Sam Presti repeatedly called 16-17 a "season of discovery" for the Oklahoma City Thunder, according to Royce Young of ESPN.

The Thunder had to remake their roster following the departure of Kevin Durant. Presti had envisioned a starting five that featured Durant, Russell Westbrook and Al Horford with Victor Oladipo and Enes Kanter anchoring their bench when he began the 2016 offseason.

Presti used the same language to describe the 15-16 season.

"You have to remember that this team was 7-6 at one time, and the coaches and the players didn't deviate from that process of discovery, evolution and progress that we talked about, and I think they deserve a lot of credit for that," said Presti during his end of season press conference in 2016.

"And we got to the postseason and felt as if we could continue to play and win series, it gave this team more runway to improve and discover itself. And that's one of the things I think that is really important about the year is that I think it really was a season of discovery, of learning, of cohesion, and as a result of the length of time we were able to play, I thought it allowed us to find ourselves, find our voice as a team and continue to embrace kind of this identity of the Thunder, which is versatility, size, length, and a group of guys that at the end of the year were really playing for one another," said Presti after the loss to the Warriors.

While Westbrook is likely to win MVP, the Thunder were eliminated in five games in the first round of the playoffs.