According to Gabriel Fernandez of CBS Sports on Wednesday, Mark Daigneault of Leominster, Massachusetts has been named the new head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Daigneault takes over from Billy Donovan, who left the Thunder, and is subsequently the new head coach of the Chicago Bulls.
Daigneault has previous head coaching experience with the Oklahoma City Blue of the G League. He was with the Blue for five seasons from 2014 to 2019. In that time period, the Blue had a regular season record of 153 wins and 107 losses for a winning percentage of .567. In four of the five seasons, the Blue reached the G League Playoffs.
For the other five seasons Daigneault has been a coach, he has been an assistant coach under the tutelage of Donovan. For four years from 2010 to 2014, Daigneault was an assistant coach for the University of Florida Gators of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He was then an assistant coach under Donovan last season with the Thunder.
While with the Gators, Daigneault had a record as an assistant coach of 120 wins and 30 losses. In those four years, the University of Florida reached the final four in 2014, and the elite eight in the three previous seasons. Then in 2019-20 with the Thunder, Oklahoma City had a regular season record of 44 wins and 28 losses. They then made the NBA Playoffs in the Orlando bubble, but lost a tight seven game series to the Houston Rockets in the opening round.
As the 2020-21 NBA season approaches, the question for Thunder fans is if they will have a chance to keep star point guard Chris Paul. There are a lot of rumors at the moment that he could return to southern California and play for the Los Angeles Clippers, or be part of the mix in Philadelphia.
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