With the 2026-27 regular season right around the corner, the Oklahoma City Thunder enter the year as a popular title pick. Even after their summer of cost-cutting moves, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams remain one of the most successful and decorated trios in the league.
The Thunder had a league-best 64-18 this past regular season. But fell short of their back-to-back ambitions in the 2026 Western Conference Finals. Injuries played a large part in that. But that's in the past. Can't change anything about it now.
Now that the offseason is behind us and we're looking ahead to another nine-month marathon, let's rewind on OKC's biggest moves and preview what most folks believe the Thunder will do this upcoming year.
To get
ready for the upcoming season, Thunder Wire conducted a 16-question fan survey. A total of 1,145 Thunder fans participated. Not every question was answered, though. The response totals for each question can be seen at the top left corner of the pie charts.
One question was about who the Thunder will miss the most. They said goodbye to a handful of longtime role players this summer. Lu Dort and Aaron Wiggins were each traded to the Atlanta Hawks; Isaiah Joe to the Detroit Pistons. In return, OKC netted seven future second-round picks and saved a boatload of money.
All three were also developmental success stories that played a role in their 2025 NBA championship. Such is the life of the NBA's salary cap world. You can't keep the same group of guys together forever. Besides, it was an appropriate time for every party to have a fresh start. The writing was on the wall that Dort, Joe and Wiggins would get moved this summer. By the end of the 2026 NBA playoffs, they were mostly outside of the rotation and had movable contracts.
That said, to lose three role players in one summer is a sizable chunk of your rotation. How the Thunder look with a new complementary cast will be one of the more underrated storylines of the 2026-27 season. Surely, others will step up in their absence. Remains to be seen who, though.
Of the three, the majority of voters think the Thunder will miss Dort the most. Nearly three-fourths picked him. Makes sense. He was tied for the longest-tenured player in OKC with seven seasons. He was a key starter in OKC's ascension from a rebuild to an NBA champion. And even though his defense took a step back last year, they're going to miss his physical style against the league's top perimeter scorers.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: 2026 OKC Thunder fan survey results: Lu Dort will be missed the most
