3 Oklahoma City Thunder Players Who Won't Be Back Next Season

It was a tough-fought seven-game series, but the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder have been dethroned, not only as NBA champs, but also as top dog in the Western Conference. Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs are now the team to beat.

The Thunder have some moves to make this summer, but are handcuffed. They are over the second apron, and will therefore have limited flexibility with their roster going forward. This will play into any decisions they make this offseason.

With that, let's have a look at three OKC players who won't be back for 2026-27.

Isaiah Hartenstein

He was a nice addition when they landed him before the 2024-25 season, and was a key part of the 2025 championship. He's an especially useful piece down low if the Thunder are going to have to deal with Wemby and the Spurs for the foreseeable future. However, with a $28 million team option, he might be too costly to keep around. The 7-footer has had trouble staying healthy in his two seasons in OKC, playing just 46 games this season and 57 the year before.

Kenrich Williams

With a $7.2 million top option, it's not like he's too expensive to keep around. But as we saw in Game 7 when he played only four minutes, his role as a valued bench piece has decreased over the past couple of years. He averaged just 5.5 minutes a game for the Thunder in this year's playoffs, playing in just 11 games. He had five DNP-CDs in late March, and another four of them during the postseason.

As noted by Wynston Wilcox of Fansided, "the Thunder have so much depth on their roster, they can afford to let Kenrich Williams go and not feel the hit... They also have the No. 12 pick (in this year's draft), which would allow them to either draft for depth or trade up in the draft and land a good bench player" to replace Williams if they want to trim his $7M off the payroll.

Brooks Barnhizer

The 24-year-old shooting guard is a restricted free agent. But it's going to be tough to see him earn any further playing time than the 8.7 minutes he got per game this year, with the likes of Cason Wallace, Jared McCain and Isaiah Joe around. As Wilcox writes, "Barnhizer is a depth piece they don’t really need."