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Oklahoma City Thunder forward Luguentz Dort became emotional on Wednesday when reflecting back on his first season in the NBA following a Game 7 loss to the Houston Rockets.
Dort, who went undrafted last year, started the season off in the G League with the OKC Blue and wouldn’t make his NBA debut until December. After a few appearances, Dort returned to the G League but would re-join the Thunder for good in January.
He entered the starting lineup on Jan. 20 and wouldn’t look back.
Dort averaged 7.6 points and 2.5 rebounds in 28 games as a starter during the regular season and instantly became the team’s top defender. He often guarded the best player on the opposing team and frequently found success in that role.
Dort entered the NBA Draft projected to be a first-round pick by some so it was rather surprising when he didn’t hear his name called. He experienced quite a few ups and downs this season and that emotion surfaced on Wednesday as he wiped away tears when discussing his rookie season after the Thunder were defeated, 104-102.
It was tough going undrafted and this team just gave me a lot of confidence. From the vets — Chris [Paul], Dennis [Schroder], [Danilo Gallinari], Steve-O [Adams], Coach Billy [Donovan], Sam [Presti] — they just gave me a lot of confidence and they really trusted me.
It’s a blessing just to be here, me coming from Montreal and being here with all of these guys. The way we played, it didn’t end up our way but it was big. It was a hell of a season I had and I’m grateful for that.
Montreal native Luguentz Dort was very emotional after his 30 point performance in the @okcthunder's Game 7 loss to the @HoustonRockets 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/Fpsck3sTUv
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) September 3, 2020
Dort saved his best performance of the season for what became the final game.
He scored a playoff-career-high 30 points on Wednesday while he shot 6-of-12 from 3-point range. The performance came two games after a historically bad shooting performance in Game 5 in which he shot 3-of-16 from the field and 0-of-9 from beyond the arc.
Dort set the Thunder rookie scoring record in a playoff game and he became the youngest player (21 years, 136 days) in NBA history to score 30 points in a Game 7. He joined Kobe Bryant and LeBron James as the only players to score at least 25 points in a Game 7 before the age of 22.
Despite the shooting struggles, Dort appeared to be relatively unfazed. While most players may have been hesitant to shoot following that performance, Dort continued to play aggressively and finally found success.
Donovan applauded his effort to bounce back from a tough Game 5 outing.
It was one of the most impressive things that I have seen out of a player that young. Here is a guy that was in the G League, never got drafted, was a two-way player and here he comes up and we had some injuries and comes in the starting lineup and in a significant playoff game, he goes 3-for-16 and 0-of-9. If that doesn’t show you the mental toughness of a guy to be able to come back and play as well as he did in Game 6 after that Game 5 and then come back today and play better and also focus on guarding James Harden. I was really impressed with him.
Perhaps even more daunting for Dort, he drew the assignment of guarding Harden throughout the series.
While it is nearly impossible to shut down Harden, Dort found success against him at times. Dort held Harden to 10.8 points on 31.4% shooting from the field, including 26.3% from 3-point range, as his primary defender throughout the series, according to NBA tracking data.
Despite just taking part in a heated playoff battle, Dort and Harden shared a moment with each other after the game. They each played at Arizona State and have trained together in the past and the former MVP offered high praise for Dort.
I’ve seen him since college when I would go back to Arizona State. He worked his butt off and it’s showing. Obviously, he played extremely well tonight. On the offensive end, he made a lot of shots. He just played his butt off. He doesn’t care about anything but playing hard. As a young guy coming into this league, that’s all you need to ask for.
Learning how to play and learning defensive schemes and offensive schemes, and the total packaging of being an NBA player is going to come but he has the right mindset of just playing hard and playing balls to the wall. He is going to have a great career.
When the Thunder pulled off one of the biggest heists ever in the Paul George and Russell Westbrook trades, in which they acquired potentially as many as 13 future first-round picks, the thought was the team had likely acquired several future stars.
Little did they know, they already had one of them on the roster…
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