威少信其人，雷霆托之任——萨姆-普莱斯蒂

一群人安静的坐在圣杰罗尼莫山谷中方圆411英亩的僻静林地中，此处位于甲骨文球馆西北方向30英里处。随后他们鱼贯而入一所雪松木制的二层小楼，在储藏室里摆放好各自的鞋子，并往自己的杯中倒满热茶。跪倒在大厅那八角式橡树地板上的这群人，以枕头作为自己的坐垫，身旁的落地窗让他们能瞥见室外，火鸡在草地上漫步，头顶有盘旋红木堆的老鹰。一对佛像摆放于较低的讲台两侧，而三名禅师正站在讲台之上，向人群解释着 Spirit Rock 冥想中心的第一条规则：不要说话。

对雷霆总经理萨姆-普莱斯蒂而言，极端的自律行为从来都不是问题。三年前，一名雷霆队医对普莱斯蒂警告过关于碳水化合物对其的影响，自那以后，他就再没有吃过一个油煎面包块。而在两年前，普莱斯蒂的夫人产下了两人的第一个孩子，他发誓要在每次客场之旅中都给自己的孩子写一封书信。大概在俄克拉荷马城银行里的某个保险箱，已经被接近70份左右的便签和明信片所装满。每年球队都会组织心脏压力测试，球员们一般会在8到9分钟之后跳下测试仪，在这段时间里球队工作人员会得到关于他们心压足够清楚的超声波数据。但是普莱斯蒂对自己的测试会延长到14分钟，同时每30秒还会增加测试速度和倾斜坡度，他不断起伏的胸膛里似乎像在燃烧着。普莱斯蒂这么做只为了测试能得到最清晰的超声波数据。

普莱斯蒂总在尽自己最大的努力，这就是为什么他会在9月3日的清晨来到 Spirit Rock 与160位陌生人一起参与冥想，而陪伴自己唯一的东西是从 West Marin 附近的天然食品商店买的一份午饭。冥想中的普莱斯蒂并不是“禅师”菲尔-杰克逊，而因为正处于劳动节期间，所以冥想中心安排在3天内完成每天18个小时安静的冥想课程。在考虑到具体课程安排之前，光听见时间表就足以吓退很多人了。普莱斯蒂作为 NBA 中最著名的总经理之一——你目光所见的是边框分明的眼镜，清爽的发型，以及无处不在的黑莓元素（他存了不少备份手机，以备公司万一倒闭）——但他在 OKC 之外出现时依旧不太会引起人们的关注。他本可以选择任何一个地方的冥想中心。但当他清空了自己的脑海，屏息思考时，他感觉自己经过了奥克兰的 Richmond–San Rafael 大桥，一路来到了湾区，在那里他如预想般被身穿勇士T恤的球迷围住。在瞥见了大厅前面明亮的黄色之后，普莱斯蒂露出了笑意，不过并不是那种很大声的笑。

距离雷霆队私人飞机离开汉普顿已经过去了两月有余，那时候的机上并无凯文-杜兰特的身影。普莱斯蒂飞回 OKC 的时候，KD 前往了奥克兰，这是自2007年，时年29岁的天才总经理普莱斯蒂接手西雅图超音速之后第一次不再与 KD 同行。他在接手总经理一职的前三年的选秀里，选中杜兰特，拉塞尔-威斯布鲁克和詹姆斯-哈登，而这些抉择，足以在他的履历上写上重墨重彩的一笔的同时，也会让如红衣主教阿诺-奥本巴赫和杰里-韦斯特这样的前辈为之惊叹。

但在7月4日的航班飞行期间，以上的三位基石球员却仅余一人，而普莱斯蒂打开了一直带在身边的塑料文件袋。作为一名嗜书如命的读者——当新书在球队的客场之旅时被网站推荐的时候后，他会要求自己的助理，Glenn Wong 去找到最近销售这本书的实体店并将它买来。他不喜欢等新书上架 Amazon Prime——他在这个文件袋里所保留的都是书中令他触动的内容的复印纸页。随着时间推移，其中的内容不断的被更新。这些他所欣赏的话语一如雨后春笋般的累计多达55页。坐在飞机前部座位上的普莱斯蒂，从文件袋里找出了老罗斯福的 Citizenship in a Republic 一书的复印稿，Citizenship in a Republic 是前美国总统在1910年的索邦神学院（现巴黎大学）中的演讲稿。文本中的很多部分都被普莱斯蒂划了出来，其中包括一句划出了四分之一语句的话：

“成为那些对伟大而慷慨的情感，高傲的荣耀，严格的信念，崇高的热情，以及平息风暴和驾驭雷电的精神认知颇少的而性格不温不火的人对自己并没有什么好处。”

但突然间，他被接下来一句之前从未划出的话所触动，不管是在球队12年折戟总决赛也好，还是因为13年威斯布鲁克的伤病，14年伊巴卡的伤退还是15年 KD 伤病的各种影响之时都没有将其划出。“如果他们成功了，那很好；如果他们最终失败，但却勇于冒险，甘愿全力以赴自己的意志和力量，即使失败了，也会令我们赞叹。”

飞机落地，赶回家洗了个澡的普莱斯蒂，紧接着又召开了一场晚间的新闻发布会，会上他充分感谢了杜兰特对球队近10年的付出。在这样一次本可能是令人尴尬的发布会上，雷霆总经理用让人惊叹的风度解决的一切，会后他的手机收到了源源不断的来自球队老板们的赞誉，然而那时候的普莱斯蒂已经和助手一起钻进了位于雷霆发展联盟球队总部的会议室里。训练基地的设施正在翻修，施工带来的气味难闻无比，但工作需要继续。这套为两位巨星量身打造的阵容，即将面对仅存一人的局面，之前缺乏真正带队经验的历史让每个人对要如何围绕威斯布鲁克建队而深感不安。2010年当勒布朗-詹姆斯离开克利夫兰前往迈阿密的时候，骑士做出了一笔至关重要的签换交易，并得到了两个未来的首轮选秀权，两个未来的次轮选秀权和一个数额巨大的薪金特例。从 KD 身上，俄克拉荷马没有留下丝毫。工作人员在黑板上列出了仅剩的自由球员。但有意追求的球员都大局已定，黑板上的字更让人觉得空无一物。

