Mark Daigneault wins NBA Coach of the Year after leading OKC Thunder to top seed in West
NEW ORLEANS — In the acceptance speech that came within moments of Mark Daigneault being named the 2023-24 NBA Coach of the Year, the Oklahoma City Thunder coach looped back to the team in seemingly every answer.
The players. The coaches. The trainers. The organizational brain. Everyone but him, the face of the process that’s accelerated the Thunder’s return to contention.
“It’s a little uncomfortable,” Daigneault said Monday, “because you just see all the different people whose fingerprints are on the final product, starting with the players, but we have a robust organization.”
Now two years removed from a 24-win season and just a year removed from a play-in berth, Daigneault coached the Thunder to a 57-25 record this season, becoming the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history. It began the season as the league’s youngest active team, only older than the Spurs. The Thunder finished with both top-five offensive and defensive ratings this season.
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Daigneault becomes the second Thunder coach to win the award, with Scott Brooks being awarded after the 2009-10 season.
Ten years into his time with the Thunder, the fourth-year coach has had plenty of different views along the organizational assembly line. Daigneault began with the Thunder organization back in 2014, named head coach for the team’s G League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue. After serving as an assistant under Billy Donovan during the 2019-20 season, Daigneault was handed the keys as his successor.
Daigneault’s journey began as a manager for the UConn men’s basketball teams, working with eventual NBA players like Ben Gordon and Emeka Okafor. From there, he earned his first assistant coaching job at Holy Cross. He eventually went on to become Donovan’s unofficial assistant before being tapped by Presti.
Not having played college or pro basketball, Daigneault earned his way into most rooms with his basketball mind. Ask him, he’ll say that people have trusted him even before they had a reason to.
“They’ve given me great opportunities on projection,” Daigneault said of team owner Clay Bennett and Presti. “They’ve basically seen me for what I can be, not what I am at different times.
“… I’ve always tried to reciprocate those responsibilities by doing a good job, and that’s what I’ve tried to do. But it’s something I don’t take for granted, and it’s something I think about when I coach players. Every time you put a player in the game and give a player an opportunity, it’s a privilege I don’t take lightly.”
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During a season that began without grandiose expectations, Daigneault has a team mostly without playoff experience on the verge of completing a first round sweep. He’s found steadiness through spontaneous lineups and unpredictable substitutions. He’s kept a firm identity, playing small lineups and openly accepting tradeoffs.
The 39-year-old’s staff has earned a reputation for offensive creativity without sacrificing defensive integrity. By the end of the season, Daigneault helped claim a Northwest Division title to earn the tiebreaker in a historically competitive West — making him the favorite for Sunday’s award by a landslide.
Daigneault won’t go on a monologue about the years it took to earn the honor. The trust placed in him, the necessary sacrifices to demonstrate the value of his basketball mind. There’s much about his journey that Daigneault won’t acknowledge, mostly because he refuses to be the center of attention. The thing he’ll admit, though, is that Sunday was the culmination of an unlikely path.
“I’ve certainly been very fortunate,” Daigneault said. “If you replayed my life a million times, I would not be standing here the other 999,999.”
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NBA Coach of the Year voting
Mark Daigneault, Thunder (473 points)
Jamahl Mosley, Magic (158)
Chris Finch, Timberwolves (105)
Joe Mazzulla, Celtics (79)
Tom Thibodeau, Knicks (59)
Erik Spoelstra, Heat (6)
Ime Udoka, Rockets (6)
Rick Carlisle, Pacers (2)
J.B. Bickerstaff, Cavaliers (1)
Jason Kidd, Mavericks (1)
Michael Malone, Nuggets (1)
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder coach Mark Daigneault named NBA Coach of the Year
