Lu Dort Says He’s Not Dirty. Here’s the List of People He’s Hit This Season.
Lu Dort Says He's Not Dirty. Here's the List of People He's Hit This Season.
Lu Dort had 14 points on 4-of-6 shooting from three in 21 minutes against the Lakers on Thursday night before leaving with an injury. The Thunder were up 45 points. It barely made the highlights.
What did make the highlights, and what has made the highlights all season, is the growing list of players Dort has hit, tripped, elbowed, or hip-checked over the past twelve months. The list includes an MVP, a generational prospect, and the best player on the team the Thunder beat in last year’s Finals.
Lu Dort says he’s not a dirty player. The evidence says otherwise.
The List
Tyrese Haliburton, NBA Finals Game 3, June 2025
The Thunder were on their way to a championship. Dort went up for a three-pointer on the left wing. As Haliburton closed in to contest, Dort passed the ball out and swung his left elbow directly into Haliburton’s face. No foul was called. Referee James Capers was standing right there. Haliburton went to the floor and stayed down while play continued around him.
The replay made it look intentional. Dort’s arm extended outward in a motion that had nothing to do with passing the ball. Social media called it what it was. “Dirtiest player in the league” trended within minutes. Some fans started calling him “the Canadian Draymond Green.”
No foul. No review. No penalty.
Victor Wembanyama, Christmas Day 2025
On a nationally televised game against the Spurs, Dort crashed into Wembanyama’s lower legs during a rebound attempt. A shot went up, Wembanyama was jostling for position, and Dort went low, making contact with the 7-foot-3 star’s legs and sending him to the floor.
Wembanyama clutched his leg. He had been recovering from a left calf strain. Fans watching at home were livid. “He was clearly going for his knee” was the consensus on X. The play had nothing to do with rebounding position and everything to do with physicality.
No foul was called. Wembanyama stayed in the game and finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds. The Spurs won 117-102.
Daniel Gafford, January 23, 2026
Against the Mavericks, Dort was chasing Kyrie Irving around a screen set by Daniel Gafford. As he navigated the screen, Dort extended his arm and hit Gafford directly in the groin.
The officials reviewed it. Flagrant Foul 2. Ejection. Dort was done for the night with 6:50 left in the period. Without him, the Thunder collapsed. Dallas outscored Oklahoma City 31-21 in the third quarter and won 121-115.
NBA fans had seen enough. The compilation videos started making the rounds. The pattern was becoming impossible to ignore.
Nikola Jokic, February 28, 2026
This was the one that made national headlines. Jokic was jogging back up the floor after a made basket. Dort was nearby. With no play on the ball, Dort threw his hip into Jokic and knocked the three-time MVP to the ground, catching him near the knee.
Jokic got up furious. He went straight at Dort. A scuffle broke out. Jaylin Williams stepped in, and both Jokic and Williams were hit with technical fouls. Dort was assessed a Flagrant Foul 2 and ejected.
Crew Chief James Williams explained the call: Dort’s contact was “unnecessary and excessive with a high potential for injury.”
Jokic said it plainly after the game: “It’s an unnecessary move and a necessary reaction. There’s not supposed to be those things on a basketball floor.”
The Thunder won in overtime, 127-121. Dort watched from the locker room.
The Pattern
Four incidents involving four different stars. An elbow to the face in the Finals. A shot to the legs of the league’s most prized young player on Christmas Day. A groin hit that got him ejected. A hip check on a three-time MVP that started a near-brawl.
Through seven NBA seasons, Dort has racked up nine technical fouls, six flagrant fouls, and four ejections. Those numbers alone don’t stand out. Plenty of physical players have similar stat lines. What stands out is the nature of the contact. The leg tangles. The below-the-belt shots. The plays that happen away from the ball, when the opponent isn’t looking. The plays that risk injury.
Who Lu Dort Actually Is
Here’s what makes the whole thing complicated. Lu Dort is not Draymond Green. He’s not a loudmouth or a serial offender who gets suspended and then does press conferences about it. He’s a quiet, undrafted kid from Montreal-Nord who came from nothing and worked his way into an $87.5 million contract and a championship ring.
He was born in Montreal to Haitian immigrants. His father drove a taxi. His mother worked in clothing manufacturing. He grew up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city. He transferred to a high school in Jacksonville, Florida to chase better competition and learn English. He committed to Arizona State, where he was the most hyped recruit since James Harden. He averaged 16.1 points as a freshman, won Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, and declared for the draft.
Nobody picked him. He went undrafted in 2019 and signed a two-way deal with the Thunder. He made his debut off the bench, played seven minutes, grabbed one rebound.
By the end of that season, he was guarding James Harden in the playoffs. He earned a reputation as one of the highest-effort defenders in the league. He made All-Defensive First Team. On June 22, 2025, he won a championship when the Thunder beat the Pacers in seven games.
The defensive intensity that made him an NBA player is the same intensity that keeps putting him on highlight reels for the wrong reasons. The line between relentless and reckless is thin, and Dort has been on the wrong side of it too many times this season to call it coincidence.
“I Don’t Think I’m Dirty”
After the Jokic incident, Dort sat down with reporters and addressed the growing narrative. He admitted the play was “an unnecessary move” and that he “went over the limit.” But he pushed back on the label.
“I don’t think I’m dirty,” he said.
The problem is that Tyrese Haliburton, Victor Wembanyama, Daniel Gafford, and Nikola Jokic might disagree. And the video doesn’t care what Lu Dort thinks.
The Thunder are 60-16 and have the best record in the NBA. They won a title last year. They’re the favorites to win another one this year. And their starting guard has a growing reputation as the dirtiest player in the league, one that he earned not with words or trash talk but with elbows, hips, and plays that have nothing to do with basketball.
Lu Dort had 14 points in 21 minutes tonight against the Lakers. He hit four threes. He played winning basketball on a team that’s running away with the Western Conference. And the reason he’s trending isn’t any of that.
It’s the list. And the list keeps getting longer.
A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
