The Oklahoma City Thunder capped off a historic NBA season on June 22 with the team’s very first championship. Dillon Jones became the first player from Weber State University and the Big Sky Conference to win an NBA Championship.

Jones was drafted 26th in the 2024 NBA Draft by the Washington Wizards but was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder on draft night.

Jones played in 54 regular-season games, accumulating an average of 10.2 minutes per game. He shot 38.3% from the field and 25.4% from 3-point range. He averaged 2.5 points per game with 1.1 assists and 0.3 steals. During the postseason, he played in 10 games while playing just 4.6 minutes per game.

After the Thunder defeated the Memphis Grizzlies, Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves, they took on the Indiana Pacers, the Eastern Conference champions, in the finals. Jones became the second Big Sky player to compete in the NBA Finals, joining Chris Childs, a Boise State University alum who played for the New York Knicks in the 1999 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs.

The series went back and forth, with Indiana winning game one, Oklahoma City winning game two and Indiana winning game three. The Thunder won back-to-back in games four and five, but the Pacers tied the series up in game six.

In game seven, the Pacers’ star point guard Tyrese Haliburton was having a great start to the game, but just seven minutes in, he tore his Achilles tendon, had to leave the game and will more than likely miss the entirety of the next season. The Pacers led at halftime, but a strong third quarter led the Thunder to win the series 4–3.

However, he is not the first former Wildcat to win an NBA Title; Dick Motta, who coached at Weber State from 1960-68, was the head coach of the 1978 NBA Champions, the Washington Bullets.

During Oklahoma City’s championship parade, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt declared that multiple summer days would be celebrated in honor of each Thunder player. Jones will be honored on July 14.