The Thunder’s heart

Building around Lu Dort

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort got after it on defense even back in December 2021, when the team was 12-20 in December 2021. THEARON W. HENDERSON/GETTY IMAGES

“I’m tired of fucking doing this every game,” Jazz coach Will Hardy screams at his team on digital video. “Fucking play harder.”

The Utah Jazz had a good run to start the season, going 2-1 after an overtime win over the Suns, with their one loss coming to the Kings in a one-point road loss. Vegas said they’d be the worst team in the NBA, but for a moment, with Lauri Markkanen looking like an All-Star, Jazz Nation must have been feeling “don’t forget about us!!”

I doubt they even remember that feeling now that they’ve lost seven of ten, to settle at twelfth in the West at 8-15. On Sunday, when Coach Hardy lost it during a timeout, they were missing Markkanen, but lost by 30 to a Thunder team that was without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, and Alex Caruso. Thunder deep bench players like Kenrich Williams and Ousmane Dieng finished the game plus-29 and plus-19 respectively.

Perhaps Coach Hardy had been one of the people who had believed this year’s Jazz might make some noise. Nothing hurts like hope evaporating. I’m a big believer that leadership is breathing spirit, and in that moment, Coach Hardy did the opposite. But I don’t know enough to judge anyone by one moment.

I’m a fan of Hardy, people I respect in the game are too. Coaches in this league often yell or get angry, but this level of exasperation was a little different. I get it. With money and fame guaranteed, playing hard should be a given. As the losses pile up, again, Hardy has to wonder when it will ever be different. Coaches also need to see the future, and that can be extra foggy when bad basketball befouls the air. The question is: how does an organization keep panic at bay?

Sam Presti and Mark Daigneault have lived it. In 2020-2021 the Thunder won 22 games. In one 24-game stretch, they lost all but one game, and were outscored by almost 500 points in total. The following season, 24. Both seasons they were 14th out of 15 teams in the West. But now it’s clear they did a lot more than gather draft picks over that period. They improved to the middle of the NBA in defensive rating, while also identifying Luguentz Dort, Kenrich Williams, and Aaron Wiggins as keepers.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was their best player, averaging over 24 points a game. But he made just 30 percent of his 3s, so he was far from the player he’d need to be to carry the team to the promised land. Presti remembered that time in his preseason press conference that Henry wrote about yesterday:

We were getting our teeth kicked in. In losing, like a lot of those games for those two seasons, Lu [Dort] was making what we were calling catalyst plays, right. We might be down by 15 points in the second half, and we’d be outmatched at times, just purely based on the age of the team and where we were, but he’d be diving on the floor, harassing somebody up the court. And we talked about how whenever it is, we had no idea when, but eventually we were going to be able to win some games. It was going to be that kind of approach that sustained us, or got us to the point where we could be a respectable team and ultimately a competitive team. And that, to me, is what stands out about Lu: The things we’ve seen from him in the biggest stages, he was doing those things when there wasn’t a ton of incentive to do it. And that’s, to me, why he’s a huge component to the heartbeat of the team.

Bingo. Lightning strike.

That’s why Coach Hardy said what he said.