The Thunder’s Most Entertaining Summer League Matchups

The Oklahoma City Thunder will begin their 2023 Summer League schedule on Monday, July 3 at the California Classic.

In the Sunshine State, OKC will take on Utah, Memphis and Philadelphia before heading to the much larger Las Vegas Summer League, where the Thunder will meet Dallas, Houston, Indiana and Washington.

While the latter has always been the much more heavily attended of the two, the Thunder will still get some key developmental minutes for their young players in California. In Oklahoma City’s first contest of the summer, the team will go head to head with the Jazz, who are ripe with a handful of talented rookies and second-year players.

As a team in the midst of a rebuild, Utah had three first-round picks in the 2023 draft, which the Jazz used to select Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George and Brice Sensabaugh. Hendricks was a solid college prospect that many Thunder fans hoped Sam Presti would bring to OKC, while George is a former 5-star prospect with great upside.

Hendricks ended up being selected one pick before Oklahoma City took Cason Wallace, creating a fun ninth pick-vs-10th pick matchup to kick off the California Classic. OKC fans will get the first look at Hendricks, who was believed to be a Thunder target for the entire draft process, and Wallace, who will get the chance to defend George, one of his talented rookie counterparts.

Five days later, Oklahoma City will meet the Mavericks in the team’s first game of the Las Vegas summer league. After OKC pulled off a draft night trade with Dallas, Mark Cuban and company selected Duke shot-blocker Dereck Lively II with the No. 12 pick.

While Lively II is a polarizing prospect, he will be a fun competitor for Thunder center Chet Holmgren, who is slated to return to action this summer after a knee injury sidelined last year’s Summer League star for his entire rookie season.

At 7-foot-1 and 230 pounds, Lively II has great size and shot blocking ability that will surely give him the ability to challenge Holmgren. The matchup down low will be important to see how Oklahoma City’s prized possession handles matching up against a fellow lottery pick.

Holmgren’s offensive skills, however, are much more polished than Lively II’s, giving the No. 2 pick in 2022 an advantage over the fellow 5-star prospect.

Following their matchup with the Mavericks, OKC will take on the Rockets, who added Amen Thompson and Cam Whitmore in the first round of this year’s draft. With Thompson and Whitmore in addition to the host of other young players on Houston’s roster, their contest against the Thunder will certainly be intriguing.

Oklahoma City will close out the Las Vegas Summer League with games against Jarace Walker and the Pacers as well as Bilal Coulibaly and the Wizards.

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