Stiles Points: Thunder Have Right Leadership For Current Roster

The Oklahoma City Thunder gained massive flexibility with their additions this summer and it is a good problem for Mark Daigneault to have.

May 9, 2024; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault gestures to his team during a play against the Dallas Mavericks during the second half of game two of the second round for the 2024 NBA playoffs at Paycom Center. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images / Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images

As the NBA season inches closer, the Oklahoma City Thunder are getting set to embark on a new yet familiar journey. 

After an offseason spent bolstering a roster that posted 57 wins a season ago en route to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and coming away with their first playoff series win since 2016, times are changing. 

Now, with Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein in the fold, Oklahoma City is no longer just a fun, young, spunky and surprising team. 

Instead, the Thunder will be tasked with competing at the highest level. Under the microscope nightly as they go from a fun story to a legacy written by others to define their success. 

While each team since electing to ship off franchise legend Russell Westbrook back in 2019 was easily able to check the met expectations of better box at the end of the year, it won’t be that simple this go around.

Context, debates and narratives will largely define this Thunder team which now deals with the weight of expectations and starting a season with contender status. 

After completing one of the best off seasons in the sport, anything shy of the Western Conference Finals will draw fire from many, and some will not be satisfied unless this still youthful bunch makes a run to the NBA Finals as many have already penciled in a Beantown clash for the Bricktown ballers. 

With that new found expectations comes questions of how the Thunder will handle it, even down to their rotation which already spanned ten or more players deep each night before these additions with the only net loss being Gordon Hayward who retired two months before the start of his Thunder tenure, Bismack Biyombo, Mike Muscala Lindy Waters III, and Olivier Sarr who made better locker room assets than difference makers on the court. 

For the first time in Mark Daigneault’s career as a head coach, each decision will be met with the intensity typically saved for Game 7.   The nervous energy heading into what projects to be a tightly contested season is already filling the dry - and still hot - “fall” air in Oklahoma. 

Though, there should be no doubt that the Thunder have the proper bench boss, not only due to the coach of the year hardware sitting on his mantle (or guessing with Daigneault it is likely tucked away in a closet somewhere in favor of displacing a Bruce Springsteen album), but because his plan is finally coming together. 

Since his first pace of the sidelines in a Thunder quarter zip, Daigneault has dipped into his bench more than anyone else in the association - even when the talent doesn’t warrant it, no offense Gabriel Deck - while patch working Scotty Hopson, Josh Hall, and Jaylen Hoard minutes might’ve been head scratching at the time it was the foundation for a philosophy the organization now lives by on the other side of their rebuild to combat a once perceived roster crunch. 

Oklahoma City will rightfully play 10-12 players a night, players who could all move up the pecking order in less crowded rotations elsewhere and will make it a long night for their heavy legged opponents with seven players flowing in and out of games. 

While the next month will be spent worrying about who cracks the starting five in place of Giddey and trying to figure out what the first line shift will be, it shouldn’t be looked at as anything but a positive for a Thunder team that has prepared for this “problem” since the day Daigneault was hired. 

If any team will understand how to navigate the need to get everyone minutes, it’s Oklahoma City. 

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