In 2019, Luguentz Dort—Lu to friends, teammates and frustrated opponents who grumble after matchups with one of the NBA’s top defenders—was ready for his moment. Dort, who exited Arizona State after his freshman season, had traveled to New York for the NBA draft. He hoped to be a first-round pick. He was sure he would go early in the second. The night ended without his name being called. “I remember everything from that night,” Dort says. Everything? “Everything,” he says.
What followed was a journey that took Dort through the G League to the Oklahoma City Thunder to where he is today, the best defender on the NBA’s best defensive team, a key piece of a team that has emerged a championship favorite. He has been mentored by Chris Paul, molded by Billy Donovan and Mark Daigneault and developed an unbreakable bond with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a fellow Canadian and leader of the Thunder’s youth movement.
Dort, in an interview for Sports Illustrated’s “Open Floor” podcast, opened up about his NBA journey, Oklahoma City’s rapid rise and what has made him one of the league’s top defenders.
(The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)
Sports Illustrated: So how tough was that draft night?
Lu Dort: It was really tough. I was just sitting there just waiting. And then the crazy thing is at the draft, whenever they think somebody’s going to get called, they bring the cameras in front of them just to see the reactions. So the cameras came to me at least 10 times.
SI: That’s messed up.
LD: In my head I’m like, “Is it me? Is it me?” So it happened so many times to the point where I was like, man, what’s going on? And then after that I just had all the emotions, honestly. I was sad, I was pissed. I was down on myself. All the emotions I could have, I had them. And then obviously I cried, too. And while I was walking out of the draft, I got the call from [Thunder general manager] Sam Presti who gave me the chance to have a two-way [contract] here.
SI: Have you figured out why you slipped?
LD: Till this day I’m still thinking about it. If I could go to some of the GMs, I was working for some teams at the time to ask them, man, what was I missing around that time? Whatever. But I still wonder, obviously I have an AAU team, I have some younger guys that I support and if I would be able to give them any advice about that I still would want an answer to give them, which I don’t have yet.
Honestly, I remember my days when I was in college. I was not the most efficient player. I was recognized for taking a lot of bad shots, which as a 19, 20-year-old first year in college, you want to show everything that you got. So that was my mindset going to college. But I would say that I wasn’t the best shooter but I was a young player so I would feel like a team would be like, ‘Hey man, we going to get him and we going to develop him,’ or whatever. And that was my thought process, but it didn’t happen.
SI: I’m guessing you had a lot of motivation going to Oklahoma City.
LD: I remember when the assistant GM at the time, [Will] Dawkins, when he picked me up I was so down. My face, he could tell I was pissed. The first thing he told me was, the draft is just the start. Now you’re in and now you got a long career ahead of you. You got to see where you’re going to end up. And his motive was just to give me some type of motivation, just knowing that I was so down from the draft and it didn’t only shock me, it shocked so many people as well, people around the NBA. And so he kind of knew that I was going to feel that type of way. And then I remember coming here, came to the facility, I met some of the guys in the front office, met some of the coaches. I remember my first workout was actually with Coach Mark when he was an assistant at the time. And since that I just moved all my stuff here and I was ready to go.
SI: You got to Oklahoma just as they started to rebuild. They traded Russell Westbrook, traded Paul George. What was that first year like?
LD: It all started at Summer League for me. That’s when that trade happened, when we brought Shai and then I think that’s when Russ got traded around the same time. And after that for me it was just find a way to get some playing time. I spent most of the early year with the G League. I probably played about 20 games and when some of the guys went down [with injuries], I was the only one that they could call up. So that’s why I got my real chance. And then after a couple of games, I was starting, and then from there, I haven’t seen G League since.
SI: And just when you started to get some minutes, the pandemic hit. How did you use that time away from the game?
LD: It was actually really good for me especially. I had spent a lot of time with the Thunder so I kind of knew what my role was going to be, what I could bring to the table and what some of the stuff I could get better at. So that low time frame that we had between the stop of the season and the bubble, that’s when I knew, I knew I’m going to be this crazy defender out there and then be a pest and be a dog out there.
That’s when I started working on some of the footwork stuff and watching a lot of film. I remember I was having calls with one of the assistant coaches and we just went over random things, like we’ll pick a couple players and go over scouts and stuff like that. And then that’s when I transitionally knew what type of player I was going to be in this league. And then when we got to the bubble I was like, yeah, and anybody who’s in front of me, I’ll compete real hard and try to dog them.
SI: What’s your approach to defense? Do you focus more on your game or studying the game of your opponents?
