Difficult days will come. It’s inevitable and even necessary that this should be so. But until that moment, Aday Mara is having a blast. And so are the Oklahoma City fans.
Following his sparkling start to the preseason against the New Orleans Pelicans, Mara has carried over the good feelings and taken them even further in his second game. In the Bucks’ visit to the Paycom Center, he logged more minutes than on night one and used them to leave even more high-level actions and to continue showing his development, which is beginning to earn him a role of considerable weight once the regular season starts.
And if after the Draft there could have been doubts about whether he was ready to be a regular in a team aiming so high, those doubts are dissolving almost immediately.
The Perfect Rim Runner?
It is true that preseason games should always be viewed with caution, especially one against a team that looks set to be among the NBA’s worst, but Mara’s level of dominance in the first half is the kind that grabs attention. For what he added, how he did it, and how that could bring a new dimension to an offense that is already terrifying.
Aday Mara in 25 mins:
22 PTS
6 REB
2 AST
10/10 FG https://t.co/3makvYxwh5— Shabazz 💫 (@ShowCaseShabazz) October 8, 2026
Aday made speed and pace his main weapons, tearing apart the opponents’ bigs on the break, who were practically beaten every time the Spaniard started, whether in transition or cutting after a screen. His aggression allowed him to receive in transition with an advantage on numerous occasions, and once he had the ball the basket was a certainty. If in the first game he finished 5-for-5 from the floor, this time he upped the ante to 10-for-10. His first miss is still to come.
Thus, he racked up 22 points in 25 minutes, though his impact went far beyond his scoring. Several OKC offensive sequences began with Mara’s indirect screen on an outside defender, which generated an advantage through that action and leveraged both the screen and the big man’s gravity on his roll to finish. In other plays, his presence outside the paint and his play from the top opened space for drives and cuts. And on defense, his size continued to be a constant source of intimidation.
All of this left him with a +17 in the minutes he played, the best plus-minus mark on the home squad. Mark Daigneault’s team ended up losing the game 126-128 after giving minutes to the less regulars or non-guaranteed players in the second half, but they had dominated in the first half, at times leading by as many as 24 points—a margin in which Aday Mara had a lot to say.
As things stand, he will have a lot to say in the Thunder’s season.
