Thunder Promote Mark Daigneault to Head Coach

Per Adrian Wojnarowski (ESPN), the Oklahoma City Thunder have chosen to promote Mark Daigneault to become their head coach ahead of the 2020-21 season.

Daigneault was an assistant under Billy Donovan, who agreed to part ways with the Thunder in September. Before that, Daigneault was an assistant at Florida and Holy Cross, and was the head coach for the Oklahoma City Blue, OKC’s G-League team, for five years.

The Thunder were slow and tight-lipped about their interview process, but it’s no surprise that they hired someone like Daigneault, who lacks the splashy reputation of some of the other free agent coaches who were on the market. A full rebuild is expected to begin as soon as this season, so the coaching job ahead will entail patience and development before deep-playoff contention is once again a goal.