“我们需要谨慎对待任何忽然就出现在你面前的事，”2008年8月2日，当他看完一场小联盟棒球比赛后，从 Bricktown Ballpark 漫步到国家纪念馆[译注5]的时候对着黑莓手机说道。那是他第一次来到俄克拉荷马城，那时候球队既没有队名，也没有 Logo，甚至连训练场都没有。球队的夏季联赛队服都是黑灰的标准队服。作为普莱斯蒂最重要的助手之一，Will Dawkins 用语音录下了他的这个最初的想法。而现在的普莱斯蒂依旧把其留在了文件袋里。在杜兰特离队之后，雷霆没有如同恐慌性般的追逐自由球员，而是把剩余的薪金空间用于顶薪续约威斯布鲁克，然后又用少量的空间得到了后卫塞马杰-克里斯顿以及大前锋若弗雷-洛韦尔涅，不起眼的操作后续有着重要的影响。

7月份的时候，普莱斯蒂给管理层播放了一段之前放过很多次的电影片段，那是选自电影阿波罗13号的一段片段。片段中描述了当宇航员所在的航天器中的二氧化碳因故达到足以致命的程度时，工程师们必须为这群宇航员找出一种方式能置换掉二氧化碳循环过滤器的方法。“先生们，我建议你们发明一种新的独特方式来解决这个问题。”飞控主任 Gene Kranz 的扮演者 Ed Harris 这么说道。宇航员们用飞行手册的封面，一卷牛皮胶带和一个备件袋应急制成了过滤器。普莱斯蒂把这些称之为拼凑混合出来的成就，在法语里用来形容利用眼前所有能用到的材料所拼凑而成的一种不够完美但够用的艺术。

“萨姆情绪很低落，”助理总经理特洛伊-韦弗回想说，“但他让自己看上去精神不错。”过去9年，普莱斯蒂打造了雷霆的黄金时代，威斯布鲁克和杜兰特正进入各自的巅峰期，辅以年轻有天赋的球员和灵活的薪金控制，一切的一切都在到达巅峰之前轰然倒塌。他没有时间浪费在问为什么上。“当时普遍都流露着失望的情绪，”普莱斯蒂说，“只专注于眼前这段队史的部分，会在让你觉得并不完整的同时，也让你觉得未来未知，这留下的缺口需要用时间去填补。凯文做出了一个跟随他内心，并对自己最好的决定。那是一个男人所能做出的决定。人们普遍的情绪不在于他或者他的决定。实际上那关乎的更多，因为这情绪中有着球队成员的，社区球迷们的坚持，这种联系会一直延续到很久。但我们从已经经历的岁月里知道，唯一一种能够继续推动我们前进的方式，就是让我们眼前的价值作为起点来继续创造我们的未来。”

留在俄克拉荷马城的普莱斯蒂，不断的通过电话会议来鼓励球队部门中的工作人员，他也为在发展部门或者是医疗部门中所实现的微小成就而高兴。他派出了球员导师般存在的韦弗前往在奥兰多举行的夏季联赛。他也要求忠实的助手比如保罗-里夫斯和迈克尔-温格研究威斯布鲁克是如何创造投篮机会的。外人们可能简单就会说，雷霆对威斯布鲁克需要像休斯顿为哈登那样，配置一圈的外线火炮手，但普莱斯蒂要求具体的例子支持。在训练营开始之前，普莱斯蒂与勇士主教练史蒂夫-科尔通话，并且给总经理鲍勃-迈尔斯发短信祝他们好运。

除非出现非常重要的大变动，球队在失去了像 KD 这样级别的球员之后，一般都会沉寂至少五年左右。但是时隔仅一年，俄克拉荷马以西部第六重回季后赛，这很大程度上由于这次在 Bricktown 完成的临时拼凑之举。当球队发现威斯布鲁克究竟需要什么样的队友的时候，6月份从与魔术的伊巴卡交易中得到的筹码发挥了应有的作用，为威斯布鲁克带来了帮手。拉开空间型前锋艾森-伊利亚索瓦当初是交易中的添头，但却在11月1日与费城的交易中作为主体换来了弹簧人杰拉米-格兰特以及一个750w的交易特例。因为克里斯顿坐稳了替补控卫的位置，因而球队把卡梅伦-佩恩作为筹码，与洛韦尔涅，安东尼-莫罗一起送到了芝加哥，换来了大前锋泰-吉布森和神投手道格-麦克德莫特。中锋史蒂文-亚当斯和侧翼维克托-奥拉迪波分别在十月与球队签下了续约合同，并在之后打出了可以说是最好的一个赛季。新秀亚历克斯-阿夫里内斯和多曼塔斯-萨博尼斯展现了自己的潜力。与此同时，多位高管拒绝了来自竞争对手的挖角，以至于没有出现后 KD 时代的管理层人员流失。

