OKC Thunder: Dennis Schroder enjoying family time but staying focused for return

Dennis Schroder is away from the bubble spending quality time with his family but is expected to rejoin the OKC Thunder sometime next week.

The OKC Thunder sure are missing their Sixth Man, Dennis Schroder, as they’ve lost two games in his absence. Against the Grizzlies it was far more noticeable, albeit also missing big man Steven Adams didn’t help with a brawny Jonas Valanciunas on the other side of the floor to contend with.

Schroder remains away from the team enjoying time with his family and the arrival of his baby girl Imalia Aaliyah.

He took to his Instagram page to post a story featuring Imalia as well as his wife Ellen Ziolo and son Jr.

Be prepared as his Instagram story serves up many “ooh’s and ah’s” moments.
In particular, Jr. kissing his new baby sister but also making sure to give Teddy a kiss is beyond appropriate words to convey precisely how precious the moment caught on film is.

The story features an image of Dennis cutting the baby’s cord, one of Mom and Dad with baby Imalia. The third image is the one described above. At the end of the story, Schroder shows that even though he’s with the family Schroder he’s still finding time to get in work and stay in shape with the quote “hard work pays off” added to the image.

OKC Thunder missing Schroder

Since his departure from the bubble, there hasn’t been an update on when he plans to return. The thinking is he’ll be back sometime early next week. Given the struggles the Thunder has faced without him it would be ideal if he could be back to play in one of the final seeding games. That might be out of his and the team’s hands depending on his return date and how long he has to quarantine.

For the majority of players who’ve exited Orlando and returned they’ve had to spend four days in quarantine as long as they’ve been tested daily for COVID-19 and produced negative results. That number isn’t definitive as the league stated they would deal with these situations on a one-off basis but it seems logical to assume the four-day isolation will occur.

There are four games remaining for the OKC Thunder including the back-to-back set on Sunday, August 9th, and Monday, August 10th versus the Wizards and Suns. The final two seeded games are on Wednesday, August 12th versus the Heat and Friday, August 14th versus the Clippers.

Assuming Dennis was to return on Sunday or Monday that would potentially make him available for the final seeding game.

The good news is he’s expected back before the playoffs. The tricky part will be finding a way to avoid landing in the sixth seed without Schroder’s services. That’s because of the teams tightly huddled in the three through six seeds the one team OKC should want no part of is the Nuggets because of their size and length.

OKC is a half-game back of the Jazz who has played an additional game and registered an extra win. They trail the Rockets by a full game having played the same number of games and getting an unlucky scheduling roll of the dice as LeBron James elected to play versus the Thunder but not the Rockets.

If the Thunder ties with either the Jazz or Rockets they’ll get the higher seed by virtue of owning both tie-breaks.

Houston has games versus the Kings on Sunday, August 9th, Spurs/Pacers back-to-back set on August 11th/12th and 76ers on August 14th.  Depending on whether the Kings and Spurs still have a shot at the play-in may determine how invested they are in their matches while the Pacers and 76ers is an interesting draw since those two squads are fighting each other to gain the fifth seed.

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Utah has three games remaining versus Nuggets on August 9th, Mavericks on August 11th and Spurs on August 13th. Similarly to above that final game versus the Spurs could dictate whether they are invested in winning the final seeding game.

The Nuggets and Mavericks seem to be locked in at third and seventh seeds but both teams will want to iron out kinks before the playoffs and are more likely to compete than simply toss the games away to rest stars.

Ultimately, the OKC Thunder are better with Dennis Schroder and these tough losses to the Nuggets and Grizzlies are serving as a strong reminder of his true value to the team.

Hopefully when he returns he’ll be empowered much like Fred VanVleet was last year following the birth of his son. If Schroder goes on a roll such as FVV did -then the OKC Thunder opponents better be concerned. Either way, the team will be thrilled to have him back because he is such a big piece of the team and his absence has really thrown off the rhythm of the team.