As the calendar flips to September, we're officially in the quiet zone of the NBA year. Not much will go on until the final days of the month. All of the major offseason moves have already happened. Teams across the league enjoy some serenity before the marathon starts back up again.
The Oklahoma City Thunder will enter the 2026-27 season as co-title favorites — alongside the San Antonio Spurs . Even with their offseason departures, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren should keep them in the middle of the title hunt.
With nothing else happening, Thunder Wire will regularly conduct Thunder Mailbags over the remainder of the offseason. In this edition, a social media user asked about the health status of some notable players. Of course, injuries have plagued OKC for the last two years.
In one season, it didn't matter. Even with Holmgren missing three months with a hip fracture, the Thunder went on to win the 2025 NBA championship. The bill came due eventually, though. That's what happened in the other season. By the end of OKC's 2026 playoff run, Williams' and Ajay Mitchell's absences were too much to overcome. They eventually fell in a 2026 Western Conference Finals Game 7 loss.
Now, how are Williams, Mitchell and Thomas Sorber doing? All three ended last season in street clothes. Williams sustained four hamstring strains in five months. The constant soft-tissue setbacks forced him to miss most of OKC's postseason run. Mitchell missed OKC's last four games with a soleus strain. And Sorber missed the whole 2025-26 season with a torn ACL he sustained in Sept. 2025.
I expect all three to be at OKC's training camp — which usually starts in the final days of September or the start of October. Williams has spent time with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's NBA trainer this offseason. Likely with the hope that he can overcome any chronic hamstring problems he battled through last year. But there's zero reason to believe those concerns should translate over to this upcoming season. Especially since four months will have passed.
It's easier to let your hamstring injuries heal in the summer — without the constant pressure of rushing back to help the Thunder get wins. For whatever reason, Williams just couldn't get over those problems. It was constant start-stop-start-stop once the 2026 New Year rolled around.
Same with Mitchell. It took him until July to fully rehab his season-ending soleus strain — which shows he would've missed the entire 2026 NBA Finals had OKC advanced to face the New York Knicks . But now, a couple of months later, he's back in the gym and logging his offseason work.
And then there's Sorber. He hasn't played a competitive game since Feb. 2015. That's a long time. By the time the preseason rolls around in Oct. 2026, 18 months will have passed. He had a follow-up procedure on his surgically-repaired knee in June 2026. Only expected to miss a month, he was likely cleared in Aug. 2026 to return to action. Giving him plenty of time to get ready for OKC's training camp.
We'll see if the Thunder can enjoy some better health luck. They're more than due in that department. Amazing that Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Holmgren haven't had a relatively-healthy year together since the 2023-24 season.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: OKC Thunder Mailbag: How healthy is roster heading into 2026-27 training camp?
