Tramel's ScissorTales: Chet Holmgren & Ousmane Dieng trade part of improved OKC draft odds

The NBA Draft provides two ways to success, without downright luck.

Running into Giannis Antetokounmpo or Kawhi Leonard with the 15th pick in the draft is fortune gone to seed. Sure, the Bucks and Spurs deserve credit for spotting those future NBA superstars when other franchises didn’t, but if the brain trusts in Milwaukee and San Antonio truly knew what they had on their hands, they would have scrambled to move up in the draft lest Giannis or Kawhi be grabbed a little earlier.

So luck always helps. Helps big-time.

But the counter to luck is this. Pick early. Pick often.

And that’s why I loved the Thunder’s 2022 draft. Sam Presti picked early and he picked often.

The Tuesday ScissorTales look into some conference realignment ramifications and check in on my Colorado travelblog. But we start with the Thunder draft.

'No. 1 priority': Behind the scenes as OKC Thunder selects Chet Holmgren in NBA Draft

The Thunder opens its Summer League season Tuesday night in Salt Lake City against the homestanding Jazz. It’s Thunder fans’ first chance to see the bounty from the draft 12 days ago. Chet Holmgren, Ousmane Dieng and the homonymous Williamses – Santa Clara’s Jalen, Arkansas’ Jaylin.

The excitement is back in OKC basketball, since the young talent is starting to build and the dark days of tanking soon could end.

The Thunder draft was all about doubling. Doubling the chances of success.

Holmgren was a great pick at No. 2 because he can make it big down different paths.

The 7-foot stringbean from Gonzaga needs more strength and muscle, but he knows how to play and possesses uncommon skill for such a long, tall fellow.

Holmgren could be an NBA difference-maker offensively and could be an NBA difference-maker defensively. If the Thunder hits on either one, it was a good draft.

Scouts rave about Holmgren’s shot-blocking instincts and his defensive intuition. I’m not predicting the next Rudy Gobert, but a 7-foot rim protector is a valuable hand.

Meanwhile, Holmgren is touted as a quality outside shooter with some floor game. Hard to contest a 7-footer's 3-point shot.

Even if Holmgren disappoints on one end, he’s got the other end to excel. Few rookies have that kind of runway.

The Thunder had the 12th pick in the draft and took Jalen Williams, the Santa Clara guard who is one of a dozen players who could have been picked in that slot.

Carlson: Chet Holmgren turning the corner on OKC Thunder rebuild will require more than skill

But Presti doubled down by trading for Dieng, picked 11th by the Knickerbockers. The 6-foot-10 Frenchman by way of New Zealand has many of Josh Giddey’s characteristics. Giddey was a tremendous selection for OKC at No. 6 last summer.

Will Williams or Dieng make it in the NBA, much less become a star? The odds are not great. Players picked in the 11-12 range run about 50-50 on being impactful NBA players, and stars arrive at a far lesser rate.

But it happens. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Domantas Sabonis, Klay Thompson and Reggie Miller were No. 11 picks. That’s four in the last 35 years. Even fewer are found at No. 12 -- Tyrese Haliburton and Miles Bridges in recent years, but not much else since the 1972 selection of Julius Erving.

Still, adding Dieng, the 11th pick, to the equation more than doubles OKC’s chances of hitting on the pick or even striking it rich.

The 11-pick cost the Thunder three future first-round picks – the protected picks they got from Washington and Detroit a year ago for the No. 16 pick, plus a protected Denver first-round pick. It’s possible, maybe even likely, that none of the picks convey as a first-rounder.

So that’s a good trade, provided the Thunder had someone it liked at No. 11. Who knows if Dieng will pan out?

No one knows. That’s why Dieng and Williams, as a virtual two-horse entry, is a good step toward a winning ticket. The chances of success are multiplied.

The Thunder doesn’t need both to be quality NBA players. Just one is enough.

Same with Holmgren. The Thunder doesn’t need Holmgren to be a superstar on offense and defense. One side of the ball will be perfectly acceptable.

NBA Summer League 2022: OKC Thunder roster, schedule and everything else to know

What do USC & UCLA do for Big Ten basketball? 

