The Oklahoma City Thunder reserve forward has notched virtually every level of basketball, without venturing more than 82 miles from home.

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OKLAHOMA CITY — Life goes quick. 

Lindy Waters Junior gets misty-eyed thinking about those days that to some seem long ago, to others like yesterday.

Big Lindy, as they call him, on occasion would take his son to Thunder games. Big Lindy would instruct the boy to pick out a player and focus solely on him.

This was a dozen years ago or so. One game, Lindy Waters III (called Trey in those days) picked out Steve Nash, who was in the final years of a sensational career. Funny the things you remember.

The Waterses didn’t have a lot of money. The whole family rarely went to Thunder games together. If Big Lindy could snap a couple of tickets, he’d take Trey.

“We got there early, one of the few, right when the doors opened,” Big Lindy said. “About 15 rows up, and we watched Steve Nash’s whole routine. Shooting, dribbling, all that. Just me and him.”

These days, Big Lindy goes to Thunder games on Trey’s dime.

What a story. Just the idea that Lindy Waters III grew up in northeast Norman and now plays on a Thunder team in the Western Conference semifinals, much less his journey through all stages of Oklahoma basketball. AAU with the Oklahoma Runners, Athletes First and Oklahoma Wizards. HIgh school at Norman North. College at OSU. Low-level minor-league with the Enid Outlaws. High-level minor-league with the Oklahoma City Blue. Now the Thunder, finishing his third season.

Lindy Waters III has notched virtually every level of basketball, without venturing more than 82 miles from home as his base.

“I was just ecstatic to sit in an empty Paycom arena with 95 other people and watch a G League game,” Big Lindy said. “Watch him come in for 10 minutes a game.

“I’m serious. I was ecstatic.”

Waters is a poster child for sticking it out. He was on the verge of going overseas three years ago, when the Thunder gave him a tryout. That eventually led to a two-league contract — playing both for the Blue and the Thunder — and a chance. That’s all a player of Waters’ status can ask for.

“I have great respect for his toughness,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “He’s a punching bag.

“And the guys like him that are undrafted, two-way, G League. Those types of guys, the league doesn’t do you any favors, when that’s your starting point.”

Daigneault reeled off the second-round picks and undrafted free agents who have impacted the Thunder in recent years. Kenrich Williams. Isaiah Joe. Aaron Wiggins. Luguentz Dort. Jaylin (Arkansas) Williams. 

Plus Waters, who isn’t yet in the rotation this postseason but was a year ago, when the Thunder played two play-in games, winning at New Orleans and losing at Minnesota. Waters played a combined 21 minutes in those games.

“The guys that can emerge from that fray, there’s a common quality they have, and it’s that they’re punching bags,” Daigneault said. “They can handle any role, they get knocked down, they get cut, they get overlooked, and they just keep coming.

“The filtering of that just brings a real toughness to those types of players. And he (Waters) is of that ilk. There’s no situation he can’t handle or thrive in, regardless of what situation he’s put in or we put him in.”

The irony is Waters is a better player than ever, but his minutes have gone down as the Thunder has exploded onto the national stage. 

Waters averaged 18.6 minutes over 25 games in 2021-22, when the Thunder was in full tank mode; 13.0 minutes over 41 games last season when the Thunder turned competitive; and just 7.4 minutes a game over 38 games this season, when the Thunder secured the No. 1 seed.

“He’s a better player,” Daigneault said. “One of the things that happens when your team gets better is a lot of our guys are better players, and they’re playing lesser roles than they did a year ago. And he’s one of ‘em. He’s a guy clearly that we trusted in the biggest games of the season last year. Still do. He just hasn’t found himself in the mix this year. It’s not a reflection of lack of trust I have in him. I have great trust in him.”

Thunder reserve guard Lindy Waters III watches a player perform dribbling drills at Waters’ youth basketball camp on the Mvskoke Nation reservation in Henryetta, Oklahoma. (Photo provided/Brent Cahwee)

Native American Hero

More Waters amazement. This kid who has pulled himself up on every rung, is Native American. Part Kiowa, part Cherokee. An even better Oklahoma story.

Natives traditionally are drawn to basketball. But few have impacted the NBA greatly.

Kyrie Irving’s mother was a Standing Rock Sioux who was adopted at a young age, then died when Irving was four years old. Irving didn’t grow up with Native connections, but he and his sister joined the tribe as adults.

Bob Harrison was a starting guard on the Minneapolis Laker teams with George Mikan in the 1950s. He was a Hocak Indian and reportedly served as president of the Minnesota-based North American Indian Society.

Oklahoman Gene Conley, who was a three-time champion with the Celtics and a long-time major league pitcher, was of Cherokee descent.

Oklahoma City University’s Gary Gray was part of the Delaware Nation and played one season with the Cincinnati Royals.

