Throughout the season, Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault heavily leaned on a two-word phrase to describe his group — uncommon maturity.
It’s a quick and accurate way to detail the Thunder. They were the youngest first seed in league history and the youngest squad to win a playoff series with their Round 1 sweep of the New Orleans Pelicans.
At 25 years old, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has turned into one of the best players in the league. In just their season seasons, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren round out one of the best trios.
Daigneault has been part of the Thunder’s journey back to being a title contender. The 39-year-old was hired in 2020 as the rebuild began. He suffered through two losing campaigns before slowly turning the ship around these last two years.
The Coach of the Year winner is now regarded as one of the best head coaches in the league. In his exit interview, Daigneault pinpointed an exact moment when he realized how uncommon the Thunder were.
He answered with his first season as several players on the roster back then who are still with OKC were building blocks of the foundation they’ve established over the years.
“I feel comfortable saying this now, but in my first year — I referenced this with our team recently — we were going through a rough skid,” Daigneault said. “We had a home game. We had an arena walk-through, and I was talking about — we were in the empty arena before a game. This was my first year. And I was talking to them about putting T-shirts in the seats.
“We’re going through a tough time now, but the habits, the standards, whatever I was talking about back then — is eventually going to put T-shirts in the seats if we just stay on it and stay with it.”
Daigneault is referencing the playoff shirts the Thunder deck out during home playoff games. It’s been a tradition in OKC since its arrival and this year saw that materialize for the first time with this core.
“Lu Dort, Shai, Kenrich Williams, Muscala were there, and the snowball was rolling at that time slowly,” Daigneault said. “It didn’t feel like it was picking up a ton of steam, but over time it’s just rolled faster and faster and faster, and it’s been an incremental thing that has now put T-shirts in the seats.”
This was a very introspective answer by Daigneault that showed a peek behind the curtain of the Thunder’s operation. The Thunder’s ascension this season wasn’t spontaneous. It was something that was worked on over the years.
