Oklahoma City trades Kelly Oubre Jr. to Golden State in exchange for 2021 protected first round pick

The Thunder have made another deal. This time, the deal includes Thunder forward Kelly Oubre Jr.. Oubre Jr is heading to Golden State in exchange for their 2021 protected first round pick. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN had the details.

It is a top 20 protected pick, which means the pick will only convey if the Warriors’ pick falls between 21-30. Providing that the pick falls within the range of 1-20, it will then convey as two future second round picks for OKC. The Thunder also created a $14.4M trade exception in the deal.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and Shams Charania of The Athletic broke the news of this deal Thursday evening.

Oubre was acquired from Phoenix in the Chris Paul trade this past Monday. The 24-year-old wing was expected to have teams interested in him due to his scoring and shooting abilities. Oubre had his best season as of yet last year when he averaged 18.7 PPG on an effecient 51.7 eFG%.

Oubre has improved his three point shooting each season in terms of both volume and efficiency. Last season he shot a respectable 35.2% from three on 5.5 attempts a game. Oubre was an important part of the Suns’ offense last year.

Oubre is an expiring salary and is set to make $14.4M this season before hitting UFA. The Warriors will use their $17.2M trade exception in the deal in order to avoid having to match salaries to make the deal work. The acquisition of Oubre will have serious financial implications for the Warriors; Bobby Marks of ESPN reported on the payroll effects.

This move seems to indicate that the Warriors still plan on competing this season despite the news of Klay Thompson’s Achilles tear. This injury will rule him out the entirety of this season.

The motivation behind trading Oubre is to give the Thunder the ability to facilitate a sign-and-trade between pending UFA Danilo Gallinari and a team of his choosing. The trade itself is about creating financial flexibility needed for the Thunder to keep Gallinari’s cap hold on the books.

One of big concerns with the Al Horford trade was that it would eliminate this possibility and OKC would have to renounce Gallinari’s rights. The trade of Oubre means that the Thunder still hold Gallinari’s rights and have the ability to work out a sign and trade for Danilo.