The Oklahoma City Thunder’s remarkable rise to the top of the NBA standings helped define the past two regular seasons, and the way in which the franchise returned to prominence in recent years was formally acknowledged Tuesday.
But the Thunder have been even better this season. They had the NBA’s best record (68-14) and set a league record for scoring differential. Presti and Oklahoma City added free agent center Isaiah Hartenstein season and traded former top-10 pick Josh Giddey for defensive ace Alex Caruso last offseason to better support MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and homegrown draft picks like Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace.
The organization is also still armed with at least seven first-round picks over the next three years thanks to Presti’s creative deal-making over the years.
This award for Presti was revealed, coincidentally, about 12 hours after the Thunder fell victim to a late shot by Aaron Gordon in a Game 1 loss to start their NBA playoffs series against the Denver Nuggets Monday. Though the Thunder suddenly face a 1-0 series deficit and an uphill battle in the Western Conference semifinals, they’re still the favorite win the 2025 NBA championship.
Presti, who was named Thunder general manager in 2007, received the most first-place votes (10) in executive of the year voting and appeared on 22 of the 30 overall ballots to finish with the most points (74). Each candidate received five points for a first-place vote, three points for a second-place vote and one point for a third-place vote. The voting panel consisted of one executive from each NBA team.
Cleveland Cavaliers President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman was the runner-up in voting with six first-place votes and 52 points overall. Detroit Pistons President of Basketball Operations Trajan Langdon also got six first-place votes and finished in third place overall.