Thunder promoted Mark Daigneault from assistant to their new head coach
On Wednesday, the Oklahoma City Thunder promoted Mark Daigneault from assistant to head coach. He had spent multiple years in the G League as a head coach of the Oklahoma City Blue.
“I want to thank Sam for always seeing me for what I can be rather than what I am,” Daigneault said at his introductory news conference.
“He has the rare combination of youth and experience,” Presti said.
While in the G League, Daigneault said there was an open-door policy between the Blue and the Thunder. Daigneault credited the Thunder for raising him as a professional coach.
“Have I thought of the significance? I mean, certainly a lot is going through my mind,” Daigneault said, “but the thing that is really, really cool is when Sam announced this to the staff this morning, the enthusiasm of all the people that I get to work with, that’s the significance of it.”
Daigneault is the first person to be a G League head coach and NBA head coach in the same organization.
He gave a special shout-out to his former Blue players.
“Their commitment and grind is just inspiring to me,” Daigneault said, “and today is a day that I want to give them the shirt off my back.”
He also said that he met the Thunder players and had a brief conversation with Chris Paul, who was congratulatory towards him.
We are heading towards free-agency and if they are truly committed to putting themselves into a rebuild mode, then it will be interesting to see what deals they will make and you know they will get some draft picks or bad contract players so they can flip them later during the season via trade.