The guards keep coming

The NBA’s 2026–27 season does not tip until October 20, which means the Sooners on NBA rosters have six weeks of quiet and then a very loud calendar. Trae Young, now a Wizard, will run an offense that asked him to be the franchise. Austin Reaves opens the Lakers’ season at home against Golden State on October 21. Jeremiah Fears, the seventh pick in 2025, is a Pelican with a 14.3-point rookie season already on the résumé. Buddy Hield, the oldest of the group, is still shooting in Atlanta. E.J. Harkless is in Detroit, which means he will be on NBC at 3 p.m. on opening night.

Five of them are in the NBA, and they are all guards. That is not a coincidence. Oklahoma has been a point-guard school in the NBA era in a way it has not always been a big-man school. Young was a one-and-done supernova. Reaves was the undrafted counterargument. Fears was the 2025 lottery. Hield was the four-year shooter who made “Buddy” a scouting report.

The rest of the pipeline does not wait for an NBA 15. Alondes Williams is putting up 23 a night for the Capital City Go-Go. Umoja Gibson is running pick-and-roll for Barcelona. Tanner Groves is a double-double in Japan. Kristian Doolittle is still the best forward the program has sent abroad. De’Vion Harmon is scoring 28 in Finland. The basketball page is no longer five names.

The schedule already has a Sooner-versus-Sooner night: November 9, Young’s Wizards at Harkless’s Pistons, on Peacock. Christmas Day puts Reaves on ABC against Philadelphia. The Lakers, as usual, will be a national-TV machine. Reaves will be in the middle of it.