Every NBA training camp, teams across the league invite a bunch of players to see if they can find any diamonds in the rough. Everybody knows about the 15 standard-roster players and three two-way guys, but the Exhibit-10 signees fly under the radar during training camp and preseason.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have brought in a group of four Exhibit-10 players at this year's 2026-27 training camp — Zhaire Smith, Christophy Tilly, Andrew Holifield and Robert McCray V.
Most of us know about Smith's story. The 2018 first-round pick had his NBA career completely derailed with a foot fracture and severe allergic reaction that left him hospitalized within his first couple of years in the league. Last playing in 2020, he's hoping to make a Disney-esque comeback.
Meanwhile, Tilly, Holifield and McCray V are your standard undrafted rookies. The first two were on OKC's 2026 Summer League roster. Unless one of those four is absolutely killing it and takes their final vacant roster spot, they're likely to be on the G League's OKC Blue this upcoming season.
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault didn't go into specific details on who among the four has stood out so far through one week of training camp, but he complimented OKC's scouting department on the finds. It's easy to study up on the big names of every NBA draft pool, but you have to really dig into the weeds to conjure up opinions on the undrafted class.
"The draft gets a lot of play. But we have a group of scouts and people in our front office that are just pounding the pavement all year in all these different places," Daigneault said. "...They take that thing seriously. From the first round all the way through the Exhibit 10 process. It shows up at the last couple of camps. The guys that we bring in here really help our practices."
Yes, the whole point of an Exhibit-10 is to secure a player's G League rights, but Daigneault noted that the extra bodies help run training camp smoothly. Scrimmages are easier to run. You put wear and tear on your actual NBA rotation players. There's a role and value in being an extra pseudo-NBA player. Even if your odds of making a roster are a long shot.
"It would constrain what we can do in practice. Because if you're like, 'Well, we can't put these guys out there because they can't hang,' then it limits what you can do," Daigneault said. "And our options are unlimited because those guys can all play. They're pretty good. You'll see them in the (preseason) games. They'll go out there and do the job"
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: How have OKC Thunder Exhibit-10 players perform at 2026-27 training camp?
