The Oklahoma City Thunder will begin training camp in three weeks, we are less than a month away from Media Day, their preseason slate opens up on October 3rd, and the team will begin the regular season on October 19th. Before the season gets underway, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has orchestrated a mini-camp with 14 players in attendance. Joining the players is assistant coach Chip Engelland, who was hired to overhaul the team’s poor shooting output and head coach Mark Daigneault.
As the NBA world debates, if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who just a year ago signed a five-year max contract extension that featured no opt-outs, is disgruntled in Oklahoma City despite the Kentucky product stating the opposite, he once again gave Thunder fans defense ammunition by putting together a mini training camp for the team prior to the league-mandated camp at the end of the September.
14 Oklahoma City Thunder players, headlined by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, come together for a team mini-camp with “the guard whisperer”
Budding star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander rallied the troops to a private run at BGU with player development coach Olin Simplis, the “Guard Whisperer” who SGA has spent a large chunk of the offseason with. This leads us to believe he is the one who put this on as head coach Mark Daigneault and many of the organization’s assistant coaches also joined the team at BGU.
The only players not at this event were Theo Maledon, Derrick Favors, Mike Muscala, Vit Krejci, and Ty Jerome. These mini-training camps are common throughout the league, typically put on by the organization’s best player which seemingly is no different in OKC with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander stepping up.
Gilgeous-Alexander continued to be unguardable, even going against Lu Dort in a few clips, Ousmane Dieng drained a few triples, Jalen Williams and Aaron Wiggins continued their dominance from the summer league, and even Aleksej Pokusevski looked improved.
The big takeaway is Chip Engelland being in attendance. He has a tall task of helping the entire roster improve their jump shot, for a squad that ranked dead last in three-point percentage a year ago. This extra time will go a long way in getting them back on track this year.