{"id":87397,"date":"2025-08-21T23:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T23:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/87397\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T23:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T23:53:09","slug":"lu-the-champ-fans-pack-montreal-nord-for-dorts-nba-championship-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/87397\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lu the champ’: Fans pack Montr\u00e9al-Nord for Dort’s NBA championship parade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luguentz Dort celebrated his NBA championship with a festive parade through his home neighbourhood in Montreal on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Oklahoma City Thunder swingman lifted the Larry O’Brien Trophy high while cruising in a Lamborghini as hundreds of cheering fans \u2014 and a Haitian marching band \u2014 followed along de Charleroi Street in the city’s Montr\u00e9al-Nord borough.<\/p>\n

Dort then jumped out of the car and walked among a crowd of locals and reporters to Parc Pilon, where hundreds more waited to greet their native son.<\/p>\n

Dozens of kids, many sporting Dort’s OKC No. 5, lined up for their turn on the court at Parc Pilon. Others held signs reading “Lu the champ” and “Mtl-Nord fier de son champion,” which translates to “Mtl-Nord proud of its champion,” and chanted “Luuuuu!” as Dort took the stage to address the fans.<\/p>\n

\"OklahomaDort waves the Haitian flag as he carries the trophy through the streets of Montr\u00e9al-Nord, which is home to one of Canada’s largest Haitian communities. (Graham Hughes\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

“Any success I have, I want to share with my people. There’s not a lot of us that get to make it to the big stage. As soon as we won, I was like, ‘Yeah, I gotta come back home, especially where I grew up,'”\u00a0said Dort.<\/p>\n

“At a young age, coming from here, I didn’t have a specific guide to look at, to be like ‘I want to be like them.’ To be in this position in the kids’ eyes today, it’s huge.”<\/p>\n

WATCH\u00a0| Celebrations in Montr\u00e9al-Nord:\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Lu Dort celebrates NBA championship with parade in Montr\u00e9al-Nord<\/p>\n

The NBA champion hoisted the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy while sitting atop a Lamborghini as the parade cruised through the streets of his home borough of Montr\u00e9al-Nord.<\/p>\n

A day earlier, Dort signed Montreal’s “Livre d’Or” during a special invitation to City Hall from Mayor Val\u00e9rie Plante, who recognized the homegrown talent for his community work and on-court achievements.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old Dort \u2014 with Canadian MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander \u2014 helped lead the Thunder to the NBA title with a seven-game series win over the Indiana Pacers, a team that featured fellow Montrealer Bennedict Mathurin.<\/p>\n

\"MontrealMontreal Mayor Val\u00e9rie Plante gestures as Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort signs the Livre d’Or during a ceremony in his honour at City Hall in Montreal on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Christinne Muschi\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

Dort and Mathurin grew up only blocks apart in the borough, home to one of Canada’s largest Haitian communities.<\/p>\n

Dort ultimately became the fourth player from Montreal to win an NBA title, joining Bill Wennington (Chicago Bulls, 1996 to 1998), Joel Anthony (Miami Heat, 2012 and 2013) and Chris Boucher (Toronto Raptors, 2019).<\/p>\n

He was also the most impactful Montrealer on a championship team.<\/p>\n

A starter for the Thunder, Dort regularly takes on the most challenging defensive assignments as a suffocating on-ball defender. This past season, he was named to the All-NBA defensive first-team and placed fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting, while scoring 10 points per game on a talent-packed OKC.<\/p>\n

Dort also embodies the underdog spirit, having been passed up by the entire league at the 2019 draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luguentz Dort celebrated his NBA championship with a festive parade through his home neighbourhood in Montreal on Thursday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-87397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}