OKLAHOMA CITY — On May 28, 2016, Klay Thompson changed the course of Oklahoma City Thunder history forever.
The Golden State Warriors star vanquished those Kevin Durant- and Russell Westbrook-led Thunder all by himself with an unforgettable finish in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, outscoring the entire Oklahoma City squad in the fourth quarter with an unconscious flurry of 3s. A Game 7 loss in the Bay came two days later, and Durant’s departure that summer — to the Warriors, no less — brought an unfulfilling end to that storied era.
Advertisement
Fast forward nine years — to the day — and this Oklahoma City team that is headed to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2012 was rolling with so much force before halftime that league officials were already planning for the postgame celebration inside those same hallways where those Warriors stole their Thunder. One employee pulled out the yellow ribbon that would adorn the Paycom Center floor. Another lined up the red carpet rope that would surround the Western Conference champions. The trophies were at the ready.
The outcome would come more than an hour later — a 124-94 win against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 5 of the West finals — when all that negative energy that haunted them from that fateful night almost a decade before was nowhere to be found.
As Thunder coach Mark Daigneault celebrated with his team afterward, answering questions from ESPN’s Lisa Salters at midcourt while all that youthful exuberance buzzed around him, he stumbled into a moment that was worthy of the next OKC marketing campaign.
“These guys are uncommon,” said Daigneault, who was an assistant at Florida when the Thunder lost to Miami in the 2012 finals, was coaching Oklahoma City’s G League team in 2016 and has been at the Thunder helm since 2020. “They do everything right. They’re professional. They’re high character.”
As he spoke, these players who so often resemble college freshmen at a fraternity party draped towels on his shoulders and a hat on his head. Daigneault, in turn, rewrote his speech.
“They’re idiots,” he deadpanned.
They’re his idiots, though, with MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leading the way, All-Star Jalen Williams proving worthy of his co-star billing, big man Chet Holmgren getting better all the time and a loaded roster of two-way talents who have the kind of personal chemistry not often seen in today’s NBA.
Advertisement
To say this group gets along pretty well is like saying Thunder general manager Sam Presti is halfway decent at his job.
There is a college feel to their program that belies the business vibes that are the norm within the Association, with Daigneault’s postgame floor moment merely the latest instance. That dynamic has been on full display all season long whenever beloved sideline reporter Nick Gallo conducts one of his group interview sessions where hijinks are always had. And as Daigneault discussed in his postgame news conference, the absence of locker-room drama means the talent that Presti compiled here is maximized to its fullest.
“I don’t know what everybody else’s NBA coaching existence is like, but I operate at 100 percent capacity (with this group),” Daigneault said. “There’s nothing constraining me from coaching my best. There’s nothing constraining our coaching staff from coaching our best. There’s nothing constraining our chefs from doing their jobs. I mean, everybody in our locker room is grateful and humble, respectful, kind, professional, and it allows everybody to operate at full capacity. And we don’t take that for granted. I don’t take that for granted.”
But why is it that way?
“I think it’s where they come from,” he continued. “It’s their families. It’s their circles. As impressive as they are, when you look at their homes, where they come from, who’s around them, who’s talking to them now, who was talking to them when they were 10 years old, it all fits together. It makes sense. They’re great people first. That’s why it’s so easy to coach this team.”
In some ways, Daigneault is the poster boy for this Thunder youth movement that Presti put together. Even if he’s a grown man.
Mark Daigneault has spearheaded a talented youth movement with a Thunder team now preparing for an NBA Finals run. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
After the Thunder and coach Billy Donovan mutually parted ways in the summer of 2020, Daigneault was hand-picked by Presti to lead this rebuilding era. For the sake of perspective, he’s nearly two months younger than LeBron James. And five years in, with the Thunder having worked through the tough times when so many rival teams assumed (incorrectly) that Gilgeous-Alexander would want to skip town, and with Presti having won our front-office awards rankings by such a massive margin, the fact that his vision has paid off from the top down is worth acknowledging.
Advertisement
He saw that SGA had untapped potential, saying goodbye to Paul George in that Clippers trade that has aged so poorly for Los Angeles’ other team. He drafted Williams with the 12th pick that was part of that Clippers deal, then added Holmgren as the No. 2 pick in the 2022 draft that would, in the end, result in their modern-day version of the big three.
By the end of this process, with the Thunder picking up players like Isaiah Joe (2022 free-agent signing), Cason Wallace (10th pick in 2023), Alex Caruso (via trade with Chicago last summer) and Isaiah Hartenstein (free-agent signing last summer), the work that had focused on Durant, Westbrook and James Harden in that yesteryear era was clearly resulting in a more fool-proof plan.
“Sam didn’t have (a) vision for me,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 34 points, eight assists and seven rebounds en route to winning West finals MVP honors. “He just traded for me. He had a few conversations (where) I realized he knows what he’s doing very quickly, and then I just trusted him. Control what I can control. And as you guys can see, he’s done a great job of doing his job to check things around here very quickly. Yeah, I think it just speaks to the tone that he’s set across the organization.”
The 48-year-old Thunder general manager who has been there since the beginning, first earning that GM title while with the Seattle SuperSonics in 2007 before making the controversial move to the plains, has done everything but win it all in this basketball business. He is, at his core, the farthest thing from an “idiot.”
And now, with his team on the brink of delivering a title that eluded the greats who came before, it’s quite evident that the shortcomings that came before will play no part in what comes next.
“I just wanted to make sure that, like, above all, I could give my energy and my effort to try to get these fans what they deserve,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I feel like the biggest thing is (that his teammates) make the NBA not feel like a job. It can at times, with all the travel and all the hard days, ups and downs. I know I sound spoiled, being in the NBA complaining about hard days, but these guys really make you feel like I’m a kid playing AAU basketball, like I’m 15 years old again. They make it seem like it’s just fun. I think that’s what makes us really good. We have so much fun being out there together.”
Truer words have never been spoken. And regardless of the result of these finals, the obvious truth here is that the Thunder are here to stay. Again.
Is defense impossible to play today’s spread-out NBA? Not to the Thunder. They’ve found the secret to putting the clamps on their opponents.
(Photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