如果没有威斯布鲁克，那么雷霆可能就已经与湖人在西区垫底战中相爱相杀，但正是雷霆稳定的状态让球队在夏天与球队三双巨星有着更大续约5年的可能性。威斯布鲁克不能再依靠巨星队友，但是一名一流的总经理一点都不会比好的队友逊色。在绝大多数的交易中，普莱斯蒂都得到的多于失去的，而人们最记得的，却是唯一的那笔。五年前那笔交易里，在面临即将出现的奢侈税以及来自哈登本人新的雄心之后，普莱斯蒂不得一做出了这笔本不想完成，但必须要去做的交易。交易之后的赛季里雷霆依旧取得了60+胜场。“我非常相信萨姆，”威斯布鲁克说，“他总会确保我们有竞争的机会。”往年发掘新秀的历史——24顺位选中伊巴卡和雷吉-杰克逊，12顺位选中亚当斯——让普莱斯蒂有着相信自己能发现另一位新星的信念。“你知道我为了这份工作而面试了多长时间吗？”而今执教第二个赛季主教练比利-多诺万说，“10个小时。萨姆是那种，会把每件事情前前后后观察一遍，在不断寻找新的角度看待同一事物中，仔细发现一切的可能性的人。如果你有着这样准备的同事，你做起事来就会觉得很舒服。”

上个月 NCAA 锦标赛里，普莱斯蒂和球探一起前往图尔萨的分赛场观看比赛，一路上他在车里放着从鲍勃-迪伦到斯莱和斯通一家乐队的各种歌曲。他飞去看一场主流联盟锦标赛的唯一目的，是考察一名当时在落选边缘的球员。而在冬季中旬呆在南达科他州的一周时间里，他与雷霆下属的 NBDL 球队小蓝队一起呆在苏福尔斯的 Best Western 旅馆里。“问我你想知道的任何事，”普莱斯蒂在他招待球员的晚饭上说。

除了环境以外，关于普莱斯蒂的处事方式从未改变过，他依旧会在家里用鼓点来舒缓自己的压力，Bose 耳机把詹姆斯-布朗的歌声源源不断提振他的精神。从某个角度而言，在3年半前他就已经开始有所准备了，当时他飞往宾夕法尼亚大学与 Karen Reivich 进行了预计两小时的会面。“结果最后变成了5个小时，” Reivich 解释说，“因为他是萨姆，他就是这样的人。” Reivich 是宾州积极心理学中心恢复项目的首席讲师，这个项目已经培训了接近4w名美国陆军军人，目的是为了让他们在更高压力的环境中能看到更乐观的方面，而这也对雷霆起到了很大作用。Reivich 生活在宾夕法尼亚，但是定期会前往俄克拉荷马城，通过角色扮演，分析个例以及分组的讨论指导教练们和球队工作人员，帮助他们理解应该感谢的是哪些事，而非沉浸于那些令他们沮丧的事。普莱斯蒂关于杜兰特离去的评价，正如他在13年威斯布鲁克受伤后言论那样有着不少感激的情绪。今年三月，Reivich 观察了由普莱斯蒂主持的一次会议，会上他要求会议室里所有人一位对自己有意义的偶像。“你必须要理解你为什么会是现在的样子以及你处事的方式，”普莱斯蒂说，“然后能表达给其他人看。那是你如何创造一个人们之间相互联系，相互依靠的环境所在。”这位时年40岁的总经理首先描述的画面是关于他专科老师的。

“你知道自己并不应该出现在这里，”在 Concord-Carlisle Regional高中 Harriett Stevens 辅导普莱斯蒂的时候这么说，但后者并没有很多地方可去。他的双亲当时正处于漫长的离婚谈判状态，因而很长时间都不在家，作为两人唯一儿子的普莱斯蒂呆在家里简直就是一种煎熬。普莱斯蒂在波士顿郊区的学校里多是来自常春藤联盟的学生，而他和他们呆在一起压力只会更大。普莱斯蒂的成绩很多科都是 C，还有不少的 D，让他需要的到来自 Stevens 夫人的辅导。“不要把你自己跟别人去比较，”她说，站在普莱斯蒂身后的 Stevens 耐心的看着这个任何地方都没得去的孩子完成他的作业。

普莱斯蒂最终在 Concord-Carlisle 高中餐桌上与来自 Metco 项目的学生打成了一片，找到了自己青年期的快乐之源，这些孩子都主要来自于非洲裔美国人社区比如 Mattapan，Roxbury 和 Dorchester。其中的两人——基南-史密斯和安东尼-霍尔斯——以及他们来自康科德朋友，麦克-约翰逊都是篮球队成员，他们让这个白人男孩开始听 Public Enemy，一起去看 Do the Right Thing 的电影，以及就种族问题提出真诚的思考。当那晚被校棒球队裁退之后，他打电话给篮球队教练。“我明年会报名参加篮球队。”当时的普莱斯蒂就这么说。

他的比赛风格磨砺和拼命各占其半（“我们管他叫鲍勃-苏拉，”史密斯说，他这个对比让我们想起了曾经的佛罗里达州立大学球星，而后在 NBA 征战了十年的老将。）在他浴室的镜子上，普莱斯蒂挂了一张高中竞争对手的照片，那是来自 Acton-Boxborough 高中的后卫 Jimmy Dee。他甚至还去看了 Dee 的橄榄球赛，就在看台上盯着对手，就像他这么做能这么获得 Dee 内在的信息那样。高中毕业之后，普莱斯蒂前往弗吉尼亚的卫斯理学院就读，白天的他是篮球队的后卫，晚上则会出现在弗吉尼亚海滩的蓝调酒吧里担任鼓手。但他依旧想回到波士顿，在看了艾默生大学篮球队的比赛之后，他在大三转学到了那里。为了成为队长，他需要3.0的绩点，而他的通信专业被誉为学校里最难的专业之一。不过麦克-布朗对于办公时间非常慷慨，所以普莱斯蒂能够每天都出现在他位于 Beacon Street 的地方来回顾每天的课程安排。普莱斯蒂很容易就达到了 GPA 的标准，同时他又招募了当地音乐家刻录 CD 募集善款捐助给儿童医院。布朗提名他为 Rhodes 奖学金的获得者。

