Roby working his way into form with OKC

On New Year’s Eve, as many around the world were preparing to say a final goodbye to 2020 and ring in 2021, one Dixon native was on a basketball court in Oklahoma getting some more work in.

Isaiah Roby, now in his second pro season, went back onto the floor at Chesapeake Energy Arena Thursday night along with teammate Thèo Maledon to get a few more shots up.

He had just scored seven points in 18 minutes in a 113-80 loss to New Orleans, but a 1-for-4 night from the free-throw line didn’t sit well with him.

“I put in the work to do what I want to do out on the court, but sometimes you have to put in a little extra work just to prove that you’ve got it,” Roby said. “Just build that confidence and repetition, because once the lights come on and it’s gametime, whatever work you put in, that’s what you’re going to do, there’s no time to think. For me, that was just going out there and I’ve been in a free-throw shooting slump, which I’m not too worried about, but I’m just that type of person. I’m kind of hard on myself. If I’m in a slump, I’m going to go out and do what I can to go out and fix it.”

That loss to the Pelicans came a couple of nights after a loss to Orlando, a game in which Roby got his first career start and scored 19 points, hitting 9-of-12 from the field, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked a pair of shots.

He didn’t play in Saturday’s 108-99 win over the Magic, and clocked 24 minutes in Monday night’s 118-90 loss to the Heat, finishing with three points, two rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot.

He said the key to his huge night against the Pelicans was just implementing what the Thunder coaching staff had been telling him every day in practice.

“That’s reassuring that what I’m doing is translating to games and translating to putting up those numbers,” Roby said. “That’s just hard work paying off, and hopefully I can continue to do that on a regular basis.”

Roby was part of a young starting lineup for the Thunder that night, with the 22-year old former Nebraska Cornhusker starting alongside forwards Justin Jackson (25) and Darius Bazley (20) and guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (22) and Luguentz Dort (21). It’s something of a transitional period for the Thunder to begin with, following the departure of Chris Paul to Phoenix and with a haul of draft picks from the 2019 Paul George trade in years to come.

“I think I saw something where, that game that I started, all of us could have still been starting in college, based on our age,” Roby said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys. We’re all just trying to learn. We’re all just trying to get better. I think the team chemistry off the court is fine. We all like to be around each other. But I think the team chemistry on the court, we just kind of want more and more. Not a lot of us have played in the NBA as of yet, so just trying to find that chemistry on the court and seeing what we can do to be successful.”

Roby’s career night against Orlando, which also saw him send the Magic’s Nikola Vucevic to the floor with a pump fake and a drive to the rim for a slam dunk, capped off an up-and-down year. Drafted 45th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft, he couldn’t quite crack the Dallas Mavericks lineup as a rookie, splitting time between the end of the Mavs’ bench and playing for their G-League team. On January 24, he was traded to Oklahoma City for Justin Patton and cash considerations, making his NBA debut soon after.

But that stint with the Thunder didn’t last long, as he was sent down to Oklahoma City’s G-League affiliate, got sidelined with plantar fasciitis, and was not back with the team in the NBA bubble in Orlando when the 2019-20 season resumed following its COVID-imposed summer break.

The plantar fasciitis required surgery in July. He feels healthy now, but he is going through a process of unlearning bad habits he learned when the was hampered by the injury, such as taking off from the wrong foot on layups.

“This is my first surgery, so I don’t know if it’s totally true, but a lot of people say the injury you had, the surgery you had, whatever rehab, the timetable it took to get back to 100% healthy, it takes you that long to then get back to playing the way you were playing before,” Roby said. “If that’s a true story, then I feel like I’m ahead of schedule.”

His return to the floor, which started with a preseason game against the Spurs on December 12 for his first game action since before the pandemic, comes with a Thunder team trying to improve on last season’s 44-28 record and first-round playoff exit at the hands of the Houston Rockets. The altered schedule and abbreviated nature of the offseason put things behind schedule for a lot of teams, and Roby and the Thunder are still working their way into form.

“As a team, we’ve only had a couple weeks with each other,” Roby said. “We’re still learning each other’s games. We might still be in the preseason in a normal season, whereas this far in, we’re already on our fifth game. We’re all just trying to get back to playing basketball together.”