Feb. 23, 2026, 9:01 a.m. CT
You always hear the saying that there’s no truer meritocracy than sports. The Oklahoma City Thunder provided the latest example for that argument in their 121-113 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Gluttony is viewed as a sin in religion. The Thunder experienced that when they strategized for Sunday afternoon’s marquee matchup. After all, it was the first time they’ve seen the Cavaliers since they acquired a future Hall-of-Famer at the trade deadline.
The Thunder went with a voting system to figure out how Lu Dort and Cason Wallace would each guard between Donovan Mitchell and James Harden. There’s no real wrong answer. Any other team would kill for one All-Defense-esque perimeter defender. Much less two as Alex Caruso was sidelined.
In their staff meeting, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said the Dort on Mitchell and Wallace on Harden outcome won by the slimmest of margins. He detailed some cool behind-the-scenes stuff that you rarely see get brought up in the public-sphere with the dynamics of NBA coaches.
“We voted yesterday in our staff meeting. It was close. It was like six to five. Zoe, our analytics coach, was a deciding vote. She was an important vote,” Daigneault said. “Gray Thomas, who’s a player development person in our organization, was a critical vote. It swung Lu onto Mitchell.”
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Daigneault said he also voted for that outcome. The NBA season is a nine-month marathon. When you see the same group of people on a daily basis with a game every other night, it can cause some repetitiveness. To break away from the feeling of boredom, the Thunder go with votes on hotly debated subjects.
Let’s just say it worked out. Dort limited Mitchell to 20 points on 9-of-19 shooting. He’s had his number for years now. To that point that this was actually one of his louder games against the Thunder in years. Wallace limited Harden to 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting. He faded into the background.
“I also asked Lu who he’d put himself on. He said, ‘I would put myself on Mitchell.’ So he’d confirmed what we already had,” Daigneault said. “I voted for him on Mitchell, but there was a large contingency of people who thought he should’ve been on Harden. The first guy he broke through the league with was the Harden Bubble series. He’s guarded Harden a million times. He’s probably sick of guarding the guy, which is why he voted for Mitchell.”
What a luxury the Thunder have. Even when injuries completely decimate their roster, they still have Dort and Wallace to put on the opposition’s two best perimeter defenders. You just never see that happen across the league. The reigning NBA champions have leaned on that side of the ball to dominate the field for two seasons now.