ALEX CARUSO FIRST arrived in Oklahoma Metropolis with a head stuffed with hair and flickering hopes of an NBA profession.
It was September 2016, and the Thunder had invited Caruso to a tryout for an Exhibit 10 contract — a chance for a $50,000 bonus and a roster spot with the G League affiliate Oklahoma Metropolis Blue.
He was certainly one of six gamers on the exercise, however unbeknownst to Caruso, he was the one one which Oklahoma Metropolis’s administration and coaches actually wished to look at.
Then-Blue coach Mark Daigneault, who was on the Florida teaching workers earlier than Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder GM Sam Presti poached him, already had an appreciation for Caruso’s relentless competitiveness courting to his school days at Texas A&M. Caruso performed so onerous through the second half of a blowout loss to Florida that Daigneault puzzled whether or not he knew the rating.
As Daigneault recalled, the opposite guys on the tryout have been “respectfully, not professional-level basketball gamers.” However Caruso nonetheless managed to make an enduring impression.
“He shortly found out they’d no clue what was occurring,” Daigneault, now in his fifth season because the Thunder’s head coach, informed ESPN lately. “By halfway by means of the exercise, he is teaching the exercise. He is doing what he does.”
Caruso claimed one of many Blue’s closing roster spots that afternoon, incomes a $13,000 wage to accompany his signing bonus. And for one season, he emerged as a fiery chief for the Blue, beginning at level guard for a staff that went 34-16 and superior to the second spherical of the G League playoffs.
Caruso credit that season to constructing his elementary base, which was vital in carving out his area of interest within the NBA as a defensive stalwart who earned a championship ring with the Los Angeles Lakers a number of years later. He returned to Oklahoma Metropolis this season because the “outdated head” on one of many league’s youngest, most proficient groups. Eight years after teaching up exercise fillers, bussed in from Tulsa, Caruso immediately emerged as a veteran chief whose voice has helped information the Thunder as they stride towards their championship potential. And after a last-second comeback from the Indiana Pacers in Sport 1 of the NBA Finals, the stakes could not be larger in Sport 2 (Sunday, 8 p.m. ET, ABC) as Caruso and the Thunder look to even the collection at dwelling.
However Caruso admits his season within the G League was a irritating one. He saved his head down as Blue teammates acquired NBA call-ups over him. He was additionally handed over for a two-way contract regardless of the backing of Daigneault and then-Blue GM Brandon Barnett, now the Thunder’s director of professional personnel.
“[Presti] admitted to me,” Caruso informed ESPN in his typical dry wit, “that he acquired that one mistaken.”
CARUSO LEFT OKLAHOMA Metropolis for Los Angeles when his contract expired on the finish of the 2017 season, finally parlaying a summer season league deal right into a two-way contract inside a number of years and filling a vital function as a defensive-minded reserve on the Lakers’ 2019-20 championship staff. After the Lakers declined to bid towards the Bulls’ four-year, $37 million supply — one other occasion of undervaluing Caruso — he went to Chicago in the summertime of 2021 and earned a pair of All-Defensive picks over the subsequent few seasons.
Presti finally righted his mistaken by buying and selling for Caruso final summer season.
Caruso’s profession had come full circle again to Oklahoma Metropolis, the place he returned because the potential ending piece of the Thunder’s championship puzzle — the quintessential defensive-minded veteran function participant and offensive connector who has expertise enhancing celebrity teammates.
His affect goes far past the field rating.
“It has been superior having him again round,” Daigneault stated. “I like teaching him. I liked teaching him again then. However what’s thrilling is now it is extra in regards to the future than it’s in regards to the previous. As a lot historical past as we now have, we now have loads of runway collectively shifting ahead right here.”
