{"id":101608,"date":"2024-10-17T09:48:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T13:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=101608"},"modified":"2026-03-10T23:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T03:31:16","slug":"key-oklahoma-city-thunder-starter-isaiah-hartenstein-to-miss-start-of-regular-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/17\/key-oklahoma-city-thunder-starter-isaiah-hartenstein-to-miss-start-of-regular-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Thunder Starter to Miss Start of Regular Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/17\/nba-expert-tim-legler-identifies-killer-threat-in-thunder-offense\/\" target=\"_self\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> enter the 2024-25 NBA season as one of the favorites to win it all next year. Last season, they were led by MVP candidate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gilgesh01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-17_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> and Coach of the Year Mark Daigneault. Additionally, they have a fantastic, young roster overall. Finishing with a 57-25 record, the Thunder earned the No. 1 seed last season. Despite getting eliminated by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/15\/former-dallas-mavericks-champion-jason-terry-reveals-head-coaching-aspirations\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Mavericks<\/a> in the second round, there is no doubt the Thunder are legitimate championship contenders. This became even more clear given the moves they made this offseason. Most notably, the Thunder acquired <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/carusal01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-17_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Caruso<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harteis01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-17_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a>, two players who will make a major impact on the team. However, it seems that Oklahoma City will have to wait a little while longer to see their team fully in action.<\/p>\n<p>Per ESPN&#8217;s Shams Charania, the Thunder announced that Hartenstein suffered a left hand injury in Tuesday&#8217;s preseason game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/14\/veteran-forward-believes-the-denver-nuggets-have-significantly-improved-this-offseason-and-jamal-murrays-injury\/\" target=\"_self\">Denver Nuggets<\/a>. Furthermore, the Thunder will re-evaluate the 26-year-old in five to six weeks. With the regular season beginning in just one week, Hartenstein will likely be out of action for the first month of the campaign.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Thunder say Isaiah Hartenstein suffered a small, non-displaced fracture in his left hand in Tuesday\u2019s preseason game in Denver and will be re-evaluated in five-to-six weeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1846908084104413658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 17, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Isaiah Hartenstein to Miss Start of Regular Season<\/h2>\n<h3>What Losing Isaiah Hartenstein Means for the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/h3>\n<p>Losing Hartenstein is a major blow to the Thunder. Paired next to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/holmgch01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-17_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chet Holmgren<\/a>, the duo makes one of the most intriguing big man tandems in the game. Additionally, Hartenstein is an incredible big man who can contribute on both sides of the floor. With him out of action, the Thunder lose a strong paint presence and rebounder. In Hartenstein&#8217;s place, the Thunder will rely more heavily on Holmgren. Though Holmgren was slated to start at power forward alongside Hartenstein, Oklahoma City will likely move him back to center for the time being.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, Holmgren spoke about playing with Hartenstein. The 22-year-old said <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Rylan_Stiles\/status\/1844507902133887284\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&#8220;it&#8217;s been fun so far<\/a>&#8221; and talked about the dynamic he brings to the team.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI think it\u2019s been fun so far. It\u2019ll continue to be. He is a really good player, he brings a different dynamic to this team than we\u2019ve had in the past. It\u2019s really fun to play with somebody with that style of play because it\u2019s so different from what we\u2019ve done\u2026it allows us to do different things on the floor, especially myself personally\u2026I am extremely excited, he is excited, we are both here to do whatever we are asked to do to try to win.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>The Last Word<\/h3>\n<p>Even without Hartenstein for at least a month, the Thunder remain a top team in the NBA. The Thunder (+650) have the second-best odds to win the championship next year. They only trail the reigning champion <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/15\/stan-van-gundy-has-incredibly-high-praise-for-boston-celtics\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Celtics<\/a> (+310). Additionally, the Thunder are the favorite to represent the Western Conference in next year&#8217;s NBA Finals. Losing Hartenstein for any period of time is tough. However, the Thunder still possess one of the best rosters in the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Oklahoma City Thunder enter the 2024-25 NBA season as one of the favorites to win it all next year. Last season, they were led by MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Coach of the Year Mark Daigneault. Additionally, they have a fantastic, young roster overall. Finishing with a 57-25 record, the Thunder earned the No. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":101615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,62,3,22],"tags":[993],"class_list":["post-101608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","category-thunder","tag-isaiah-hartenstein"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180986,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101608\/revisions\/180986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}