Historic Stat About Thunder Coach Emerges After NBA Finals

Mark Daigneault has come a long way with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He started his NBA coaching career as an assistant to Billy Donovan in the 2019-20 season before taking over as the team's head coach in 2020.

It was a rough couple of years at first for Oklahoma City under Daigneault's watch, as the Thunder won just a total of 46 games against 108 losses with him calling the shots from the sidelines.

But it started to get better for Daigneault and the Thunder in the 2022-23 campaign, where they went 40-42. Two seasons later, Daigneault and Oklahoma City are crowned as the newest kings of the NBA after toppling the Indiana Pacers in a best-of-seven 2025 NBA Finals series that ended on Sunday.

With the Thunder's 103-91 win over Indiana in Game 7 on Sunday, Daigneault officially pulled off what other head coaches who had a similar route to the NBA Finals before failed to accomplish.

Via OptaSTATS: “There have been 57 instances in NBA history of a head coach having 2 or more consecutive 50-loss seasons with a single team. Only one of those coaches later won a title with that same team: Mark Daigneault.”