March 3, 2026, 9:30 a.m. CT<\/p>\n
The Iowa<\/a> basketball program has seen a ton of recent success when it comes to putting players into the NBA.<\/p>\n Beginning with Luka Garza, the number of former Hawkeyes<\/a> in the NBA has risen dramatically over the past half-decade. Joe Wieskamp, Keegan Murray, and Kris Murray have all seen NBA minutes over the last couple of years. And now it looks like a former teammate of the Murray brothers at Iowa may be close to making his NBA debut.<\/p>\n On Monday, it was announced that Payton Sandfort has agreed to a two-way contract with the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>.<\/p>\n Following a standout senior season with Iowa, where he averaged 16.7 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 2.9 assists per game, Sandfort went undrafted in last Summer’s NBA Draft. Immediately following the draft, the Thunder<\/a> signed him to a reserve deal, snagging his G-League rights and assigning him to the Oklahoma City Blue.<\/p>\n The 6-foot-7, 215-pound wing has appeared in 16 games for the Blue, averaging 11.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game while shooting 33.1% from three. Now on a two-way contract, Sandfort will have the opportunity to make his NBA debut at any moment. The Thunder are currently dealing with a plethora of injuries, which could open the door for the former Hawk to have the opportunity of a lifetime.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n The Thunder have already ruled out five players for Tuesday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls<\/a>. Iowa fans may not have to wait long to see Sandfort make his NBA debut.<\/p>\n Contact\/Follow us\u00a0@HawkeyesWire<\/a>\u00a0on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes and opinions.\u00a0Follow Zach on X:\u00a0@zach_hiney<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 3, 2026, 9:30 a.m. CT The Iowa basketball program has seen a ton of recent success when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[72400,7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,83199,73480,72404,72457,72580,72864,72452,73012,74106,74104,73413,73095,72999,72858,72444,72422,72570,72456,72484,72405,72526,72406,312,72403],"class_list":["post-637373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-sstssportscollegehawkeyesmens-basketball","tag-sstsnmens-basketball","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagbig-10-hub","tag-tagbig-ten-conference-mens-basketball","tag-tagcollege-basketball","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagiowa","tag-tagiowa-hawkeyes","tag-tagiowa-hawkeyes-mens-basketball","tag-tagkeegan-murray","tag-tagkris-murray","tag-tagluka-garza","tag-tagmens-college-basketball","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagnba-draft","tag-tagncaa-big-ten-conference","tag-tagoklahoma-city-thunder","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsmg-timely","tag-tagsports-news","tag-thunder","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}