Lu Dort vouches for Montreal to have an NBA expansion team

USA Today

a day ago

As the calendar nears August, the NBA has hit its driest part of the year. The offseason is mostly settled. Teams head to vacation for the last two months before they get back on the grind for the 2025-26 season.
After winning the NBA championship, the Oklahoma City Thunder will enter next season as the favorite to repeat. But before they can do that, players are scattered throughout the globe. It's that time of the year when everybody heads back home and relaxes a little.
For Lu Dort, that means going back to Montreal, Québec, Canada. He played a key role in the Thunder's championship run. He was tasked to defend the opposition's best scorers. He also stepped up on the other end as he shot 34.3% from 3 on 6.1 attempts in the playoffs.
When you win the Larry O'Brien trophy, you get the entire summer to flex your bragging rights. In Dort's case, that means showing how he could be the perfect 3-and-D starter on an NBA champion. After going undrafted in 2019, he's had one of OKC's better developmental success stories into one of the top defenders.
Now that Dort is back home in Montreal, he's had a chance to reflect on the Thunder's championship journey. He also pushed the agenda that his home city is good enough to have its own NBA franchise. The 26-year-old has never been shy about his roots.
As NBA Commissioner Adam Silver poured cold water over expansion talks at the Summer League, Dort recently campaigned that Montreal is capable of having an NBA franchise. You always hear about Seattle and Las Vegas. Rarely about Montreal. The Toronto Raptors are Canada's sole NBA team.
"I would say the talent and the audience definitely. I think there's a lot of people in Montreal that loves basketball. Talent, we have so many kids from Montreal that plays in high school now. That plays in college. A lot of them in the NBA as well," Dort said. "I really think it's possible. I'll see if it happens one day. I'll see if I'll be involved in that one day. It's to see but I feel like it could definitely feel like it could happen one day."
Of course, Montreal has hosted NBA games before. They hosted the Thunder and Dort in a 2023-24 preseason game against the Detroit Pistons. There was an appetite for NBA basketball back then that's only grown over time. Dort has done his part to make that known.
"I'm telling them like, 'Guys, Montreal is a nice city and I'm pretty sure the NBA would love to have a team there,'" Dort said. "Sometimes, whenever I get the chance to speak on it, I'll do it."
Considering Silver slowed down the talks of an NBA expansion, it'll be a while before Montreal can place its bid. That said, he didn't rule it out. It's been the talk around the league for a decade. While everybody else around the sport is ready to add a couple of more teams, the NBA itself might not be.