但其中最重要的是他鼓励了汤米-费雷尔，作为新人的后者在一次训练中弄伤了自己的背部，并考虑回到位于阿斯彭的家中。汤米的父亲，也是阿斯彭公立学校的负责人，对此非常感激他。他对此太过于感激了以至于提到了每年夏天，马刺主教练格雷格-波波维奇和主教练 RC-布福德都会在阿斯彭高中举行篮球训练营，布福德还会带一名实习生回马刺工作的事。2000年的时候，老汤姆-费雷尔需要一名训练营顾问，所以他向艾默生的两位队长发出了邀请。“你应该去试试，”联合队长汤米-阿里亚告诉普莱斯蒂，“你会做出的事情来的。”普莱斯蒂通过给 Pinehills 高尔夫球俱乐部修建草坪，并且变卖了部分架子鼓从而凑够了飞机票。他睡在阿斯彭高中的教室里，打扫餐厅，执行宵禁，但从没看到波波维奇或是布福德。我为了这一切卖掉了一个16英寸的落地鼓？他为此抱怨道。而在训练营第四天，也就是最后一天，布福德走进了体育馆。

当总经理在看对抗赛的时候，普莱斯蒂不停在他身边和场地上跑上跑下，为自己说话。“当你到圣安东尼奥的时候，”布福德和善的说，“我希望你能打电话给这个人。他叫迈克-布登霍尔泽。”普莱斯蒂从来没有听过说这个马刺助理。他在洲际35号公路的假日酒店定了个房间，又买了一辆86年的别克云雀，这辆车有着特别的播放器，只有当一个播放指针放置合适的时候才会开始播放。这一切又是凑活而成的。但是已经把所有全日制实习岗位分配出去的马刺，不知道具体应该让普莱斯蒂干什么。他在训练时负责计时，拖净地板，填满冰箱。他为大卫-罗宾逊和丹尼-费里捡篮板球。有时候他会在阿拉莫穹顶球馆的一张训练桌上睡觉。有一次他甚至因为吃完了所有的能量棒而被骂。在一场投篮比赛里赢得了300美元之后，蒂姆-邓肯把现金都给了普莱斯蒂保管。那个月里他所经历的远远不止一个后备实习生所需要做的。

当时里克-卡莱尔没在联盟里执教，而当他前来参观圣安东尼奥的时候，普莱斯蒂开着自己的云雀为他当司机。卡莱尔在前往必胜客的途中似乎没有注意到身边这位开车的年轻人有着失意的生活。当卡莱尔就着碳酸饮料大嚼披萨的时候，他在一张纸上字迹潦草的写了很多，那是后来进入 NBA 的普莱斯蒂需要记得的，那上面写了像剪个飞机头以及少喝酒这些。晚饭后，卡莱尔问普莱斯蒂写一些更高级的报告。普莱斯蒂听上去很困惑。“描述一下比赛，”卡莱尔解释说，“然后给我看你写的东西。”一年后，卡莱尔成为活塞的主教练，而在必胜客所写的文档成了唯一一个挂在普莱斯蒂所住公寓墙上的东西。“里克跟我说，”有一天波波维奇告诉普莱斯蒂，“他有兴趣聘用你。可是你没能做到他要你做的事。”

那个时候，普莱斯蒂已经是每天晚上都会去布福德的家中拜访，拖着装满选秀目标比如杰拉德-华莱士和托尼-帕克的比赛录像的佳得乐帆布袋。他们会看录像看到凌晨一点，然后第二天晚上普莱斯蒂继续上门拜访，带着同样的帆布袋，但里面有着新的录像。他的职位很快得到升迁，升到了篮球运营助理和助理总经理，并且不断就 CBA 方面的问题给布福德解惑——即使是总经理在清理车库的时候。07年6月，普莱斯蒂离开圣安东尼奥前往西雅图，离开之前他跟布福德并肩而坐，留下了合照。三周后，他选中了杜兰特。

“你现在还可以继续这样的生活吗？” Donnie Strack 这么问普莱斯蒂，因为运动，冥想以及极端饮食并不能保证任何事情。“我曾经读过很多关于 Urban Meyer 的事，”作为俄克拉荷马医疗服务总监的 Strack 说，提到了这名俄亥俄州立进取心十足的橄榄球教练。“那就是萨姆曾经的样子。一天24小时。如同疯子一般。”除了要准备PPT演示文稿，以及翻看球员资料之外，普莱斯蒂还会跟每个离职的工作人员单独进行面他，同时每晚晚些时候都会写一些日记，有时候可能会在纪念馆昏暗的灯光下写就。他所建立起来的球队文化严谨而充满秩序，这是他孩提时代所缺乏的。训练基地的草坪被修剪的整整齐齐，饮料瓶上的标签永远一致对外。“我喜欢和俄克拉荷马谈生意，”一名著名的经纪人说，“因为他们很严肃。他们很职业。”你只需要破译下硅谷的字典中，寻找下什么是“挑战者精神”而不是去找“稀缺的心态”就会明白了。

Strack 看着他的这位朋友随着年龄的增长而逐渐变得更柔和。当中锋埃内斯-坎特在一月份的比赛中因为用手猛击座椅而导致骨折之后，Strack 与普莱斯蒂会面时觉得，没有人能给出这个倒霉的大个子这段困难时间以安慰。“埃内斯开始训练的那天，萨姆出现在了训练场上，为他而鼓掌，”Strack 回想道，“在修复手术之后四周左右，埃内斯回来了。那从来都没出现过。”同样令人惊讶的是去年秋天普莱斯蒂40岁生日的时候，他的夫人带着史密斯，霍尔斯和约翰逊一起来到俄克拉荷马城准备给他惊喜。但是当天晚上雷霆与亚当和奥拉迪波的续约谈判到了最后关头。普莱斯蒂精疲力竭。在训练馆短暂停留之后，他和兄弟们一起去吃了晚饭，同时让温格处理的会议事宜，稍后继续回来谈判。