LD: It’s really both. I mean, sometimes it’s hard when we play an East Coast team that we don’t see that often. But we play Dallas a lot, play Sacramento a couple times, and those guys, it’s really where I locked in on the film and really trying to learn their tendencies and what they like to do. But at the same time, I just know that I’m pretty good with my feet and I’m good at maneuvering the screen. I like to study the guy screening. I watch a lot of film on the guy who actually sets the screen.
SI: Who’s the toughest screener?
LD: Steven Adams. I played with him my rookie year. He’s a tough one. He knows how to get the good angles and you can’t really bump him. He’s not moving. So sometimes I can move his screener, but a guy like him, I can’t do it.
SI: You’re a great defender on a team loaded with great defenders. Has that helped you, having so many other guys who can defend around you?
LD: It has actually been really helpful. We are all great defenders but we are all really, really, really good at something. So AC [Alex Caruso] is really good at being vocal and just knowing the game. His knowledge for the game is actually crazy sometimes. [Opponents] will call a play and he will know exactly what they’ll do. And he’s really good with his hands. I’m pretty good with my feet and I’m the more physical guy and then I’m pretty fast.
A guy like Cason [Wallace], he has both, I think he’s pretty good with his feet, he’s physical and he got good hands. So there’s so much stuff that you can learn about, that we can learn about each other. I was guarding one of the Bucks guards [recently] and Cason does this thing every time where whenever a guard crosses the ball in front of him, he always has his hand low. So the whole time I was trying to do it and on the bench he noticed that and he was like, “Bro, if you do it, you got to go for real.” Don’t be shy if you put your hand down there, just try to get the ball. And then just little stuff like that really helps because having those types of good defenders on the same team, you can learn. I can learn so much.
SI: Defense is your strength. But you have been around 40% from three the last two seasons. How has that part of your game come along?
LD: Just experience. Being with Shai for all these years. He attracts so much in the paint and now with J-Dub [Jalen Williams] as well. So all I’ve got to do is just find a window for him to find me. And I always felt like my three-point shooting had to get better from my rookie year and even from college to be more consistent and I spent a lot of time in the gym with my trainer just really working on that and watching a lot of film knowing what type of shot I’m going to get in the game. But yeah, it’s just reps honestly.
SI: You guys were great last season. Top seed in the Western Conference. What has made you better this season?
LD: Defensively. I feel like our offense hasn’t really changed. I just feel like we’ve really just turned up a notch with the guys that we brought in and now it’s really hard to go against us in the half court. We have so many good defenders that we can switch and we got rim protection at the same time. So that really helps, on top of the good offense that we’ve been having.
SI: Doc Rivers was telling me that the last thing a championship team needs to learn is the buy-in. Everyone has to be bought in. Everyone has to accept their roles. Do you think that’s happened here?
LD: For sure. I’ve been in the league for six years now and honestly I’ve had so many teammates. At the beginning of the year I was so confident with this group of guys that we have that they are all buying into their role. Sometimes when a guy comes in the league or gets to a different team, he always wants to prove himself and show that he can do more, which sometimes can hurt a team. And honestly with the group of guys that we have now, I don’t see that with anybody. Honestly, whenever somebody has a good game, everybody’s all happy. Sometimes it’s going to be me, sometimes it’s going to be Cason, sometimes it’s going to be [Aaron] Wiggins. You never know who can go off. But at the same time, we all bought into this and we all know what we can do to help this team.
SI: Is there a secret sauce to that?
LD: It’s just how we get along. Honestly, we are all homies and friends. I can go to anybody’s house today and just kick it and watch hoops and talk about anything. That’s just how I feel about anybody on the team. And I feel like that really helps you as a guy who has siblings. You always want your brothers or sisters to do good in life. So that’s really how I feel when I’m around these guys. If it’s not even on basketball, if it’s the stuff you do off the court or marketing deals or just your investments and all that, we can talk about all that type of stuff and we are all happy from one another.
SI: You’re trying to win a championship. But do you have individual goals? First team All-Defense? Defensive Player of the Year?
LD: Honestly, the biggest goal is to go out there and perform every night for my teammates. But it will always be nice to get rewarded for the hard work that I do on the court, which would probably be Defensive Player of the Year or first team. If you ask me if I deserve it, I would say yes, just because of what I bring every night, all the matchups that I got to face every night. But all that would be a goal of mine.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Lu Dort’s Rapid Rise From Undrafted to Top Defender on Title-Contending Thunder.