How Robert Caro’s “Turn Every Page” Motto Became Oklahoma City’s Championship Compass
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Oklahoma City — Five days before training camp opened on Sept. 25, 2025, Thunder general manager Sam Presti took his customary seat in the team’s practice facility and launched into a 12-minute statement. His remarks outlined the NBA’s growth, the challenges of “Chapter 18” — the club’s 18th season in Oklahoma — and, as usual, ended with a rundown of recent reading.
Among the titles he mentioned — works by Joan Didion, Le Corbusier and Ted Williams — Presti again referenced Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Robert Caro, whose exhaustive research methods have become a guiding principle inside the Thunder’s front office.
The Origin of a Mantra
Presti’s public admiration for Caro began in 2020 during the NBA’s Walt Disney World bubble. Speaking from his hotel room, he revealed he was working through Caro’s 1,167-page “Master of the Senate.” Since then he has repeatedly echoed Caro’s newsroom lesson — “Turn every page” — to describe the Thunder’s roster construction and decision-making.
On Sept. 24, 2024, one day before Oklahoma City’s eventual title season, Presti cited the mantra four times in a single introductory statement, stressing the need to examine “every iteration” of the roster and to “stay curious.” He used the phrase again on June 30, 2025, eight days after the Thunder edged Indiana in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, crediting the team’s “pace-setting” approach to continually “turning every page.”
Caro’s Perspective
Now 89, Caro spoke with ESPN on May 24, 2025, the morning after his longtime favorite New York Knicks fell behind 0-2 in the Eastern Conference finals. Though deep into page 982 of the fifth and final volume of his Lyndon Johnson biography, Caro paused to discuss basketball and the influence of his investigative credo.
He traced the phrase to a 1959 assignment at Long Island’s Newsday, where editor Alan Hathaway instructed, “Turn every goddamn page.” Caro said he still hears that directive while combing archives at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and is “truly touched” that an NBA executive has adopted it.
Broader NBA Following
Presti is not Caro’s only devotee in league circles. San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich admires the historian’s work, and former Philadelphia 76ers executive Sam Hinkie once called Caro his “favorite author,” even naming his investment firm 87 Capital after Caro’s Johnson volume “Means of Ascent.”
Basketball Roots and Research Parallels
Caro’s connection to the sport stretches back to his days covering games for The Daily Princetonian and attending Knicks championships in 1970 and 1973. He joked that a back injury at age 30 ended his recreational playing days, though he still recalls Walt Frazier’s 36 points and 19 assists in Game 7 of the 1970 Finals as one of his most vivid memories.
Preparing for the Next Chapter
During the September 2025 news conference, Presti warned that last season’s success “will not carry over,” urging players and staff to “turn the page” while continuing to “turn every page.” He then opened the floor to questions, promising—per custom—to stay until the final query was asked.
The Thunder’s front-office blueprint may still be unfolding, but its guiding instruction remains clear, lifted directly from a journalist’s archive box: leave no page unturned.
Source: ESPN
