The Thunder have signed head coach Mark Daigneault to a contract extension, the team announced today in a press release.
Oklahoma City didn’t provide any specific details on how long the new agreement will keep Daigneault under contract, simply referring to it as a “multiyear” deal.
Daigneault, 38, worked under Billy Donovan as a graduate student at Florida, then joined him as an assistant on the Gators staff from 2010-14 before making the move to OKC. He was the head coach of the Oklahoma City Blue – the Thunder’s G League affiliate – for several seasons while also serving as an assistant on Donovan’s staff with the NBA club in 2016 and again in 2019/20.
Following Donovan’s exit for Chicago in 2020, the Thunder promoted Daigneault to head coach. While his 86-150 (.364) record across three seasons doesn’t look great on paper, the rebuilding club has shown real signs of progress under Daigneault, particularly in 2022/23 — OKC went 40-42 during the regular season and won a play-in game in New Orleans before losing out on the No. 8 seed by dropping a second play-in contest in Minnesota.
Daigneault, who was the runner-up to Mike Brown in Coach of the Year voting this spring, will be tasked going forward with turning an ascendant team led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey, Jalen Williams, Luguentz Dort, and Chet Holmgren into a legitimate contender.
Good for him, dude is doing such a good job. No one thought SGA would be this good and no one thought Giddey and Jalen Williams would be this good right out of the gate. And he hasn’t even gotten a chance to use Holmgren yet.
Plus all the lesser known guys he’s improved to become rotation guys. Kenrich Williams, Lindy Waters, Aaron Wiggins. Even Poku, to an extent.
Happy for Coach Daigneault.
Genuinely curious, where did idea that he played basketball at Florida come from? Haha
He for sure took a unique path. Not many team managers (at UCONN) become NBA head coaches.
That was my muscle memory writing “played for” instead of “worked for.” It’s been fixed, thanks!
I suspect there are incentives in his contract for losing a certain number of games and/or not making the playoffs. As long as the league encourages this nonsense, its hard to fault them too much. But the presence of teams like OKC should preclude any discussion of expansion.
OKC literally made the Play-in last season. One game short of a .500 record. I *really* doubt they’re going to continue tanking unless Chet, Shai, Giddey, and Jalen Williams all miss a bunch of games
I’m sure OKC tried their best NOT to make the play-in (literally or figuratively). But DAL got the jump on them, and refused to give up the spot. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.
Well, you would think 3 straight years would be enough, but they’re in the midst of another tanking offseason. Tanking is about the FO. Are they making moves to improve the team or not? If not, they’re tanking. Of course the players they actually put on the court aren’t going to try to lose.
NBA teams collectively provide an entertainment product for $$ every year. OKC takes their share of those $$ every year. OKC takes more than their share of the incoming talent essential to producing that product every year. But I guess it’s too much to ask that they even try to contribute to the product every year. The rest of the league should be happy if they do that once every 4 years.