The addition of Caruso, in addition to heart Isaiah Hartenstein in free company, helped elevate the Thunder from contender to title favourite this season. With Oklahoma Metropolis’s younger core, which options MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, All-Star wing Jalen Williams and former No. 2 choose Chet Holmgren, Caruso profiled as an ideal match as one of many league’s most disruptive defenders and an offensive connector who has expertise enhancing celebrity teammates.
“Instantly, I believed it was going to be an awesome marriage simply from the standpoint of the stuff that I do and the stuff that at the least it appeared just like the staff wanted,” Caruso stated. “And I’ve a little bit of ego and satisfaction with simply the thought of anyplace I am going, I feel I’ll win.”
After which there have been intangibles that Caruso, who turned 31 in February, may present for a staff that’s the second youngest to achieve the NBA Finals within the shot clock period.
“He is a colossal competitor, and we wish to have as lots of these guys as we are able to within the constructing,” Presti stated in his information convention after the commerce. “Particularly, I feel it helps elevate the entire group when you can have these forms of brains, and we actually wished the guts and the top within the constructing.”
CARUSO’S ROLE ON the courtroom varies from recreation to recreation, even quarter to quarter. Within the playoffs, that has meant stints as the first defender on a spectrum of opposing stars, from Memphis Grizzlies speedy level guard Ja Morant to 6-foot-11, 284-pound Denver Nuggets massive man Nikola Jokic.
“It is loads of enjoyable as a result of he is a mad scientist genius that likes to tweak and maneuver and discover little, minute particulars and disciplines which you can exploit,” Caruso stated of Daigneault.
His statistical manufacturing, significantly on the offensive finish, not often stands out. He has profession averages of 6.9 factors and a couple of.8 assists and has averaged double figures in scoring solely as soon as (10.1 factors for the Bulls in 2023-24). However he calls for consideration on the courtroom because of his relentless power and defensive disruption.
His Sport 7 work towards Jokic, a three-time MVP, is probably the most outstanding instance from this playoff run. It was a tactic that the Thunder sprinkled in all through the collection, aggressively fronting Jokic with assist swarming behind him. However Daigneault knew it was “not sustainable bodily” for Caruso to have practically a 100-pound weight drawback towards his main defensive matchup all through a seven-game collection. For one recreation?
“Let’s go to this early and see the way it goes,” Daigneault stated. “After which it was like wildfire.”
Based on GeniusIQ monitoring, Caruso defended Jokic for 40 half-court matchups that afternoon, probably the most by a guard in any of the 839 regular-season and playoff video games in Jokic’s profession. Caruso gave up solely 0.78 factors per play, as Jokic completed with as many turnovers (5) as area objectives whereas making an attempt solely 9 photographs from the ground.
As a lot hell as Caruso raises defensively, Daigneault tells folks to look at him throughout useless balls to get a real appreciation. He is always doing one thing with a objective, as his eyes dart from the scoreboard to coaches and teammates, and sometimes the officers. He communicates with out dominating the dialog, barking out what Daigneault refers to as “filler strains” to keep up give attention to priorities whereas prodding his teammates to speak.
“He is always filling the area with that sort of stuff, which in a manner permits area for different folks to nonetheless exist,” Daigneault stated. “Generally you get a veteran participant they usually really feel like they should be the veteran. They’re holding courtroom and it may well actually suffocate the oxygen of all people else. He has an unbelievable really feel. I do not even know if he does it consciously, however he is acquired an awesome really feel for having the ability to get his factors in, be very fixed together with his communication, however in a manner that is not claustrophobic.
“There’s by no means drifting. He is all the time competitively current.”
CASON WALLACE, THE Thunder’s 21-year-old second-year guard, took nice glee in stating that Caruso is “the primary bald teammate I’ve ever had.”
“That is excessive on my checklist of accomplishments,” Caruso quipped.
Caruso is the oldest participant on a Thunder roster whose common age is 24.5, and he is reminded of that incessantly as a constant supply of comedic fodder for his teammates.
