Q&A WITH SAM PRESTI

What did Sam Presti have to say about the Thunder's trades and the team's future?

Sam Presti loves the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment.

One at a time, kids ages four to six were placed in a room, offered a treat of choice and told that if they waited 15 minutes to partake, they would get two treats. The purpose of the test was to see when the concept of delayed gratification developed in children. Some would say it never comes to NBA franchises.

The Thunder is about to embark on delayed gratification. After a rousing decade of big-time basketball and

big-time players leading to big-time thrills, Oklahomans are about to be reminded of how the other half lives in pro basketball.

Maybe not this season. There's not enough wreckage in the wake of Russell Westbrook and Paul George. Too much talent left behind and coming in. Shai GilgeousAlexander. Chris Paul. Danilo Gallinari. All joining Steven Adams and Dennis Schroder, Terrance Ferguson and Nerlens Noel. That's not likely a playoff team, but it's not the Phoenix Suns, either.

But the season after? Or the year after that? Presti won't eat the marshmallow. He wrote a 1,000-word op-ed for The Oklahoman that could be reduced to two words: Be patient.

Presti plans no shortcuts on getting the Thunder back into

Western Conference contention. He sees building through the draft as the Thunder's only option, and building through the draft means some lean times for a franchise and a fan base that is unaccustomed to roughing it.

We call it tanking. Presti calls it rebuilding. I asked him about tanking, and he said the Thunder must reposition, replenish and then rebuild.

It's all semantics, of course. Replenishing means filling the roster with draft picks, which Presti believes is the only way for a small-market team to thrive in the NBA.

It's certainly the way he built the consistent winner of the last decade.

Drafted Kevin Durant. Drafted Russell Westbrook. Drafted James Harden. Drafted Serge Ibaka, who played strong for seven years and eventually was turned via trade into Paul George. So what's the timetable? When will the Thunder bottom out? Presti doesn't know.

“I can't sit here and tell you when that process will enact itself, only that our vantage point and our view is always going to be to create the most and longest runway for success and not to shortcut that,” Presti said, “so that we at some point can recreate an elongated period of success like we've been fortunate to have.”

There's another “re” word. Reposition. Replenish. Rebuild. Recreate.

If Presti recreates the Thunder success of the last decade, some hard times will be worth it.

But tanking is hard to swallow.

Thunder fans spend a lot of time and money on this team, and 25-win seasons are a bitter pill when there's no guarantee of future glory.

Full-blown tanking – stripping down rosters in hopes of losing big; 76er-style tanking

– is an abomination. The Thunder hasn't done that and maybe won't. But Presti seems steadfast that he won't cut corners.

That the Thunder's future assets – 15 firstround picks in the next seven drafts – won't be used to turn a 25-win team into a 35-win team.

Won't be used to sell tickets or sponsorships to

a restless state.

“We're going to take a very long view to make sure that we're putting ourselves in position to have a long run of success in Oklahoma City,” Presti said. “I think we've put ourselves in a position to have a lot of different options as a result of the transactions that we've been able to make. But I wouldn't necessarily say that we've started that process.”

The next time the Thunder has a big winner, CP3 won't be on the team. Gallinari won't be on the team. Adams might not be. I hope GilgeousAlexander is, else it's going to be a long cold winter.

“We're not looking at this in one-season increments,” Presti said. “Obviously the most important season is next season, and we want to maximize that season the best that we can. But not at the expense of continually and aggressively making sure that we're

repositioning and replenishing the team so that we have a platform and a runway for the next great Thunder team to take shape.”

Presti likes to say that if the Thunder was in the tanking business, it would have tanked after Kevin Durant's exodus. Would have traded Westbrook and bottomed out. The Thunder didn't do that, so Presti deserves some latitude.

But there are no quick fixes. The Thunder is going to be mediocre next season, then will fall from there. Presti is waiting on that second marshmallow.