Is it possible that the Big Ten’s expansion with Southern Cal and UCLA does more for the conference’s basketball than football? Yes. It’s possible.

Not financially. We’re not talking about greasing the palms of athletic budgets. We’re talking about the success of the teams and the conference.

Here’s the best way to describe it. UCLA basketball has trumped USC football for the last decade. USC basketball has trumped UCLA football for the last decade.

We’ll start with the 2010 season. The first decade of the 21st century was great for USC football (the Pete Carroll glory years) and UCLA basketball (three straight Final Fours, 2006-08).

So we’ll start with summer 2010.

UCLA basketball reached the 2021 Final Four. The Bruins also reached four other Sweet 16’s, which is an excellent achievement for all but a handful of schools. UCLA also made three other NCAA Tournaments.

The Bruins over that time won the Pac-12 title once and the Pac-12 Tournament once. UCLA had only one losing conference season, and its average Pac-12 record was 12-7.

Does USC football approach that performance? No. In the last 12 seasons, Trojan football has one Pac-12 championship, two major bowl appearances, six top-25 finishes and one-top 10 season. USC’s cumulative record is 70-36, which isn’t half bad. That’s a 6-3 average.

And of course, Lincoln Riley could and probably will boost the Trojans much higher.

But you’d have to say UCLA hoops have performed at a higher level over those dozen years.

Meanwhile, UCLA football has been missing in action. Not just for the last 12 years, but the last, I don’t know, quarter century. Since 2005, the Bruins have finished in the top 25 football rankings just twice, 10th in 2014 and 16th in 2013.

UCLA’s most recent major bowl came in the 1998 season, when the Bruins won their most recent conference title.

UCLA’s conference football record over the last 12 years is 50-47, which frankly is better than I thought it would be.

But not once during that time have the Bruins made a national splash. USC basketball has.

The Los Angeles market will be huge for the Big Ten’s television contracts. But it’s possible that Big Ten basketball benefits more on the court than Big Ten football benefits on the gridiron.

Tramel's Colorado travelblog: Big Meadows is one of America's most scenic & serene places

Colorado travelblog: Rafting on the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande dominates the landscape on our Colorado trips. We usually stay in a cabin maybe 50 yards from the south fork of the river, and once, we stayed in a cabin 10 yards from the water.

The Rio Grande and its south fork converge at the nearest town – South Fork – and our regular drives up to Creede mostly hug the Rio Grande.

According to americanrivers.org, Will Rogers described the Rio Grande as “the only river I know of that is in need of irrigation.” But he was talking about the Rio Grande as it reaches New Mexico and flows into Texas and serves as a big chunk of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Rio Grande in total is almost 1,900 miles long, making it the second-longest river in the continental U.S., trailing only the combined Missouri-Mississippi system.

The Rio Grande in Colorado still flows beautifully through the mountains. Not that Colorado’s drought hasn’t sapped the river. Locals say the Rio Grande is down significantly.

But we were fortunate. We scheduled a rafting trip for Monday on our Colorado vacation, and Sunday brought a big rain to the mountains. From mid-afternoon until deep in the night, a steady rain fell, with temperatures in the low 60s. It was magnificent.

The rain fortified the river so much that Mountain Man, the South Fork company we used to raft, took us much farther up the river than normal, almost to Creede, 21 miles away.

Rafting in this part of Colorado is not the ferocious waters you can find up north. We’ve whitewater-rafted near Crested Butte, and it was much more adventurous. But rafting near South Fork is not a float trip, either. There are some minor waterfalls and a variety of rocks and tight entries to navigate.

We had a guide and we rowed. It was a physical workout.

Our guide, Robby, grew up in Del Norte, the town about 15 miles east of South Fork. Del Norte means “The North” and derives its name from Spanish settlers in the 1500s, who named the river “El Rio Bravo del Norte.” In Mexico, the river still is known as “Rio Bravo.”

Robby gave us a lot of history about the land we passed, from the famed Wason Ranch to Wagon Wheel Gap, a narrow passage between mountain faces that was not particularly kind to pioneers. Wagon-wheel fragments frequently were found in the gap.

The trip was chilly — mostly overcast, temps in the 60s, constantly getting wet — but a lot of fun. The two-hour trip was just right on length. Rafting was $65 for adults and $55 kids 12 and under. We thought it was a solid price for the experience.

