During their title defense tour, the OKC Thunder have excitingly found several players breaking out onto the scene.
From Cason Wallace becoming the league's best defensive disruptor to Ajay Mitchell establishing himself as arguably the biggest bargain player in the game today, Oklahoma City's royalty of riches has only gotten more luxurious in 2025-26.
However, with all these top-shelf breakouts, it seems as if one Thunder gem has floated under the radar as a result.
Isaiah Joe has been a beloved member of the ball club's rotation ever since coming out to the Sooner State back in the summer of 2022.
However, here in year six of his NBA journey, we find the wing putting forth his best season yet, and it's gone somewhat unnoticed as a result of being surrounded by the aforementioned ballers who have unintentionally hogged the spotlight.
So let's shed some much-deserved light on the sensational efforts put forth by I-Joe so far in the campaign.
Isaiah Joe proving invaluable to Thunder in 2025-26
Despite coming into the year banged up while dealing with a nagging knee injury, right out of the gate, Joe has made his presence felt on the hardwood.
Prior to his season debut, the Thunder ranked in as the second-worst three-point shooting team in the association with a putrid clip of just 28.8 percent. Since returning to action, the club has ranked fifth-best in said category by cashing in on 38.1 percent of their attempts.
This is no simple coincidence.
Now, along with this hard-to-argue correlation, his career-high counting stats of 10.9 points on 42.7 percent shooting from the floor absolutely prove just how impactful Joe's re-introduction to the Thunder rotation has been from an offensive productivity standpoint.
However, the eye test only further cements the veteran as an invaluable piece to their history-chasing puzzle, as the Thunder have regularly used him as a main point of emphasis in coach Mark Daigneault's drawn-up plays, particularly in in-bound sets, where they've often looked to his elite shooting skills off the catch (team-best 64.5 effective field goal percentage) while using stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams as mere decoys.
Getting such high-stakes usage is not something that every player is entrusted with. In fact, it takes a special breed of talent to earn such faith from their headman, especially when they are led by the reigning league MVP.
No, Joe is not a star in the technical sense, but he's the epitome of a player who's a star in their role, and, while Oklahoma City is actively pursuing their second consecutive Larry O'Brien Trophy, he's continuing to prove his worth as a core fixture.
Along with the highly buzzed-about contributors in Wallace, Mitchell, and Aaron Wiggins, it goes beyond saying that Joe is equally deserving of serious praise for his efforts and impact on this budding dynasty.