Reigning NBA Coach of the Year Mark Daigneault hasn’t had this much firepower to work with in his short career. With that, however, come major expectations. Will his coaching style help assuage the pressure, or will the Thunder be overwhelmed by the outside noise?
While the coach is undeniably critical in a team’s pursuit of exceeding championship-level expectations, the players are arguably a more critical factor. The Thunder roster was already elite entering the 2024 offseason but got instantly better in a fortnight of breathtaking transactions.
Oklahoma City got the party started by swinging an unexpected trade for former NBA champion Alex Caruso, the 30-year-old defensive ace, who is widely recognized as arguably the best role player in the association when healthy.
Not stopping there, the Thunder scored big in free agency by signing Isaiah Hartenstein, the former New York Knicks big man who has steadily grown his stock in recent years and has evolved to reach the upper echelon of niche players in the league.
Staring down the expectations
Going from coaching a G League team to an NBA championship contender is quite the leap for Oklahoma City’s 39-year-old head coach. While the weight of the world may be on his shoulders, he has muddled through challenges before. In fact, just recently the Thunder were one of the league’s worst teams. Daigneault, the head man OKC hired in 2020, walked into what some considered a dire situation.
Although there was certainly hope for the future, few people are cut out to battle through the hardships of uplifting a struggling franchise back to glory. Mark, however, looked at the seemingly empty road straight on and got down to business.
For the most part, his efforts have paid off — but the job is far from finished. Consider Caruso and Hartenstein a reward for Mark's coaching prowess. But now that he has an additional pair of stars, he can potentially lead the Thunder to the best record in the NBA, and somewhere the franchise hasn’t been in its 17th year in Bricktown.
Excited for the future, Daigneault discussed the mindset his team must establish before entering an all-important season. When asked about OKC’s upcoming season during Monday’s Media Day session, the head coach’s answer reflects a team hoping to balance being thrilled for the season and maintaining the appropriate fear of failure.
"Every year you have a new team. This year is no different. Those aren't the only new players we have. We have guys from the draft that are new,” says Daigneault. “Every year you go into the training camp with the same goals, which are to establish our on-court identity, build the habits that you are going to need throughout the season and in the biggest games, and then to understand what you have and allow every guy to show the strengths that they bring to the table and do so with a very open mind. We've taken that approach year after year. That's our philosophy on this part of the season, and then even after the first game there's 81 more games, and we'll see how things evolve as we always do. But no predictions on that."
Related: Coach Mark Daigneault not ready to make critical decision on Isaiah Hartenstein
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