Five Stars → Failed to choose → Defend: Harden fans achieve the most ruthless counterattack

ESPN's famous basketball writer Mark Spears once commented on Thunder's Lu Dort: "He is always the best player to defend his opponent, but he has never been selected into the NBA's best defensive team."

And 4 days ago, 100 global media representatives voted to select 5 players to defend the NBA. Among these five players, Dort is one of them.

Dolt received 81 votes from the 100 media representatives for the first team, which is the same as the 2017 Best Defensive Player and 8-time Defensive Team Winner - Green. The future defensive gate Amen Thompson only received 71 votes, which shows that among these ball-knowing representatives, 10 people think Dort is better at defending than Amen.

"This is my way of survival"

In 2019, Dort, who was holding a two-way contract, was still worried about a job. That year, Chris Paul came to Oklahoma due to Westbrook's trade. Paul and another experienced veteran on the team took good care of Dort. They gave the little brother a suggestion, "If you want to play, then defense is your pass."

Dort kept this sentence in his heart until today.

But Dort fell in love with defense even earlier. In high school, Dort, who was as strong as a rugby player, found that he was often able to use his body to squeeze the opponent away to complete steals, and even some top high school players couldn't get any advantage in front of him.

He likes such things with strong positive feedback, which constantly stimulates his brain to secrete dopamine, allowing him to seek difficult matches in the game, and then feed himself tons of pleasure through every successful confrontation, steals, and interception.

Starting from Mark Dignot's takeover as the Thunder's coach, he gave Dort 310 starts in 351 games.

Degnott recognizes Dort's efforts in work very much. He said that Dort's work is far more difficult than most players, even one of the most difficult ones, because he has to play against the highest-level players in the league every game day. In every game, he has to endure both the pain of hand-to-hand combat, and withstand the pressure of high-level players and the mental damage.

But Dort had enough will and determination to withstand this hard and tiring task, and at the same time, he had both strength and speed to suppress and block the best scorer.

The main theme of the Thunder's defensive strategy this year is to form a steal or block through high-pressure pressing, and to destroy the opponent's offense while forming a counterattack. And Dort, who perfectly fits this style of play, helped a lot. In the first two rounds of the playoffs, Dort freezes the Grizzlies' backcourt double guns, Morant and Bain. In the second round, facing former champion Denver Nuggets, he blocked the sharpest Blue Arrow shooter Jamal Murray. Under Dort's defense, these three men have less than 40% hitting percentage in their sports battles.

Of course, Dort's fierce defense made him a lot of infamous, and even because Dort's English sounds like the English pronunciation of "Torture", he was given the homonym of "Punishment Room" - meaning that if you meet Dort, you will definitely lose your skin. In 2023, Dort injured Paul George. In 2024, Doncic will be thrown into the playoffs. The shot of this year's playoff vicious attacker Morant is very bloody. Almost all the well-known stars have been on the Dort's interrogation chair. During the Western Conference Finals, even the referee close to Dort was bleeding from his nose with his palm...

You can use recklessness or dirtyness to describe Dort. But it is undeniable that the young army of Oscar does need a thug who is willing to do it. Just like the Houston Rockets' second place in the Western Conference this year, Dillon Brooks is inseparable from the Golden State Warriors, if they don't pursue their dreams, they will not be able to win four NBA championships. The Oklahoma City Thunder also needs Doult to play their mafia.

Dort was also enlightened enough to bear the infamy, saying, "This is how I became famous in this alliance. This is how I won the contract. This is how I was able to get paid and take care of my family." The evil guy lost the draft and was once a five-star genius on June 20, 2019. The New York Barclays Center was still full in the NBA offseason because the general managers of 30 teams gathered to select 60 fresh blood to enter the league.

Lu Dort attended in great costumes, hoping that Adam Xiao Hua would call his name. He was very looking forward to going to the stage and putting on the hat of a certain team in front of his relatives and friends. He wanted this sense of ritual to be chosen, and this feeling of need was extraordinary for Dort.

But when Adam Xiao Hua finished pronunciating 60 names, Dort was not among them, he was extremely disappointed because he felt that he had more basketball talent than most of the people selected.

Dort is not self-proclaimed or arrogant. In 2018, he was indeed selected as a five-star high school student by many talent rating agencies. And the previous year, he participated in a U21 top-level exhibition match in Canada, and Dort scored 30 points and was selected as the best player in the tournament.

But in the North American basketball system, the story of a genius suddenly becoming a common one, just as common as the plot of the Wonderful Boy's sudden appearance. In the scout system where hair-like details are not missed, a little bit of shortcomings will be magnified, and every day people are updating their databases to eliminate a group of future basketball players.

And Dort is the one who was eliminated by the last place.

Nelson Ossi, a basketball coach who grew up watching Dolter, once pointed out that Dolter has both offense and defense and has excellent physical fitness, but his ability to handle balls is not as good as the NBA. As an attacking guard, this will discourage the teams that are interested in him.

Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley also saw this, and he was willing to give Dort patience to allow him to make mistakes. But one season later, Dort sent 79 assists and 99 turnovers. Such performance did not help him get better draft expectations, and even dragged down his rating.

turned Dort from a five-star high school student to an unknown undraft.

