I’m not sure if the mac HDMI connector is bidirectional. I thought it was only HDMI-out. The thunderbolt port might work with the right adapter, but you’ll probably still need software to get the video data to the screen. In any event, that would probably only allow audio/video capture, not a full disc rip.
My USB3 blu-ray drive is a Pioneeer BDR-XD05S Slim drive (sorry, I thought it was OWC, but I it’s not). I connect it to my MBP via a powered USB3 7-port hub (to work around the fact that the mac only has two USB ports). It’s completely plug and play. MacOS recognizes it as a valid optical drive, so everything works with it (DVD Player, VLC, Adobe Premiere - you name it). FWIW the hub I use is a “HooToo 9-Port 60 Watt USB 3.0 Hub with 2 Smart Charging Ports and 7 Data Transfer Ports,” purchased on Amazon back in 2014. It supports multiple hard drives and any other usb device I’ve thrown at it.
I’ve done dozens of blu-ray rips on this drive with makemkv. I’ve also done countless DVD rips with this drive on an older mac running snow leopard and the venerable mac the ripper v2.6.6 (I’m slowly converting my DVD library to digital form). So far I haven’t had a single problem with rips using this drive.