{"id":116169,"date":"2025-01-05T08:30:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-05T13:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=116169"},"modified":"2025-01-05T08:13:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T13:13:00","slug":"cam-johnson-thunder-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/05\/cam-johnson-thunder-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Cam Johnson Thunder Trade On Standby Until January 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

The interest between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Brooklyn Nets for a Cam Johnson<\/a> trade is apparent. There have been plenty of rumors lately showing that the Thunder have an interest in the veteran forward. But as it stands right now, there is little movement. One of the reasons might be the January 15 trade restrictions lift-off.<\/p>\n

Cam Johnson Thunder Trade On Standby Until January 15<\/h2>\n

The Thunder are one of the best-positioned teams in the league to make a trade. They have an abundance of draft picks and young players to make almost any trade plausible<\/a>. In this case, however, they might be waiting for January 15 to pass. At that point, they can trade some of their role players with higher salaries.<\/p>\n

Salaries a Challenge for a Thunder Cam Johnson Trade<\/h3>\n

Cam Johnson has two more years after this one left on his contract, with a salary at $20.5 million set for next year. The Thunder have players that they can use to match that salary, but they might have to give up Lu Dort<\/a> to do that.<\/p>\n

If the Thunder want to give up players like Aaron Wiggins<\/a> and Isaiah Joe<\/a>, they will have to wait for January 15 to pass by. Both are key contributors off the bench for Oklahoma City. The team re-signed \u00a0them this summer to long term contracts. Wiggins earns $9 million per year, while Joe earns $12 million per year. Because the team re-signed them, they are not eligible to be traded until January 15.<\/p>\n

With those two contracts, the Thunder can find a way to make the trade work. They would probably package one of those two guards with one of their reserve power forwards, for example, Kenrich Williams<\/a>. The good news is that the Thunder and Nets are under the luxury cap threshold at $170 million, making the trade easier to accomplish.<\/p>\n

Do the Thunder Need Cam Johnson?<\/h3>\n

The Oklahoma City Thunder are first in the Western Conference<\/a> and have the second-best record in the NBA. Yet, even as such, they could use some reinforcements. They will get plenty of reinforcement once Chet Holmgren<\/a> returns from his injury, but Cam Johnson is a player they could certainly use.<\/p>\n

The Thunder are 15th in the league in made threes<\/a>, and 20th in 3-point percentage. Adding a guy like Cam Johnson, who converts 43.6% of his shots from behind the arc this season would be great. Plus, he is taking 7.5 attempts per game, which would up their attempts as well.<\/p>\n

They would get a forward, which would allow them to have a more balanced lineup. Right now, they are starting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> at point guard, Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a> at center, and Cason Wallace<\/a>, Lu Dort, and Jalen Williams<\/a> in between.<\/p>\n

Should Cam Johnson\u2019s Recent Injury Worry the Thunder?<\/h3>\n

Johnson sprained his ankle during Thursday\u2019s road win over the Milwaukee Bucks. He suffered the injury in the last moments of the game but avoided any major injury. He will miss the team\u2019s next three games.<\/p>\n

His recent injury should not be a problem for the Thunder to trade for him. After all, it seems like the Thunder are waiting for the January 15 trade restrictions to be lifted to trade for Johnson. Of course, they can trade for him even before that, but they would have to give up Dort to make salaries work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The interest between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Brooklyn Nets for a Cam Johnson trade is apparent. There have been plenty of rumors lately showing that the Thunder have an interest in the veteran forward. But as it stands right now, there is little movement. One of the reasons might be the January 15 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":116196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,6,62,22,4721],"tags":[2525,1781,4292,993,5000,4609,2594,4462,1489],"class_list":["post-116169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nets","category-nba","category-thunder","category-trade-rumors","tag-aaron-wiggins","tag-cam-johnson","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-isaiah-hartenstein","tag-isaiah-joe","tag-jalen-williams","tag-kenrich-williams","tag-lu-dort","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116169"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116195,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116169\/revisions\/116195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}