Thunder trade grades: OKC swipes promising young wing Nique Clifford from the rebuilding Kings
By Google News Sports ·
We have our first trade of the 2026-27 NBA season, and it's a somewhat familiar one. The Oklahoma City Thunder are acquiring guard Nique Clifford from the Sacramento Kings, according to ESPN, reversing a trade that occurred during the 2025 NBA Draft. The Thunder, using a pick acquired from the Los Angeles Clippers, were on the clock at No. 24 overall, but the Kings moved into that slot to select Clifford.
Now, a bit more than a year later, Clifford lands with the team whose hat he wore on draft night.
Trades this early in an NBA season are rare. Until Dec. 15, around 29% of the league is still technically untradeable because of contracts signed over the summer. However, the Oklahoma City Thunder have been ravaged by injuries so far this season. They initially planned to use their open roster spot to sign former first-round pick Ochai Agbaji, but changed course before doing so as their health issues worsened.
Instead, they signed Dalen Terry to a non-guaranteed deal; they will now presumably waive him in order to take a swing on Sacramento's promising youngster. With the season's first trade done, let's grade it for both sides.
One of the advantages of working with the enormous draft surplus Oklahoma City has had since it traded Paul George to the Clippers is that it allows the Thunder to be opportunistic. Think of last February, when they stole Jared McCain from the Philadelphia 76ers for a single first-round pick.
McCain was struggling through such a tough year that few teams could have afforded the risk of giving up a first-rounder for him. The Thunder obviously could, and in doing so, they got a key performer with two and a half years of cheap cost control remaining.
The thinking here is somewhat similar. The Thunder have so many second-round picks that they wouldn't miss two of them.
The Kings, like the 76ers, decided they were ready to cut bait on a recent first-round pick who had shown promise far earlier than most teams would have, so the Thunder, with access to a roster spot through Terry's non-guaranteed deal and second-round picks to spare, jumped at the chance to take a swing on yet another valuable asset with several years of cost control.
Is Clifford going to be as helpful for Oklahoma City as McCain? Probably not, but there's plenty of reason to believe he can help this depleted version of the Thunder. Clifford averaged just under 13 points, five rebounds and four assists in March and April last year for a Kings team that may have been terrible, but wasn't actively trying to lose like many of its contemporaries.
His emergence as a genuine NBA Draft prospect came in his last two collegiate seasons, when he improved as a 3-point shooter playing at Colorado State. That shooting, coupled with his all-around production and bothersome 6-foot-8 wingspan as a defender, made him a promising role player prospect. Clifford does a little bit of everything.
If the shots are falling, pretty much anyone could use a high-IQ, high-motor, ball-handling wing who rebounds well for his position.
This is, again, a flyer. We might find out that the Kings are giving up on him because they think he's a lemon. Think of their decision to dump Devin Carter two years after picking him in the lottery. Sometimes teams just know. Of course, the Kings are hardly the best evaluators of their own talent. See: Haliburton, Tyrese.
We can't give the Thunder a straight "A" here because we've only ever seen Clifford as a productive player at the end of a…
Originally published by Google News Sports
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