feel like the Thunder may have shot themselves in the foot here, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

While this series was obviously impossible to specifically predict at the point those trades were done, maybe the larger lesson is still hey, maybe it’s a bad idea to help a team in the lower half of the bracket in your conference get better at the trade deadline!

Or, at the very least, don’t do it if you’re not willing to have it come back to bite you in semi-hilarious fashion in the same year.