Oklahoma City already has its most painful offseason decision lined up, and it is going to cost the Thunder one of the most beloved players in the locker room.
Luguentz Dort is expected to be the odd man out this summer, per a report from Kurt Helin of NBC Sports. Oklahoma City holds a $17.7 million team option on Dort, and league sources say the front office is leaning toward declining it to dodge the second apron of the luxury tax.
This one is going to sting. Dort, 27, is the longest-tenured player on the roster alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He has been there since 2019, undrafted, signed to a two-way deal, and turned himself into one of the best perimeter defenders in the entire league. He made All-Defensive First Team in 2025 and was a critical piece of the team that just won a title.
So why is he the casualty? Two reasons. One, Dort had a brutal 2026 postseason. He averaged 5.5 points per game and shot 30.8 percent from three. Cason Wallace and Alex Caruso both ate into his minutes by the end of the playoff run because they offered more on offense without losing the defensive backbone Dort provides.
Two, the math is brutal. The Thunder are about to pay Shai a supermax. Chet Holmgren needs an extension. Jalen Williams just got paid. Isaiah Hartenstein has a $28.5 million team option that almost certainly gets picked up because the league has gone small and any team that has a credible seven-footer can survive against guys like Wembanyama and Jokic in a series. Hartenstein is harder to replace than Dort. That is the cold business calculation.
Shai has already publicly endorsed bringing Dort back. That part of the story is real and it is going to make whatever happens here messy. When the superstar of a championship roster says he wants a teammate to stay, the front office cannot just shrug it off without consequences. Mark Daigneault is going to have to find a way to either keep Dort on a renegotiated deal or get Shai to publicly back the decision to move on.
There is a middle path. The Thunder could decline the $17.7 million option and try to re-sign Dort at something more like $10 to $12 million on a multi-year deal. He would be cheaper long-term and the cap math would clear up. Dort is not getting top-market money on the open market coming off a 30 percent shooting playoff run, so this is a realistic outcome if both sides want to make it work.
The risk of letting him walk is real, though. Dort is the kind of player every contender wants. The Heat, the Celtics, the Magic: any team trying to defend perimeter creators in May would line up to hand Dort a five-year, $60 million deal in a heartbeat. Oklahoma City does not want to watch one of those teams turn him into the missing piece against them in the playoffs.
What does this mean for the Thunder rotation? The starting five gets younger. Wallace probably moves into a bigger role. The team probably drafts a wing or pursues one in free agency at a lower price point. The defensive identity takes a hit but does not collapse, because Caruso is still here and Holmgren and Hartenstein are still anchoring the back line.
This is what life looks like for a champion in the apron era. You win the title, then you start picking which beloved pieces have to go.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
