What was an incredible start to the season for the Thunder was quickly soured by two devastating injuries.

Jalen Williams went down with a scary-looking leg injury Sunday against the Clippers. After he missed a majority of last season, another prolonged absence was a brutal blow for the All-Star wing and his team. On Monday, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Williams suffered a dislocated left ankle and fractured fibula which requires surgery and will keep him out for several months, which amounts to most, if not the entire season.

To make matters worse, Charania reported that Thunder guard Cason Wallace has a torn labrum in his left shoulder which requires surgery and puts him on the same injury timeline as Williams. Wallace is fresh off a five-year, $139 extension. A solid deal for the Thunder which locked down a key player for the future on a fairly reasonable contract while Wallace got long-term security to remain with the championship group.

The Thunder dealt without Williams for considerable time last year, both in the regular season and the playoffs. Still, OKC’s season ended just one win shy of the NBA Finals. This year could be different, though, as Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe were traded away over the offseason due to financial constraints with an increasingly expensive roster.

Players like Ajay Mitchell and Jared McCain will help fill the scoring void, but the Thunder’s defense takes a severe hit without Williams and Wallace—the latter received second team All-Defensive honors last season. That hole is even larger with Dort in Atlanta.

On the bright side, general manager Sam Presti has collected a treasure trove of assets which he could use to improve the roster as the Thunder push for a title without two key starters. The tricky part is the team’s financial situation which already led to the departures of Dort, Wiggins and Joe over the summer. So what should the Thunder do? Let’s dive in.

OKC has avenues to improve roster without Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace

According to Spotrac, the Thunder are currently $6.9 million below the dreaded second apron. OKC can exceed that amount and go into the second apron, but the franchise would then get limited by its severe roster-building limitations. The injuries to Williams and Wallace will likely give the Thunder a $15 million disabled player exception which would allow the team to sign or trade for a player in the last year of his contract, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks. However, using more than $6.9 million of that without sending salary away would still bring the Thunder into the second apron.

OKC also has a few large trade exceptions from the Dort, Wiggins and Joe trades that can be leveraged to make deals work and bring players in, but acquiring more than $6.9 million in salary would still result in going over the second apron.

Teams want to avoid the threshold at all costs. The Knicks halted extension talks with players like Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart ahead of the season as owner James Dolan has long said that he wants to do anything possible to duck the second apron. Over the offseason, Presti made a clever move to sign Nuggets wing Spencer Jones to an offer sheet that Denver later matched. The maneuver backed the Nuggets into a corner and they became the NBA’s only second apron team because of it.

No franchise wants to go there, but the Thunder may have to with their recent developments. They have a haul of first-round picks they can trade, plus young players like Nikola Topić and Thomas Sorber. If you add up those two salaries ($10.3 million), OKC can bring $17.2 million and stay clear of the second apron. That’s enough room to go to the Pelicans and try to get Herb Jones which would help on defense, but nothing close to the amount it would take to get players like Trey Murphy III, Jrue Holiday, Zach LaVine or Michael Porter Jr.

If Presti wanted to hunt a bigger salary, he would have to send out someone like Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso or even Williams to get a blockbuster deal done. Hartenstein was just signed to a new contract over the summer, which would mean the Thunder would have to replace him if he was included in a deal unless they think Aday Mara is ready to take on the starting center role. Caruso is a key defender and can pop on offense any given night, which seemingly keeps him off the table. Although Williams will now miss the majority of two straight seasons, he’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s No. 2 and moving him while injured would be a drastic shake-up to what was a championship team not too long ago.

The Thunder are in quite the conundrum, but there might be a way out. Especially with the creativity we’ve seen from Presti for years.

Should the Thunder make a considerable trade or improve around the margins?

Although it’s a tall task without Williams and Wallace, the Thunder need to push for a title this season. Gilgeous-Alexander’s enormous extension kicks in next year, which will likely see the team operate above the second apron unless big roster changes are made. The uncertain future makes this year key and OKC has to make some sort of move to bolster its depth even if the team stays atop the Western Conference.

The big question: What kind of move will the Thunder make? Will Presti make a big move or try to nab rotation players on cheaper contracts? The second apron looms large, but I wouldn’t treat it as a strict hard cap if I was in Presti’s shoes. OKC can exceed the second apron at the trade deadline with a player on an expiring contract. Yes, the ramifications would apply. However, this year’s roster would be all but finalized at that point and an expiring contract would come off the books in the offseason.

Would the Thunder need to pay a premium to acquire a good player on an expiring deal at the deadline? Yes, but they are in better position than any team to pay that price and feel minimal impact. Check in with the Raptors to see if they want to move off of RJ Barrett. Maybe the Clippers would part with Derrick Jones Jr., Rui Hachimura or Kris Dunn. Anthony Black’s upcoming restricted free agency with Orlando is interesting, too.

This path would require the Thunder to acquire a player with the intention of letting him walk in the offseason because the team can’t afford to keep him. It’s not ideal to give up real assets for a rental, but sometimes that’s what championship teams need to do.

With how good Gilgeous-Alexander is along with Chet Holmgren’s All-Star breakout last season, it’s very possible that the Thunder could be right where they were last year without any changes. Williams’s brief return made them scary, though, and Wallace’s perimeter defense is second to none. You can’t replace those two, but the Thunder have to do something by the time the February trade deadline hits. It’s a long, grueling season and we’re only a few games in.

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