Isaiah Roby’s Long Drive to the NBA

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BROADCAST REPORTER AND DIGITAL EDITOR

ast August, while the rest of his Thunder teammates were down in Orlando fighting for their playoff lives, then-rookie Isaiah Roby was back in Oklahoma City on his own.

While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Darius Bazley, Lu Dort and Mike Muscala were preparing for their defensive assignments, working on offensive sets and then playing their hearts out on the floor, Roby was on a Peloton bike and grinding through two-week spurts of the same mind-numbing workouts until he could clear his next hurdle.

Roby had only been with his new Thunder teammates for six weeks when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the NBA. He couldn’t see any of them for…