The Oklahoma City Thunder rebounded from losing Kevin Durant in free agency by signing Russell Westbrook to an extension.

Westbrook was set to be a free agent in 2017 but he can now opt out in 2018.

“It’s been a tremendous opportunity for us as an organization and obviously Russell and his commitment and a lot of the young players we’ve had in place, we’re really excited about the opportunity to continue to build what is an unwritten legacy,” Sam Presti said. “We will be going on our ninth season in Oklahoma City and we see this as another point in time to continue to build on our principles and vision for what the Thunder stands for and is about. We’re uniformly excited about what lies ahead, knowing full well that there’s going to be ups and downs. Part of building a sustainable and enduring organization is encountering different things along the way and figuring out how to turn them into opportunities to grow. That’s our mentality.”

Westbrook will now be the unquestioned leader of the Thunder.

“The first thing is Russell is a tremendous competitor but also highly intelligent,” Presti said. “He understands that the approach that we have to take in order to maximize ourselves is going to be one first, making sure we’re sound fundamentally and we’re continually growing through the season. That’s always kind of been a staple of the organization.

“One of the reasons why we have a lot of optimism and excitement frankly about this season upcoming is the fact that [coach] Billy Donovan has demonstrated a tremendous ability to be creative, adjust and evolve different styles of play, and utilize a lot of our personnel.”