Sonny Dove’s mother was Mashpee Wampanoag; he played 10 seasons with the Knicks, Pistons and Nets.

Tulsan John Starks often is referred to as a Creek Indian. He had a career arc even wilder than Waters’ and became a New York Knickerbocker icon.

Bison Dele claimed to be of Cherokee descent, won a title with the 1997 Bulls, dated Madonna and was presumed murdered at sea in 2002.

Duke’s Cherokee Parks was named after his great grandmother’s tribe. He played nine NBA seasons.

The Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon has claimed to have had a 7-foot great-great-grandfather who was Osage.

Wichita State’s Ron Baker, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, played three seasons in the NBA.

Nine-year NBA pro Delonte West has claimed to be part Piscataway.

Current Milwaukee Buck MarJon Beauchamp is a descendent of both the Mission and the La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians. He’s one of the punching bags stories, from a rough childhood to community college to the G League.

But few players can match Waters’ deep Native roots. Big Lindy, a star player himself at Moore High School and Southern Nazarene University, was a minority-student administrator at OU and until recently was executive director of the Kiowa Tribe in Carnegie. So Trey Waters was well-schooled in Native culture.

About 200 native youth from tribes in South Dakota, Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska and Montana showed up in Denver in 2022 to see Thunder reserve forward Lindy Waters III play there for the first time. (Photo provided/Brent Cahwee)

“People like Lindy become great role models for indigenous people,” said Brent Cahwee, co-founder of NDNSports media company. “Obviously him getting recruited, any Native athlete getting recruited, is a challenge. Is he going to stick with the dream, is he not?”

Waters stuck with his dream, through all those punches.

While at OSU, Waters became an ambassador for Nike’s N7 collection, which focuses on Native designs, artists and themes. That connection helped Waters become quite popular across Indian reservations, even before NBA days.

Waters is not a big personality. He’s quite reserved. But he’s left his comfort zone for Native causes.

“A lot of kids, it’s a tall task to ask them to come out of their shell, but Lindy really embraced that for the Native community and Native youth,” Cahwee said. “He was more than happy to be that inspirational role model.”

Waters has been hosting a few basketball camps for Native youth the past couple of years — in Oklahoma, North Dakota, North Carolina — and could do even more, if time would permit. Big Lindy said his son is in constant demand.

A few days ago, the NBA released the names of the five finalists for its social justice award. The Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Trophy is awarded to a player who over the previous year drives change, inspires others to reflect on injustice and takes collective action in their communities.

The other four finalists? Bam Adebayo, Russell Westbrook, Karl-Anthony Towns and C.J. McCollum. Not bad company for a guy who three years ago was playing for the Enid Outlaws.

Lindy Waters cuts down the net after his two free-throws helped Southern Nazarene defeat Langston for the NAIA District 9 title in March of 1988. (Doug Hoke/The Oklahoman/Oklahoma History Center archives)

Contract comes

Big Lindy cried again in February 2023. His son’s two-league contract was converted into a full NBA contract, and he made $1.9 million for that season. This February, same thing. Conversion into a full NBA contract.

Last summer at Waters’ camp in Edmond, Daigneault came, stayed much of the day and told Big Lindy not to worry about Waters’ in-flux status, that he was very much in the Thunder plans.

Big Lindy himself had big dreams. After getting out of Southern Nazarene, Big Lindy spent some time with the Houston Rockets’ summer league team.

“Otis Thorpe helped me realize I wasn’t NBA level,” Big Lindy said with a laugh.

But Trey Waters’ dream came true. And it shows no signs of ending. He’s proven to be a solid player independent of his outside shooting (43.5 percent on 3-pointers this season). Lindy Waters III is an NBA player.

Heck, he doesn’t even pinch himself anymore when he checks into a game at Paycom Center.

“I think my first two years, yeah,” Trey said. “Now it’s more so just taking in and staying in the moment, not being overwhelmed by the moment, just being grateful for where I’m at.”

He doesn’t get emotional like Big Lindy. But Trey appreciates the road, even if it never ventured too far from his northeast Norman home.

“It’s a blessing,” he said. “You can’t take it for granted. I’m thankful for my dad for taking me to those games, allowing me to see those guys and high level of competition.

“Any chance a young kid could come watch us play and take things from us, it’s great. Being able to look back at the path and all of the players and people that are part of the organization that have their fingerprints on our success today, I’m just excited for the youth to be able to see this and carry this forward.”

Who knows? Maybe some kid somewhere in Oklahoma wants to come to Paycom Center and watch Lindy Waters III play. But don’t delay. Life goes quick.

Thunder forward Lindy Waters III with his sister, Leana, and father Lindy Waters II, after the Thunder’s 94-92 win over New Orleans April 21 in Game 1 of their NBA playoff series in Oklahoma City. (Mike Sherman/Sellout Crowd)