{"id":799770,"date":"2026-08-02T18:48:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T18:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/799770\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T18:48:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T18:48:42","slug":"chet-thunders-offseason-departures-felt-like-losing-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/799770\/","title":{"rendered":"Chet: Thunder&#8217;s offseason departures felt like &#8216;losing a"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oklahoma City Thunder big man Chet Holmgren compared the offseason departures of Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah Joe to &#8220;losing a family member.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s how the business of this game goes,&#8221; Holmgren told reporters Saturday at a USA Basketball Foundation charity event, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/49507452\/thunder-departures-part-business-game\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN&#8217;s Ben Golliver<\/a>. &#8220;No team, all 17 guys, sticks together forever. But it doesn&#8217;t make it hurt less when you see guys go.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the same time, I&#8217;m excited for (Dort and Wiggins) and the opportunity they&#8217;re going to have in Atlanta. I&#8217;m happy for whatever major milestones they reach over there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dort, Wiggins, and Joe were all part of the Thunder&#8217;s championship run in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Dort, who went undrafted seven years ago, developed into a perimeter stopper, earning NBA All-Defensive first-team honors in 2025. Meanwhile, both Wiggins and Joe provided valuable floor-spacing off the bench.<\/p>\n<p>However, Oklahoma City opted to trade all three players this summer with Holmgren and Jalen Williams&#8217; contract extensions kicking in. The cost-cutting moves allowed the team enough financial flexibility to re-sign starting center Isaiah Hartenstein to a three-year, $75-million contract.<\/p>\n<p>While Holmgren is sad to see his former teammates go, he&#8217;s got the utmost faith in the club&#8217;s front office.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have complete trust in our team and the moves they make,&#8221; Holmgren added. &#8220;I trust what they&#8217;re doing is to get it right. It&#8217;s my job to be in the gym all summer to get my stuff right.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City Thunder big man Chet Holmgren compared the offseason departures of Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-799770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}