There was some initial speculation that OKC might buy out Paul's contract ($38.5 mil this year, $41.3 mil next year, $44.2 mil player option in 2021-22 = $124 mil, maybe he lets you buy him out for $90 or $100 mil?) which would allow him to sign with someone else for the veteran minimum. When that idea was being tossed around on Twitter, the world pretty much thought Paul would go play PG for the Lakers.
But, it certainly appears like OKC plans to either keep CP3 or extract some trade value for him so he won't be available cheap to further tilt the balance of power in the NBA.
One additional note on the massive haul of draft picks OKC has gotten lately.
While I am sure OKC fans are excited about their future and the tons of good, young players headed their way... a word of caution.
The NBA draft is a crapshoot and the odds are truly excellent that none of the 15 picks (or however many it is) they got will turn into a player as good as Russ or Paul George (the fact that the Hou picks are top 4 protected makes this even more likely). Having draft assets is a great thing, but at some point you need to turn them into rotation/starter/stars who can lead your team to the top of the NBA.
For the past decade, the Thunder have been home to some of the best players in the league (Durant, Harden, Westbrook, George) and the team has been at least fringe title contenders for a long time. Sadly, their success has always left them just a shade short of being the best in the league. There were plenty of years when they were good enough to win a title, but Lebron and Steph kept on standing in their way. Hope for the future is a great thing and can placate disgruntled fans for a while... but at some point that hope has to translate into some kind of NBA star and we all know how hard it is to find dudes like that... even if you are taking 15 swings in the draft at getting them.