In the end, it was Josh Giddey’s ambition — less so than the Thunder’s — that charged the separation of a three-year marriage.

The two sides outgrew each other. Oklahoma City sped toward contention. Giddey, plummeting in a role he’d otherwise never been cast in, was suddenly unfit for the direction OKC was headed.

On Thursday afternoon, the two parties split, with the Thunder dealing Giddey to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for veteran guard Alex Caruso. At times this past season, and especially once Giddey was removed from the starting lineup for the first in his career, change felt inevitable. Alternatives were exhausted.

Presti still seemed determined to let Giddey’s career play out in OKC.

“As we laid out to Josh how he could lean into his strengths and ultimately optimize our current roster and talent, it was hard for him to envision,” general manager Sam Presti said via press release, “and conversations turned to him inquiring about potential opportunities elsewhere.”

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Asked specifically if Giddey requested a trade, Presti told media via zoom Friday that he “couldn't speak more highly of Josh and the way that those conversations took place,” assuring that the discussion didn’t lead to any demand.

One month earlier, Presti’s words wrapped Giddey in comfortability. During his exit interview, Presti optimistically painted Giddey’s struggles this past season, a season in which teams left him alone on the perimeter and targeted him defensively. Presti patched up any blemishes with windows into the future. He wasn’t clear of what it would look like, but was clear in communicating interest in allowing the picture more time to be framed in Oklahoma City.

Nine days before then, Giddey reminded local media of who he was. Of the player that showed promise, the one that hardly anyone questioned. The player he hoped to get back to. Giddey made his earliest, quietest declaration then.

“I'm going to have the ball in my hands a lot with Australia and create the offense and set guys up and things like that,” Giddey said, asked how the Olympics might benefit him. “That's who I am as a player, and to do that is exciting.”

Even leading up to the point Presti sent Giddey to Chicago, he seemingly still had love for him, still aiming to squeeze what juice he could from the team’s 2021 lottery pick.

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“When we ended the season and I addressed everybody, all the things that I said about Josh, I feel exactly the same way,” Presti said. “I really believe in him. I think he's going to do great. I think he's a unique talent in a lot of ways, and he's going to be good for a really long time.

“I would have loved for that to take place here, and I think he would have thrived in the role, but I also am a realist and understand that at that age, having started his career the way he did, that could be a difficult transition.”

Giddey’s aspirations during a contract year, an appetite far too grand for the bench role he was served, didn’t align with Presti’s vision of a contender.

That opened the possibility for Giddey to find a suitable home and for Presti and the Thunder to shift their vision toward doing what was best for this iteration of the team. The general manager ultimately found few quarrels with a 6-foot-5, All-Defense, near 41% 3-point shooter with a ring on his resume.

Caruso immediately joins as a player who could potentially close games for the Thunder. Perhaps more significant in Presti’s line of thinking, he provides familiarity. Caruso’s NBA start came with the team’s G League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue, back in 2016, coached by none other than Mark Daigneault.

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Knowing how fragile a promising core can be, calculating how to mix in external variables can grow tricky. It requires sensitivity, like plutonium in shaky hands. Presti, while certainly reaping benefits, learned the margin of error for miscalculation at the trade deadline with Gordon Hayward.

That process seemingly required less thought with a player that’d already walked the halls.

“We're getting a player that is the quintessential Thunder player,” Presti said of Caruso. “He's a technician, but he can communicate. I think he elevates the whole team with his approach, and I want that in the building. I want people like that in the building at all costs.”

With Caruso’s addition and Giddey’s departure, Presti noted that the trickle-down effect invites opportunity for Chet Holmgren and Cason Wallace to have the ball in their hands more as sophomores. To create more, to receive the necessary room to grow.

Perhaps none of it happens if Giddey doesn’t opt to change his own outlook.

At some point Friday morning, Presti was presented with a hypothetical: Even if Giddey had accepted the role he was presented, would the deal for Caruso still have been sought? Disinterested in opening a hypothetical realm, Presti eventually labeled the trade as cause-and-effect.

“I think the thing that made us more open-minded was the fact that the discussions with him took the turn that they did,” Presti said. “But one thing has to happen for the other, so I don't see those as related. It happened as it did.”

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Shortly after, Presti was presented with the interpretation that Giddey’s feelings lack about the potential role is what directly spurred the trade into action.

“Not necessarily,” Presti replied.

Presti said that had Caruso not been available, he believed Giddey would’ve returned and “put his best foot forward.” Before he logged off Friday morning’s call, Presti was asked if the point in which his internal discussions with Giddey trended toward a trade — and only then — had been the first time his longterm vision for Giddey changed.

Seemingly drained by the age of social media and short attention spans — he explained that he felt his exit-interview day sentiments regarding Gordon Hayward’s fit in OKC were stripped of context, therefore making him wary of being misinterpreted — Presti erred on the side of caution. He emphasized his comments on Giddey from his exit interview.

Comments lined with understanding. Adulation. Comfort. Hope. Worn, perhaps aimless, hope.

The Thunder got a championship pedigree glue-guy, a winning ball hawk in a 1-for-1 swap without lifting a finger from its hoard of draft capital. The Bulls took direction, and will certainly end up with answers. Giddey got the chance to spread his wings. Caruso thrust himself back into a winning situation.

Presti got his team that much closer to contention. Yet one was left to consider if it was the exact path he envisioned taking.

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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder's evolution led to Josh Giddey's trade to Chicago Bulls