{"id":647,"date":"2025-08-07T15:57:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/?p=647"},"modified":"2025-08-08T15:23:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:23:48","slug":"2-thunder-players-get-major-nods-as-nbas-top-defenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/07\/2-thunder-players-get-major-nods-as-nbas-top-defenders\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Thunder Players Get Major Nods As NBA\u2019s Top Defenders"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_417784\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-417784\" style=\"width: 2560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-417784 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"Phoenix Suns v Oklahoma City Thunder - Emirates NBA Cup\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2184277270-scaled-1.jpg\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-417784\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo by William Purnell\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is said that defense wins championships, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecoldwire.com\/sports\/nba\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> are a true testament to that.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder are great at shooting, but they can also defend better than just about anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Kendrick Perkins recently listed his top five defensive players in the NBA, and two of them are Thunder stars.<\/p>\n<p>Perkins gave top honors to Alex Caruso, but Luguentz Dort was also on the list, coming in at number five.<\/p>\n<p>Evan Mobley, Amen Thompson, and Victor Wembanyam were numbers two, three, and four.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-twitter-script=\"true\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kendrick Perkins\u2019 top 5 defensive players in the NBA:<\/p>\n<p>1. Alex Caruso<br \/>2. Evan Mobley<br \/>3. Amen Thompson<br \/>4. Victor Wembanyama<br \/>5. Luguentz Dort<\/p>\n<p>(h\/t <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ohnohedidnt24?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ohnohedidnt24<\/a> ) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/69gts3ZTYh\">pic.twitter.com\/69gts3ZTYh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheDunkCentral\/status\/1953230339385577521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>There is no doubt that Caruso and Dort are two of the most menacing defenders in the league.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most remarkable things about them is that they aren\u2019t even spoken about when people discuss OKC\u2019s best player.<\/p>\n<p>Fans usually speak of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams when they have a conversation about the most talented stars in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>This just goes to show how talented and deep the Thunder.<\/p>\n<p>They have a pair of the strongest defensive players in the league, and they aren\u2019t even the team\u2019s brightest stars.<\/p>\n<p>This is no mistake, because the Thunder have been putting this roster together with great goals and strategy.<\/p>\n<p>They never wanted to be a one-sided team and knew they could only win if they had depth, versatility, and the ability to score and block.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder are now the reigning champions, and they want back-to-back titles.<\/p>\n<p>That means that everyone, including Caruso and Dort, will need to dig deeper than ever and enhance their games.<\/p>\n<p>Their defense will have to remain top-notch in 2025-26 if they want to continue ruling the league.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecoldwire.com\/2-thunder-players-get-major-nods-as-nbas-top-defenders\/\">2 Thunder Players Get Major Nods As NBA\u2019s Top Defenders<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecoldwire.com\">The Cold Wire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Photo by William Purnell\/Getty Images) \u00a0 It is said that defense wins championships, and the Oklahoma City Thunder are a true testament to that. The Thunder are great at shooting, but they can also defend&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/07\/2-thunder-players-get-major-nods-as-nbas-top-defenders\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;2 Thunder Players Get Major Nods As NBA\u2019s Top Defenders&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.osteodomicile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}