Despite selecting 6-3 170-pound guard Eric Maynor as the 20th overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft, the Utah Jazz turned around a few months later (December 23rd, 2009) and traded him to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The motivation for the Jazz was financial as they looked to suddenly get rid of the relatively high Maynor salary. For the Thunder, injuries to back-up point guards [[Kevin Ollie and Kyle Weaver forced them to look for someone else to play back up to starter Russell Westbrook. To make room for the talented Maynor, the Thunder released reserves Shaun Livingson and Mike Wilks.http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4766058<ref>

Before being traded from the Utah Jazz to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Maynor made two starts for the Jazz in place of all-star Deron Williams, in one case posting an early career high of 24 points against the Cleveland Cavaliers. With Oklahoma, he has come off the bench for some 50 games, average 16.3 minutes per game and posting medians of 4.4 points, 3.2 assists and 1.6 rebounds. Twice during the 2009-2010 season, Maynor posted a total of 11 assists. This was a large factor in helping him rank 12th in the NBA in terms of the esoteric state of assists per turnover, for which Maynor totaled 1.96.http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4766058<ref><ref>http://www.nba.com/playerfile/eric_maynor/<ref>

For Eric Maynor, the 2008-2009 NCAA season was a momentous one, at least in terms of personal milestones. Over the course of the school year, he became the Virginia Commonwealth University Ram with the most ever free throws, assists and total points. But from a team perspective, things did not work out quite as well as they had in 2006-2007, when Maynor administered the shot known as the Duke dagger and helped push his team over George Mason via some last-minute overtime heroics. During the VCU 2009-2009 NCAA run, the Rams lost to UCLA when Maynor missed on a buzzer beater, last-minute attempt.