We don’t have rivers like the Rio Grande in central and western Oklahoma. Our river in OKC is manmade, like many Oklahoma lakes.

Driving along the Rio Grande in Colorado is really cool. Rafting along the Rio Grande is even better.

Tramel: Did Lincoln Riley find harder road in the Big Ten with USC than in SEC with OU?

Mailbag: What does ACC do?

The conference realignment craze has brought all kinds of questions. Include this one that focuses on a conference we aren’t talking much about.

Brad: “What is far-fetched, possible or likely about the following scenarios? Kansas to the Big Ten, SEC or even ACC. West Virginia to the ACC. Notre Dame to the Big Ten. Clemson a shoo-in for the SEC. Either (North) Carolina or Florida State joins, too. Duke?”

Tramel: The Atlantic Coast Conference is in a different kind of trouble from the Pac-12 or the Big 12. The ACC is in lockdown. Its contract with ESPN goes through 2036, and any school trying to leave the ACC before then would be in uncharted waters.

Can the grant of rights, which binds schools to their conference until the end of their television contract, be broken? Anything is possible. But it’s also potentially financially devastating. So any ACC speculation comes with that caveat.

As for the questions, Kansas to the ACC makes some sense at some point, since the ACC always has valued basketball more than most leagues value basketball. For 70 years, West Virginia would have loved to be in the ACC and still might, just for geography, but the ACC always has looked down its nose at the Mountaineers. Notre Dame has that danged contract, pledging to join only the ACC if it decides to enter a conference. Florida State and Clemson are SEC naturals, if they could solve the grant-of-right situations, while North Carolina is in the enviable spot of probably getting its pick between the Big Ten and SEC, should ACC schools become available.

As for Duke, Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde has trotted out the idea that Notre Dame might be interested in a new conference, with academic-minded schools like Stanford, California, Northwestern and Duke. Schools trying to adhere to the old notion that academics don’t have to be sacrificed on the altar of big-time sports. Quaint, of course, but you never know. The likes of Vanderbilt might be enticed. Pittsburgh and Boston College could be other candidates.

It’s all rank speculation. We don’t know.

But for the ACC, those grant-of-rights – contractually giving television revenue to the league no matter where schools take their teams – creates frustration for the members and stability for the conference.

'There are things at stake': Making sense of OKC Thunder's roster crunch before 2022-23 season

The List: NBA Summer League stars

The NBA Summer League is like spring football scrimmage or baseball’s spring training. A chance to see younger players and how they might develop.

Most Summer Leagues offer little insight into the future, but sometimes breakout stars are found. Here are five players who produced rousing Summer League performances as rookies and went on to at least solid NBA careers:

1. Donovan Mitchell, 2017: Acquired by Utah on draft night as the 13th pick, out of Louisville, Mitchell made a Summer League splash, averaging 20.5 points in five Jazz games. He’s since become a Utah cornerstone, though I suppose he still could be traded as the Jazz appears to have hit the rebuild button.

2. Tobias Harris, 2011: \The 19th pick in the 2011 draft, out of Tennessee, Harris played on Milwaukee’s Summer League team and averaged 20.8 points in five games, on 53.1 percent shooting. He’s since become a good player on a variety of good teams as a 6-foot-8 forward.

3. Brandon Roy, 2006: The sixth pick in 2006 was traded on draft night from Minnesota to Portland. With the Blazers in Summer League, Roy averaged 19.0 points and shot 64.7 percent from the field. He became a Portland star, though foot problems derailed his career.

4. Lou Williams, 2006: The 45th pick in the 2006 draft, Williams played six Summer League games with the 76ers, averaging 22.0 points and shooting 47.4 percent from the field. Williams still is chucking; he just completed his 17th NBA season.

5. Kevin Martin, 2005: The 26th pick in the 2004 draft, Martin didn’t play much as a Sacramento rookie. But he went to Summer League in 2005 and averaged 19.4 points while shooting 41.7 percent from 3-point range. He joined the Kings rotation that season and became a star.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today. 

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Chet Holmgren & Ousmane Dieng improved OKC Thunder's NBA Draft odds