普莱斯蒂不是出自于 Metco 的学生，但他为这个项目出身并且就读于 Concord-Carlisle 高中的学生提供了一份年度大学奖学金。他同时也运转着一个团队，为三所俄克拉荷马当地设备不足的高中提供服务，同时每年组织7次会议，外加一次州外实地考察旅行。当他在活动中参与的学生需要困难的时候，他本能的会给他们打电话，比如前约翰-马绍尔中学橄榄球球员 Keyshawn Shells 和 Marco Grier, 在一次交通事故中他们失去了一位朋友。“当我面临这样困难局面时，”普莱斯蒂说，“那些是我想要自己找到并与之交流的人。”另一个人是 Tyler Zander，一名来自 Chisholm 高中的篮球运功员，六年前因为卷入了谷物螺旋机里而被迫截肢。

“萨姆来到了我的病房，我当时就觉得，‘天呐，这是真的吗，雷霆总经理亲自来看我了，’” Zander 回忆说，“我以为那次就完事了。但是之后的几周里他不停的给我发信息，到现在都没有停过。我从萨姆身上认识到的一点就是，他真的相信自己能从每个人的不同方面学到一些东西。”

他依旧最近在跟老汤姆-费雷尔联络。他最近跟 Stevens 夫人共进午饭。他每年夏天都会跑去参与史蒂文-亚当斯在新西兰举行的篮球训练营。“他是我们的老板，”亚当斯说，“但他也是我们身边的普通人。”他不能忍受失去联系的生活。在纽约与亚当-萧华会面之后，去年8月他驱车前往祖父位于韦斯特伯里的老房子，说服房子的新主人让他去看看37年前那个祖孙三代都在水泥地里留下了印记的小屋。然后他又去了自己另一位先辈位于桑次伯恩特的房子，同样也参观了那里。穿过他的办公室，身畔经过的是 Frank Lloyd Wright 的著作，Miles Davis 的唱片以及磁石化在墙壁上的名言（“我们不能畏缩”），然后你会在相框中看到他过去的样子：在韦斯特伯里的小屋，也在圣安东尼奥的公寓，有在 AT&T 中心的座位的，也有着和 Jimmy Dee，Keenan Smith，Tyler Zander 和为他做截肢手术的医生一起合照，Tyler Zander 现在已经是俄克拉荷马一年级的医学专业学生。

然后那里还有杜兰特，哈登和威斯布鲁克——这是三位定义了 NBA 这个赛季的球员——在每个晚上都惊艳了全世界的照片。普莱斯蒂不认同任何对这些照片的的反感情绪。相反的，他有的只是感激。没有人会希望失去明星球员，但那总好过，你未经历过这一切。

正如很多的季后赛球队那样，雷霆依旧有着自己的问题，同时难以望勇士项背。他们不再拥有榜眼签，曾经这个签位为他们带来了杜兰特，也难再现探花签，它为球队赌中了哈登，更别提宝贵的4号签，而今他们所依靠的威斯布鲁克在这个顺位被选中。他们唯一拥有的，是这个一直带着黑莓手机的梦想者，是他组建了最初的三巨头，也是他依然在不断前行，写下新的分析报告，分派助手以任务，他一直都在敲响着这面属于雷霆的大鼓。

Why Russ And OKC Put Their Trust In Sam Presti

Thirty miles northwest of Oracle Arena, on 411 acres of secluded woodlands in the San Geronimo Valley, the crowds sit in silence. They file into a two-story cedar building, place shoes in cubbyholes, pour cups of hot tea. They plop down on the octagonal oak floor in the Great Hall, using pillows as seat cushions, and gaze out floor-to-ceiling windows at turkeys roaming the grasslands, hawks circling the redwoods. Three instructors stand on a low platform, flanked by twin Buddha statues, and explain the first rule of a retreat to Spirit Rock: No talking. Not over lunch in the meadow, not on strolls across the hillside, and certainly not during meditation sessions in the Great Hall.

For Sam Presti, the general manager of the Oklahoma City Thunder, extreme displays of self-discipline are not a problem. Three years ago a Thunder doctor warned Presti about the effects of carbohydrates, and he has not consumed so much as a crouton since. Two years ago Presti’s wife delivered their first child, and he vowed to write the boy a letter from every road trip. Approximately 70 notes and postcards already fill a safe deposit box in an Oklahoma City bank. During the organization’s annual cardiac stress test, players typically hop off the treadmill after eight or nine punishing minutes, when the administrator can take a clear ultrasound of their pumping heart. Presti stays on the belt for up to 14 minutes, speed and incline spiking every 30 seconds, his barrel chest heaving and burning. He wants the administrator to take the clearest ultrasound.

He stretches himself, which is why he strode into Spirit Rock alongside 160 strangers on the morning of Sept. 3, his only companion a sack lunch from a nearby natural foods store in West Marin. Presti meditates, but he is no Phil Jackson, and the Labor Day weekend retreat spanned 18 silent hours over three days. The schedule sounded daunting enough, before taking into account the setting. Presti is among the most prominent NBA GMs—marked by the clear-framed specs, the crisply parted hair, the omnipresent Blackberry (he keeps several backups in case the company goes out of business)—but he still passes largely unnoticed outside of OKC. He could have chosen a mindfulness center anywhere. Yet when the time came to clear his head and draw his breath he traveled all the way to the Bay Area, across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge from Oakland, where he was predictably surrounded by Warriors T-shirts. As he glimpsed the bright yellow in the Great Hall, he laughed, though obviously not out loud.