"He always wants to be better"

' Failure to be elected did not make Dort complain, and he quickly cheered up. Although Dort was not selected for the draft on the table, there are still people who are willing to gamble on him under the table. When Dort left the frustrated Barclays Center and returned to the hotel he stayed, a phone call came to his room. The other end was Sam Presty, who had trained Durant, Westbrook and James Harden.

Now he feels that Dort may not be a good seedling.

Dort, who received the call, ran to Oklahoma City the next day.

Dort's teammate Cody Gasty once said this, and he felt that Dort had a bit of Westbrook's shadow, "People like them are energetic and never tired. People like this are energetic, and they will definitely find a way out."

failed to be elected, in Dort's life, perhaps it is just a difficulty with different appearances. Growing up on the streets of northern Montreal, Canada, he was surrounded by problems of life. "I might have gone on another path, joining street gangs or something," this is what Dort said in person.

Like most black kids in the lower class, basketball kept Dort away from the streets, but at the age of 15, he was almost dragged back to the streets. Because of poor grades, Dort faces two choices: stop playing or make his homework meet the standards.

Fortunately, Dort did it. He transferred to a high school in Florida to learn English, received better basketball training in the United States, integrated into the local culture, and made himself like a real basketball player. Nelson Ossi, who started coaching Dort at the age of 11, said that Dort is special and you rarely see such a child who can always correct his problems. The reason why Ossi discovered Dort was, on the one hand, because of his physical fitness, and on the other hand, his desire and motivation for learning.

"In order to improve his poor ball control level, he will spend several hours practicing dribbling every day. If he frequently hits iron in a game, he will immediately spend several hours polishing his shots, and shoot five or six hundred times for it, and he has no complaints."

This habit also made Dort a stable pitcher in the NBA. His three-point shooting percentage was only 29.7% in the rookie season, and now he is a muscle turret that can shoot 41.2% from the shooting percentage.

is a Harden fan and the Harden Terminator

In 2007, Harden joined Arizona State University as a five-star high school student. He has always been willing to help Arizona State players as a senior. In 2018, he trained in Tampa Bay and happened to meet another five-star high school student at Arizona State, Dort.

Harden, who is already the most valuable player in the NBA, generously taught him some exquisite basketball skills, such as how offensive players use hand movements, but at that time Dort did not understand what Harden was talking about. In that training game, Harden's fake moves could always successfully trick Dort. Every time he stretched out his hand, Harden would commit a foul.

But in the 2020 playoffs, Dort caused huge trouble for the Rockets who were at their peak.

They had 226 matchups throughout the series. Harden made 58 shots in front of Dort, hitting only 20 of them, with a shooting percentage of 34.5%, and a three-point shooting percentage of only 24.3%...

This battle made Dort famous and also won the title of Harden Terminator. But Dort has always regarded Harden as his senior, mentor and idol. He would imitate his movements and wear Harden's signature sneakers.

On March 27 this year, in the regular season between the Thunder and the Clippers, Dort once again played against Harden. In a fight, Dort's knee was pressed hard on Harden's thigh, causing the beard to fall out of the field in an instant. After the game, Harden even needed help from others in the locker room to put on his shoes and staggered.

, and Dort's expression was cold, as if nothing had happened...

Dolt is indeed fierce, and can even be described as dirty. But perhaps, we can dissect his heart from another perspective:

A child who grew up in an uncertain struggle environment, understands one thing that he cannot retreat in front of anyone, and even defeats his opponent at all costs. That is his law of survival.

"Respekte Nou"

Dort's father was a senior in school. At the age of 21, he left St. Mark under the sea and immigrated to Canada, settled in Montreal, and became a taxi driver.

He never forgot where he came from, nor did he allow Dort to forget the history of his motherland.

"My family and I speak Creole, which is the language spoken by Haitians. Haiti is a black republic, where people have fought for their own lives, which is not easy."

When a black equality incident broke out in the Orlando campus, there was a line of words printed on top of Dort's Thunder 5 jersey - "Respekte Nou" - which in Haitian Creole means "respect us". In 2021, Haitian President Moyz was assassinated. The chaotic situation has made the gang struggle in the capital city Port-au-Prince uncontrollable. If Dort's father had not immigrated from Haiti to Canada, if Dort had grown up in Haiti, he might not have had the chance to stay away from the streets and become a basketball player.

Although the conditions in Montreal in Canada are still difficult, there are men and role models there. Cory Joseph, Chris Bouch, Ken Birch, Joel Anthony, Dort looked at these NBA players going out in Montreal and imagined that he could do it one day.

When Dort walked out of the block and fought against the world's best basketball players, he also opened up a path for the Pacers' Benedict Mathering and the Mavericks' Prosper.

May 23, 2025, perhaps a moment worth remembering for Montreal - Dort became a member of the NBA's best defensive team. And this may be the highest honor that basketball players from that place have.

Although in the eyes of thousands of fans, Dort is just an insignificant villain.

But in the North District neighborhood of Montreal, he is the hero there, and there will be more children there saying, "I'm going to be the next Dort."