Oklahoma City’s offseason is well underway, and its latest moves in the first round should give the team a luxury it’s missed for a couple of years.On Tuesday night, the 2026 NBA Draft tipped off, with the first round featuring 30 players learning their first NBA home. Two of those players, Aday Mara and Bennett Stirtz, learned that their first NBA home will be Oklahoma City.The Thunder took the Michigan big man and the Iowa guard to give the team some extra depth and talent at those positions. With summer league just around the corner, the Thunder should have the ability to see how those two can perform against other NBA-level talent.The selections of Mara and Stirtz also represent some hope for the Thunder. Over the past two drafts, the Thunder have seen their first-round selections be sidelined for the entirety of their first year.With Nikola Topic and Thomas Sorber each missing what would’ve been their rookie years wth ACL tears, Oklahoma City has spent the past two seasons using a standard roster spot on a player who never saw the floor. While it’s impossible to know if or when an injury might occur, as it stands, the Thunder are expected to enter next season at full strength.That should give Oklahoma City a bit of an advantage that it hasn’t had over the past couple of years. While Mark Daigneualt has always been one to use his two-way players and give everyone on the roster an opportunity, he’ll now have the task of fitting in 15 standard contract players with his trio of two-way guys. Considering the Thunder’s competitive situation in his early years and the makeup of the end of the bench in 2024, this will be the first time Daigneault has coached a contender with 15 players who could legitimately be in the mix for postseason minutes when April 2027 rolls around. While that would mean Topic, Sorber, Mara and Stirtz would all have to make their cases throughout the regular season, it’s at least a feasible outcome.It also marks an underrated leap in talent level for Oklahoma City at the tail end of its bench. If each of that quartet can show their worth in the regular season, the Thunder could suddenly have a bolstered bench unit after an offseason expected to be headlined by the departures of multiple key role players.Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow