"While NBA teams go fishing for new talent during Thursday night's draft, the Oklahoma City Thunder might be tempted to cut bait.

This week's draft looks like it will be an uneventful evening for the Thunder, whose lone pick comes at No. 24 overall.

General manager Sam Presti has had some notable fishing expeditions on draft night, but will he opt to sit back and watch Thursday?

Owning a late pick in a weak draft is not an enviable position. As usual, Presti is tight-lipped on what might transpire. He is wearing his poker face and has no tell.

Trading the No. 24 pick for a selection (or two) in a future draft is one option, as are a draft-and-stash, trading the pick and player(s) for a proven commodity, or proceeding with caution.

— OKC has gone draft-and-stash two of the last three years, selecting a player and having him play professionally overseas until he is deemed ready for the NBA.

The Thunder chose forward Serge Ibaka with the No. 24 pick in the 2008 draft and let him play in Spain for one season before bringing him into the league.

In the 2010 draft, 7-foot-1 center Tibor Pleiss was selected No. 31 overall by Atlanta and acquired by OKC. Pleiss is not expected to join the Thunder for at least another season.

Thursday night's top stash candidate for OKC appears to be forward Nikola Mirotic (KNEE-coh-lah ME-rah-tich) of Montenegro.

A superb prospect, Mirotic's drawback is he recently agreed to a three-year extension with Real Madrid in Spain. He is now signed through the 2015-16 season, is making the money of a Top-10 draft pick and has a hefty NBA buyout of 2.5 million euros ($3.58 million)."