Aday Mara didn’t need long to make himself impossible to ignore.
Two games into his Thunder career, the 7-foot-2, 255-pound rookie has already given Oklahoma City something new to work with - and Denver coach David Adelman noticed immediately. When asked Thursday what stood out about preparing for this Thunder team, Adelman didn’t reach for a schematic breakdown. He went straight to one player.
“Mara,” said Adelman, stopping for a beat before continuing. “He’s extremely talented, he gives them more optionality from the big spot. They’ve been able to go small like last year - and they gave us issues when they went small - and now they can go really big with him as well.”
That’s the wrinkle the Thunder drafted with the No. 12 pick out of Michigan. Mara gives them a different kind of size, a different kind of stress point for opponents, and a fresh look for a team that already had plenty of problems to solve.
“Extremely skilled,” Adelman continued with his Mara scouting report. “Really impressive player.
And then obviously this is a great place to start playing. He can come in and be himself.
He’s playing with a really, really good team.”
The attention was telling. Mara had played only 12 minutes in his NBA debut two nights earlier, yet he’d already drawn a scouting report from another team’s coach. That was after his first minutes came against Victor Wembanyama in San Antonio, where Mara had a sequence that fit the kind of early impression he’s making: he denied Wemby at the rim on an alley-oop, then ran the floor and finished a lob on the other end.
Mara left San Antonio with his basketball soul still intact. Better than that, he looked like he belonged.
“This is how you improve, this is how you learn the league,” Mark Daigneault said. “You can’t replace experience, you can’t rush that … When you have hard workers that are self-aware, self-reflective, that care about the right stuff - and he checks all those boxes - that’s how guys improve.
Then it’s just a matter of getting them the experience, which we’re going to be committed to doing. He’s obviously a really good player.”
Thursday brought another early test, though Mara didn’t end up sharing the floor with Nikola Jokic. He logged 13 minutes in the Thunder’s win over the Nuggets, and while he didn’t face Jokic directly, the matchup still gave him more chances to flash what he can do.
Mara finished with two points and three rebounds, but the box score only tells part of the story. He blocked DeMar DeRozan with a pure hustle play, sprinting back and rejecting the shot from behind.
He grabbed two offensive rebounds in his first two minutes on the floor, and all three of his boards came on the offensive glass. He also helped Oklahoma City get into the bonus in the fourth quarter simply by being massive and difficult to handle around the rim.
On rolls and rebound chances, Denver had little choice but to hold him and take the whistle.
There’s still some roughness in the passing. Mara can get a little too ambitious there. But the instincts are obvious, and the outlet passing looks like it can become a real weapon.
He also showed the sort of chemistry that will take time to build. Mara caught a lob from Jared McCain in the second quarter and hung on the rim. Later in the same quarter, McCain tried to find him again, only to overthrow the 7-foot-2 rookie and remind everyone that even Mara has a reach limit.
That part is still a work in progress. His teammates haven’t had a target this big before, or this unusual.
Of Jokic, Mara said, “one of my favorite players, if not my favorite player,” and he added, “It’s pretty crazy to play against those guys that I used to watch on TV, but I think once I get to the court, I feel pretty comfortable.”
Through two games, that comfort has shown up quickly.
“He’s doing all the right things right now,” Daigneault said. “He’s only going to get better, we’ll only get better playing with him, but he’s off to a great start through two games.”
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Thunder Two-Way Move Just Put One Young Player On The Bubble
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To make room, the Thunder will have to clear one of their current two-way spots, which puts another young player in a precarious spot as camp depth starts to tighten. Peavys own path has been just as bumpy, since Memphis moved on from him after he dealt with an ankle sprain during camp and the preseason, leaving Oklahoma City to decide whether his upside is worth the shuffle at the back end of the roster. [Read more 🡒]