Two months had passed since the Thunder’s private plane left the Hamptons without Kevin Durant. KD was off to Oakland and Presti to Oklahoma City, set apart for the first time since 2007, when Presti was the 29-year-old boy genius put in charge of the Seattle SuperSonics. In his first three summers he drafted Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden, a line atop the résumé that would dazzle Red Auerbach and Jerry West.

But on that July 4 flight, only one cornerstone remained, and Presti opened the plastic folder he carries everywhere. Presti is an insatiable reader—when a book is recommended on the road he asks his assistant, Glenn Wong, to find the nearest store where it is sold; he prefers not to wait for Amazon Prime—and within the folder he keeps copies of passages that move him. Over time some documents are removed, others added. A packet of his favorite quotes has mushroomed to 55 pages. From his seat near the front of the plane, Presti fished out Teddy Roosevelt’s Citizenship in a Republic, a speech the former president delivered at the Sorbonne in 1910. Much of the text Presti had already highlighted, including a sentence a quarter of the way down:

“There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.” But suddenly he was struck by the following sentence as well, which he’d never highlighted before, not when his team fell in the 2012 Finals, nor when horribly timed injuries to Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and Durant capsized them in ’13, ’14 and ’15. “Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength.”

The plane landed, Presti raced home to grab a shower, and then held an evening press conference in which he effusively thanked Durant for nearly a decade of service. While praise poured into Presti’s phone from corporate leaders—marveling at the GM’s grace in what could have been a Comic Sans moment—he and his staff holed up in a conference room at the Thunder’s D-League headquarters. The practice court at their main facility was being resurfaced and the fumes were unbearable, but they had to work. A roster crafted around two megastars was down to one, and nobody knew how to build around Westbrook because he’d never been a leading man. When LeBron James left Cleveland for Miami as a free agent in 2010, the Cavaliers salvaged a crucial sign-and-trade that netted two future first-round picks, two seconds and a massive trade exception. Oklahoma City recouped nothing for Durant. Officials listed the names of remaining free agents on a board. Everybody of interest was gone. The board might as well have been blank.

“We have to be careful of anything that’s rushed,” Presti said into his Blackberry on the night of Aug. 2, 2008, as he strolled from a minor league baseball game at Bricktown Ballpark to the National Memorial. It was his first trip to Oklahoma City, back when the franchise had no nickname, no logo and no gym. The summer-league jerseys were generic black and gray. Will Dawkins, one of Presti’s prized deputies, typed up the voice memo under Initial Thoughts. Presti still keeps them in his folder. Rather than scramble after a questionable free agent in Durant’s wake, the Thunder spent their remaining salary cap space on a maximum extension for Westbrook, saving a sliver of room to acquire backup point guard Semaj Christon and power forward Joffrey Lauvergne, small moves that would prove significant.

Presti replayed for the front office in July a film clip he has shown many times, from Apollo 13, the scene when carbon dioxide reaches near-fatal levels in the crew’s spacecraft and technicians must find a way to swap out circular CO2 scrubbers for square ones. “I suggest you, gentlemen, invent a way to put a square peg in a round hole,” intones Ed Harris, as flight director Gene Kranz. The astronauts jury-rig a filter using the cover of the flight manual, a roll of duct tape and a grab bag of spare parts. Presti calls their concoction bricolage, a French term referring to imperfect art, pieced together with whatever materials are available.

“Sam was down,” assistant GM Troy Weaver recalls, “but he masked it pretty good.” Nine years Presti had spent grooming Oklahoma City for a golden era that ended before it peaked, just as Westbrook and Durant reached their primes, buttressed by young talent and a manageable cap sheet. He didn’t have time to wrestle with why. “The prevailing emotion was disappointment,” Presti says. “Staring down the reality that this portion of our history would remain incomplete, unknown, somewhat jagged for the remainder of time. Kevin made what he felt was the best choice for him and followed his instincts. That’s all a man can do. The prevailing emotion wasn’t tied to him or his decision. It was actually broader, because it was held by a group of people, a community of people, coming to terms with the indefinite. But we knew from our history the only way forward was to advance, to use our values as a launching point, to continue to create our future.”

Presti stayed in Oklahoma City, attempting to buoy spirits during video conferences with colleagues from different departments, celebrating even the most minor accomplishments by the development group or the medical crew. He dispatched Weaver, a mentor for players, to summer league in Orlando. He asked loyal lieutenants such as Paul Rivers and Michael Winger to research the nature of shots Westbrook creates. Outsiders assumed Westbrook should be ringed by floor-spacing snipers, like Harden in Houston, but Presti demands evidence. Before training camp he called Warriors coach Steve Kerr and texted general manager Bob Myers, to wish them luck they didn’t need.

Franchises that lose free agents of Durant’s caliber essentially forfeit the next five seasons, barring a King-sized change of heart. But in Year 1 A.D., Oklahoma City is back in the playoffs as a No. 6 seed, thanks partly to some bricolage in Bricktown. Assets obtained when the Thunder dealt Ibaka to Orlando in June allowed them to add reinforcements around Westbrook, as they discovered what he required. Stretch forward Ersan Ilyasova, a throw-in from the Magic, was shipped to Philadelphia on Nov. 1 for spring-loaded stopper Jerami Grant and a $7.5 million trade exception. Point guard Cameron Payne, made expendable by Christon’s emergence, was sent to Chicago at the deadline with Lauvergne, Anthony Morrow and the trade exception for power forward Taj Gibson and sharpshooter Doug McDermott. Center Steven Adams and wing Victor Oladipo, signed to extensions in October, produced arguably their finest seasons. Rookies Alex Abrines and Domantas Sabonis showed promise. Meanwhile, several high-ranking executives rejected offers from rival organizations anticipating a post-Durant exodus.

