By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Isaiah Hartenstein, and specifically his son, Elijah, shaped a spectacular view of the championship celebrations for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Exhausted from watching Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals presented by YouTube TV alongside a sellout crowd of 18,000 fans in the Paycom Center, the young kid of the 27-year-old German-American center fell asleep in his dad’s arms, countering the overall excitement all around the venue. With Hartenstein and his teammates on the stage at center court to receive the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, he got some well-deserved sleep.
A truly remarkable sight. Asking the fans to get louder to wake up his son did not work.
With Hartenstein and his son immediately becoming viral on social media, NBA superstar Kevin Durant, who was traded to the Houston Rockets earlier Sunday, highlighted reactions.
Beyond a special family moment shared with the crowd and the basketball world, the former international player with Germany also revealed Alex Caruso, a champion with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, was required for a tutorial on how to pop champagne bottles, replacing the usual tradition in the locker room following championship wins.
“It was more like YouTube tutorials. We were asking AC how to do it. It was not really in sync because no one really knew how to do it,” he said in a postgame press conference.
“When I won in Lithuania, they just drank hard tequila. Just hard liquor straight,” he further explained his lack of champagne knowledge, referring to becoming League and Cup champion with Zalgiris in 2017.
Over seven appearances in the NBA Finals, Hartenstein produced 5.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.3 blocks per contest, including seven points, nine rebounds, four assists, and one steal in the season-ending and championship-clinching Game 7.