The NBA's 2025-26 All-Defensive Teams reveal turned into a flashpoint the moment Maria Taylor finished reading the Second Team list on NBA Showtime. Oklahoma City's Lu Dort was not on it. He was not on the First Team either.
"No Dort, dortcher chamber though," Vince Carter said. "No Lu Dort?"
"No Lu Dort. Wow," came the on-set reaction.
It is the second consecutive year that one of the NBA's most physically punishing point-of-attack defenders has been left off the league's two best-defender teams. Dort, the 26-year-old Canadian wing, has been the Thunder's primary stopper on opposing star guards through every round of the playoffs. In the first round he drew the LeBron James assignment in a 4-1 series sweep. In the second round he was central to the team's switching scheme that smothered the Lakers' supporting cast.
The First Team this year went to Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, Rudy Gobert, Ausar Thompson and Derrick White. The Second Team was Scottie Barnes, Jalen Williams, Bam Adebayo, OG Anunoby and Dyson Daniels.
That means Oklahoma City already has two All-Defensive selections in Holmgren on the First Team and Williams on the Second Team. For a club whose defensive identity is built around Dort's relentless ball pressure on the perimeter, it is a result several NBA voices will need to explain.
Carmelo Anthony's surprise was telling because Dort is exactly the kind of player Anthony has long championed. The Thunder wing led the NBA in nights spent guarding the opposing team's leading scorer, a stat that does not show up on a counting-stat line.
Dort has never been a steals or blocks accumulator. Where Ausar Thompson averaged two steals per game, only Wemby and Thompson averaged more blocks per game than Scottie Barnes, and Gobert and Wembanyama dominated the rim, Dort's value is in containment. Voters reward what shows up in box scores.
The snub also feeds into one of the bigger storylines of these conference finals. The Thunder bench dropped 76 points on the Spurs in their Game 3 win, with Alex Caruso and Jared McCain swarming on the perimeter while Dort hounded San Antonio's guards full-court. Caruso, like Dort, is a point-of-attack specialist whose tape says more than his numbers.
The immediate reaction from former All-Defensive selectees Vince Carter and Carmelo Anthony suggests the conversation will not die down quickly. Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals tips off in San Antonio on Sunday with Dort once again guarding Stephon Castle.