Of course, without Westbrook they’re battling the Lakers in the bowels of the Western Conference, but the Thunder’s steady response has sparked hope that their triple-double dynamo could sign a five-year jumbo extension this summer. Westbrook can’t lean on an All-Star teammate, but a blue-chip GM is only slightly less valuable. Presti has prevailed in a large majority of trades he’s made, except the one everybody remembers, when he cast off Harden five years ago in a deal he didn’t want to make but deemed necessary because of oncoming luxury-tax penalties and the Beard’s ambitions. The next season Oklahoma City still won 60 games. “I put my trust in Sam,” Westbrook says, “and he always makes sure we have a chance.” Presti’s history of unearthing gems—he drafted Ibaka and Reggie Jackson at No. 24, Adams at No. 12—inspires faith that he can eventually dig out another. “You know how long my interview was for this job?” asks second-year coach Billy Donovan. “Ten hours. Sam is going to turn over every rock, flip it around and study it from every angle. You take comfort in that level of preparation.”

In the NCAA tournament last month, Presti drove with scouts to the subregional site in Tulsa, playing deejay in the car and queuing up everything from Bob Dylan to Sly & the Family Stone. He flew to a major conference tournament for the sole purpose of examining a fringe second-round pick. And he spent a mid-winter weekend on the road in South Dakota with the Thunder’s D-League affiliate, the Blue, at their Best Western in Sioux Falls. “Ask me anything,” Presti told players over dinner, his treat.

Nothing about Presti’s process has changed—he still decompresses at home with his drum set, Bose headphones blasting James Brown into his ears—other than the circumstances. In a sense, he started girding the group for crisis 3 1/2 years ago, when he flew to the University of Pennsylvania for a two-hour meeting with Karen Reivich. “It went five,” Reivich clarifies, “because it’s Sam.” Reivich is the lead instructor for the resilience programs run out of Penn’s Positive Psychology Center, which has trained 40,000 members of the U.S. Army to think more optimistically in high-stress situations, and has done the same for the Thunder. Reivich lives in Philadelphia but is a regular in Oklahoma City, steering coaches and staffers through role plays, case studies and breakout sessions, designed to help them express what they’re grateful for, rather than what they’re upset about. Presti’s comments after Durant’s departure, like the ones after Westbrook’s injury in 2013, were peppered with the word gratitude. This March, Reivich oversaw a session led by Presti, who asked everyone in the room to bring an image meaningful to them. “You have to understand why you are the way you are,” Presti says, “and be able to express that to others. That’s how you create environments where people feel connected and vulnerable.” The first picture chosen by the boy genius, now 40, was of his special ed teacher.

“You know you shouldn’t be here,” Harriett Stevens told Presti during supervised study at Concord-Carlisle Regional High School, but he didn’t have a lot of other places to go. He was an only child whose parents were in the midst of a long and difficult divorce, so it was hard to be at home. His school in the Boston suburbs was filled with kids bound for the Ivy League, and he couldn’t bear to be with them. His grades, mostly Cs and a couple of Ds, earned him a seat with Mrs. Stevens. “Don’t compare yourself to other people,” she said, patiently standing over him as he completed homework he wouldn’t do anywhere else.

Presti eventually found his adolescent sweet spot at the back-left table of the Concord-Carlisle cafeteria with students in the Metco Program, kids bused from predominantly African-American neighborhoods such as Mattapan, Roxbury and Dorchester. Two of them—Keenan Smith and Anthony Halls—and their pal from Concord, Mike Johnson, were basketball players, drawn to a white kid with a fade who listened to Public Enemy, tagged along to see Do the Right Thing and asked honest questions about race. The night Presti was cut from the varsity baseball team as a sophomore, he called the hoops coach. “I’m going to play for you next year,” he declared.

His game was equal parts grit and sizzle. (“We called him Bob Sura,” says Smith, invoking the flashy Florida State star who logged a decade in the NBA.) Presti hung a picture of his high school rival, a guard from Acton-Boxborough named Jimmy Dee, on his bathroom mirror. He even went to Dee’s football games, eyeing the boy from the bleachers, as if he might glean inside info. Upon graduation, Presti enrolled at Virginia Wesleyan, where he played guard by day and drums by night at blues bars around Virginia Beach. But he missed Boston, and after watching tape of the team at Emerson College, he transferred for his junior season. To make captain, he needed a 3.0 grade point average, and his communications professor was known as one of the toughest on campus. But Mike Brown was generous with office hours, so Presti showed up at his door on Beacon Street every day to review the upcoming assignment. Presti easily cleared the GPA threshold while recruiting local musicians to record a CD, with proceeds going to Children’s Hospital. Brown nominated him for the Rhodes scholarship.

​But all that really matters is that he encouraged Tommy Farrell when the freshman hurt his back in a conditioning drill and considered heading home to Aspen. Tommy’s dad, the superintendent of Aspen public schools, was grateful. So grateful that he mentioned a basketball camp held every summer at Aspen High School, operated by Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford, who sometimes took an intern back to San Antonio with them. Tom Farrell Sr. needed one camp counselor in the summer of 2000 and he offered the position to both of Emerson’s senior captains. “You should go,” co-captain Tommy Arria told Presti. “You’ll do something with it.” Presti mowed fairways at Pinehills Golf Club and sold parts of his drum set to afford the plane fare. He slept in a classroom at Aspen High, cleaned the cafeteria, enforced the curfew and never saw Popovich or Buford. I sold a 16-inch floor tom for this? he groused. On the fourth and final day of the camp, Buford walked in the gym.

As the GM refereed a scrimmage, Presti ran up and down the court with him, pleading his case. “When you get to San Antonio,” Buford relented, “I want you to call this guy. His name is Mike Budenholzer.” Presti had never heard of the Spurs assistant. He booked a room at a Holiday Inn off I-35 and bought an ’86 Buick Skylark with a tape player that only worked when a toothpick was stuck inside. Bricolage. The Spurs, who had already awarded their full-time internship, didn’t know what to do with Presti. He ran the shot clock at practice, mopped the floor, stocked the fridge. He rebounded for David Robinson and Danny Ferry. Sometimes he slept on a training table at the Alamodome. Once he had to be scolded for eating all the Power Bars. After Tim Duncan won $300 in a shooting game, he handed the cash to Presti. It was more than the backup intern made in a month.