“It is all the time that, which is insane as a result of I’ve a few years to go within the NBA,” stated Caruso, who signed a four-year, $81 million contract extension in December, the soonest the Thunder have been allowed to supply it to him.
Caruso considers sarcasm a type of affection, so he gladly accepts the ribbing. It was additionally a precedence for Caruso to ascertain belief within the Thunder’s locker room, not only a know-it-all veteran
Out of respect for his new teammates’ pedigrees and former accomplishments, Caruso tried to ease his manner into turning into a outstanding voice inside the staff. He felt that he wanted to earn “sweat fairness” earlier than turning into a loud presence. Not that his teammates or coaches seen any hesitancy.
“His model of cautious remains to be fairly verbal,” Daigneault stated.
However Caruso by no means needed to impose on his Thunder teammates. They wished to take in the knowledge of the one participant on the roster who owns an NBA championship ring.
He is taken a specific curiosity within the defensive improvement of Wallace, an elite athlete whose prowess guarding on ball reminds Caruso of Avery Bradley, his former Lakers teammate.
Caruso had tried to show Wallace the small print of turning into a dominant pressure on that finish of the ground — understanding each technical trick and tendencies of each opposing participant.
“Not arrogantly, however he is identical to, ‘I am simply going to go guard the man,'” Caruso stated with a chuckle. “For him, it is simply that binary the place it is like, ‘It would not matter if he likes to go left or proper. I’ll guard him, and if he places the ball in entrance of me, I’ll take it.’ And I used to be like, ‘Alright, yeah, that works. Let’s sprinkle in a little bit little bit of the psychological facet of the sport, too.'”
Daigneault jokes that Caruso’s classes will sink in across the time that “Cason will get some hair on his chest.” Whether or not he implements it instantly or not, Wallace welcomes the enter now.
“No matter he sees, he says,” Wallace informed ESPN. “He will converse his thoughts. You can even inform him stuff as effectively. We’re all good at listening to one another. That began on day one.”
Quickly after becoming a member of the Thunder, Caruso ended up taking the lead within the casual conferences the gamers have each few weeks on the staff’s follow facility.
“We did not actually have this hump he wanted to recover from,” Williams informed ESPN. “We have been able to hearken to him. We perceive why Sam introduced him in.
“He is someone that we belief. We name him ‘outdated head’ and stuff, however his expertise from being within the G to now, we actually maintain that pricey. Our staff is admittedly receptive to him and what he has to say. He all the time says the precise factor, which makes us much more inclined to hearken to him. Clearly, he does the precise stuff on the courtroom, too.”
Caruso’s dedication to the staff can also be evident in his endurance off the bench, by no means complaining regardless of averaging solely 19.2 minutes per recreation, his fewest since 2019-20, which was his first season on a typical NBA contract.
Caruso understood the developmental advantages of giving minutes to Wallace and rookie guard Ajay Mitchell, amongst different younger gamers, particularly when the Thunder have been nursing massive leads throughout their march to a franchise-record 68 wins. In these situations, Caruso contributed as an extension of the teaching workers on the bench.
“You by no means query his intentions as a competitor or as a staff man — ever,” stated Daigneault, who refers to Caruso as a “warm-weather participant,” that means his worth peaks through the playoffs.
Now, within the playoffs, with the Thunder within the Finals for the primary time since 2012, Caruso’s affect is finest summed up with one stat. Oklahoma Metropolis has outscored opponents by 16 factors per 100 possessions with Caruso on the ground, a web score that ranks second within the league behind Wallace amongst gamers who’ve logged at the least 225 minutes this postseason.
Down 0-1 within the Finals after a Pacers comeback, the Thunder will definitely look to their veteran defensive chief to assist information this younger staff to play a full 48-minute recreation.
“There’s by no means a egocentric or a noncompetitive second that he has, and so it simply provides him this very sturdy platform,” Daigneault stated.
“He had that even when he was youthful than all people on his staff. Now he is older than all people on his staff.”
