By Michael Kinney
A day after the regular season came to an end, the first NBA award was announced. And for Oklahoma City Thunder fans, it could be the first of several the franchise racks up this postseason.
Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault was named the Michael H. Goldberg NBCA Coach of the Year, it was announced today by the National Basketball Coaches Association Monday.
During the 2023-24 season, Daigneault led the Thunder to a 57-25 record as Oklahoma City became the youngest team in NBA history to claim the No. 1 seed in either conference. The Thunder posted its best overall record since the 2013-14 season and became the youngest team in NBA history to win 55-plus games.
“The West was great this year. I just told the team they should be incredibly proud to win a division is really, really difficult,” Daigneault said. “And there was this team’s first opportunity to make our mark on the organization and these guys have worked really hard, they’ve done it together. They’ve embodied really everything we want to be about in the process. And so it’s not just the fact that we accomplished that, but it was the way we accomplished it. It gives us something that we can build on moving forward and something that our fans in the city can really relate to. So the guys should be incredibly proud.”
The Thunder claimed the top spot in the Western Conference just two seasons after posting a record of 24-58 during the 2021-22 season. Oklahoma City becomes the fourth team in NBA history to increase its win total by 16-plus games in back-to-back seasons.
Oklahoma City was one of two teams (Celtics) this past season to finish in the top-five in both offensive rating (118.3) and defensive rating (111.0).
“Every year is its own year and this team’s its own team and it was a tough year,” Daigneault said. “It was a hard year and these guys persevered through the ups and downs, continued to get better and like I said, competed together and that’s how they accomplished this. So just incredible pride. I’ve used the word uncommon all year. They have an uncommon professionalism, an uncommon competitiveness, uncommon willingness to buy into the team despite a lot of high stakes for them individually. And they’re all very ambitious and they’ve been an uncommon team and they deserve a ton of credit for what we’ve accomplished here.”
During the 2023-24 season, the Thunder became just the 14th team in NBA history to finish top-three in field goal percentage (49.9), 3-point percentage (38.9) and free throw percentage (82.5). Additionally, on the defensive end, Oklahoma City ranked tied for the NBA lead with the most blocked shots (6.56) and steals (8.46).
In 2020 Daigneault was named the fourth head coach in Thunder history after originally joining the organization in 2014 where he served as head coach of the Oklahoma City Blue for five seasons.
The NBCA award is presented annually and voted on by all 30 NBA head coaches.
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