‘I was shook by it’: Giddey’s classy act... and why this OKC fan never saw it coming ‘in 10 million years’

When Dylan Huntzinger received a Cash App payment on the day of Oklahoma City’s Game 4 win over Dallas, he didn’t expect it to be from Josh Giddey.

“Never in 10 million years,” the Thunder fan of 14 years told foxsports.com.au.

Huntzinger had posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, early on Monday morning [US time] to give an update on his son Nova, who had been admitted into the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit [PICU] after his left lung was believed to have collapsed again.

It was the first of what had already been multiple trips to the PICU and emergency room for Nova this year, with some of those trips turning into a week, or two, or even three away from home.

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Nova, who turned three in December last year, was delivered with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, meaning he was deprived of oxygen.

“With that came a lot,” Huntzinger said.

“He’s paralysed from the waist down, he lacks a lot of tone in his upper body so that leads to him having the vent because he can’t necessarily breathe on his own because he doesn’t have the strength up there. He can’t digest food, so he has a feeding tube.”

All of this is to say it has already been quite the journey for Nova to this point and Huntzinger, who runs the popular ‘Thunder Chats’ X account which has over 34,000 followers, has shared some of the most rewarding and challenging moments with his online family.

An online family that he has organically created since first setting up his X account as a vehicle for his first solo podcast after becoming a Thunder fan in 2010 following their first playoff run against the Lakers.

“You’ve got the young trio, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, James Harden,” Huntzinger, a Kentucky native, said.

“And then just seeing the crowd and the fans and the passion that they had in OKC, the standing ovation, even as they were eliminated in Game 6. Being a Kentucky fan, I know a lot about passionate fanbases so that really resonated with me.”

And now Huntzinger has become one of the more passionate Oklahoma City fan accounts on social media.

You won’t be able to scroll through his account long without seeing a series of exclamation marks or capital letters, most recently praising Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s clutch mid-range shooting or rookie Cason Wallace’s elite defence.

“My wife calls me extra,” he laughed.

All of this is to say that by being his authentic self Huntzinger has become a key part of the Thunder’s online community, bringing joy to strangers’ lives with iconic game day tweets that first became routine for him during the bubble, in a time when people needed that little bit of joy the most.

And when Huntzinger needed a little bit of support himself, the community – whether they bleed blue and orange or not – has been right there to rally around his family.

“It’s honestly been humbling, awe-inspiring, all the words you could possibly describe it,” he said.

Which brings us to back to Giddey and that Cash App payment.

It has been a challenging third season in the NBA for the Australian, who admitted as much earlier this year, telling reporters he “used to hate” the way opposition teams would defend him.

Sometimes Giddey would make his shots. Other times he would aggressively drive towards the rim or be used as a screener or a cutter, finding different ways to make those teams pay.

Then, as has largely been the case this series against Dallas, Giddey has missed wide-open shots and struggled to find his rhythm in what has been a particularly tough match-up against Dallas’ athletic bigs.

He has seen his minutes significantly reduced, the online discourse has only grown more polarising and yet, in the wake of all that, Giddey didn’t lose sight of what mattered.

What was, as Huntzinger put it, “bigger than basketball”.

So when Giddey saw Huntzinger’s request on social media, without anyone asking him to, the third-year guard sent him $1,000.

“It was really big of him because I have been critical of him for his on-court play,” Huntzinger said.

“I’ve kind of been adamant that I think that he could be a good player and I think that he has a bright future and has a lot of potential. I just don’t know about the fit on the team.

“The thing that I said was I think it’d be mutually beneficial for both parties if they were to kind of part ways, that way he can have a place where he could be the main creator with the ball in his hands… kind of nothing against him. That was one of my main criticisms.

“But him being a bigger person, despite the things that I’ve said, despite things a lot of Thunder fans have said and just seeing that there’s some things that are bigger than basketball… honestly never in 10 million years would I have anticipated that cash app coming.”

It had a flow-on effect too, with Oklahoma City’s assistance coach Dave Bliss and then superstar guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also donating.

“I was shook by it. I was awestruck by it,” added Huntzinger, “and I’m deeply thankful and grateful for it.”