Rick Carlisle was out of the league back then, and when the coach visited San Antonio, Presti chauffeured him around in the Skylark. Carlisle did not seem to notice the steering-wheel column collapse on the way to Pizza Hut. As Carlisle chugged Mountain Dew over a pie that night, he scrawled on a sheet of paper NBA lingo Presti would have to memorize, terms like Hawk Cut and Blind Pig. After dinner, Carlisle asked Presti to write some advanced reports. Presti looked puzzled. “Describe some games,” Carlisle explained, “and send me what you write.” Less than a year later, Carlisle was coach of the Pistons and the Pizza Hut document was still the only thing hanging on the wall in Presti’s apartment. “Rick called,” Popovich told Presti one day. “He’s interested in hiring you. But you can’t do that.”

By then, Presti was already going to Buford’s house almost every night, hauling a Gatorade duffel bag stuffed with VHS tapes of draft prospects like Gerald Wallace and Tony Parker. They’d watch until 1 a.m., and then Presti would come back the next night, same bag jammed with new tapes. He leaped up the ladder, to basketball operations assistant and assistant general manager, constantly quizzing Buford on the CBA—even as the GM cleaned his garage. In June ’07, Presti left San Antonio for Seattle with a photo of the chair at the AT&T Center where he sat next to Buford. Three weeks later, he drafted Durant.

“Are you sustainable right now?” Donnie Strack asks Presti, because exercise, meditation and a stringent diet don’t ensure anything. “I’ve read the stories about Urban Meyer,” says Strack, Oklahoma City’s director of medical services, in reference to Ohio State’s hard-driving football coach. “That’s what Sam used to be like. Twenty-four hours a day. Maniacal.” In addition to the PowerPoint presentations and scouting dossiers, Presti held individual exit interviews with everybody in the organization and filled pages of a journal late at night, sometimes by the light of the memorial. He constructed a buttoned-down franchise that embodied the order he lacked as a kid, lawn at the facility meticulously mowed, labels on organic juice bottles forever facing out. “I like dealing with Oklahoma City,” says one prominent agent, “because it’s no-nonsense. It’s corporate.” You just have to decipher the Silicon Valley lexicon, deploying a “challenger spirit” instead of a “scarcity mind-set.”

Strack has seen his friend mellow a bit with age. When center Enes Kanter broke his arm punching a chair during a game in January, Strack met with Presti and came away feeling that no one was to give the mortified big man a hard time about it. “The day Enes started basketball workouts, Sam was out on the court, clapping him along,” Strack recalls. “Enes came back four weeks after surgery for a fractured ulna. That doesn’t happen.” Equally astonishing was the scene at Presti’s 40th birthday last fall when his wife, Shannon, brought Smith, Halls and Johnson to Oklahoma City as a surprise. But that night the Thunder were finalizing the extensions with Adams and Oladipo. Presti was torn. After a brief stop at the facility, he went out to dinner with his buddies and let Winger handle conference calls, returning to negotiations later.

Presti was not a Metco kid, but he endows an annual college scholarship for one graduate of the program from Concord-Carlisle. He also runs a leadership group at three underserved high schools in Oklahoma City and conducts seven sessions per year, plus an out-of-state field trip. When Durant left, Presti did not seek sympathy from peers. His first instinct was to call students he met in the group with real problems, like former John Marshall football players Keyshawn Shells and Marco Grier, who were in a car accident that killed a friend. “When I run into difficult situations,” Presti says, “those are the guys I find myself communicating with.” Another is Tyler Zander, a basketball player from Chisholm High, whose leg had to be amputated six years ago after it was caught in a grain auger.

“Sam walked into my hospital room and I was like, ‘Man, this is really cool, the GM of the Thunder came to see me,’” Zander remembers. “I thought that would be it. But then he kept texting every couple weeks, and he still hasn’t stopped. What I’ve come to realize about Sam is that he truly believes he can learn from everybody in some way.”

He still talks to Tom Farrell Sr. He recently ate lunch with Mrs. Stevens. He travels every summer to Steven Adams’s basketball camp—in New Zealand. “He’s the boss,” Adams says, “but he’s also a pretty average bloke.” He can’t stand to lose touch. After a meeting with commissioner Adam Silver in New York City last August, Presti drove to his grandfather’s old house in Westbury and convinced the new owner to let him see the shed where he, his father and his grandfather sunk their handprints into wet cement 37 years ago. Then he rode to his other grandpa’s house, in Sands Point, and finagled a tour there as well. Dig through his office, past the Frank Lloyd Wright books, the Miles Davis records and the magnetized quotes (“We don’t flinch”) and you will find his past in pictures: the Westbury shed, the San Antonio apartment, the AT&T Center seat, Jimmy Dee and Keenan Smith and Tyler Zander, now a first-year medical student at Oklahoma, posing with the doctor who cut off his leg.

Then there are the images of Durant and Harden and Westbrook—the three players who have defined this NBA season—beamed every night to the world. Presti recoils at the suggestion that any of those snapshots sting. Gratitude. Nobody wants to lose a legend, but it’s better than never experiencing one at all.

The Thunder, like pretty much every other playoff team, are still stuck in the woods behind the Warriors with no map. They don’t have the second pick, which is where they snagged Durant, or the third, which is where they gambled on Harden, or the fourth, which is where they shocked with Westbrook. What they do have is the Blackberry-toting visionary who assembled that magnificent trio in the first place, still taking the trips, writing the reports, empowering the deputies, banging away at the big drum.