After a four-day break, the Oklahoma City Thunder are set to play their second back-to-back of the NBA preseason. Less than two weeks remain until they're part of Opening Night for the 2026-27 regular season. But first, they're going through a quick tune-up.
The Thunder will travel to face the Atlanta Hawks on Monday, Oct. 12 for a preseason outing. They will then return to OKC to host the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday, Oct. 13. Because of that scheduling format, a long list of names will be out for Night 1.
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault revealed that the main rotation players will not travel to Atlanta on Sunday. Instead, they're going to go with a short nine-man rotation made up of the rookies, two-way players and Exhibit-10 additions.
"We are
going to not travel a number of guys just based on the rhythm of preseason and the fact that it's a back-to-back. A large amount of our returning rotation players, if not all of our returning rotation players, will not travel and will not play," Daigneault said. "Just in the interest of having them physically ready to go against Indiana. We'll travel the rookie players, the two ways and the Exhibit-10 guys. We'll have nine total guys in Atlanta."
To spell things out even further, that means the following Thunder players will be out and not even make the one-game road trip — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso, Jared McCain, Jaylin Williams, Kenrich Williams, Nikola Topic and Thomas Sorber.
The nine Thunder players who will play are the following — Aday Mara, Bennett Stirtz, Brooks Barnhizer, Otega Oweh, Josh Dix, Zhaire Smith, Christoph Tilly, Anthony Pritchard and Andrew Holifield.
It also sounds like OKC's top-10 rotation players will instead suit up for Tuesday's home preseason game against the Pacers. Topic and Sorber remain to be decided. Both have been limited in training camp and preseason.
After this upcoming road-and-home back-to-back, the Thunder have one more preseason game left on the docket. They will travel to face the Houston Rockets on Thursday, Oct. 15.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Several OKC Thunder players to sit out upcoming preseason game against Hawks
