OKC Thunder Head Coach Gives Unique View of Team Building

Everyone loves a winner. In the NBA, there are baked-in disadvantages to winning in a small market, especially. The Thunder –– save for last summer's addition of Isaiah Hartenstein –– are not a free agent landing spot. They have to build their team without one of the major ways to construct a roster. Left with savvy trades, draft picks, and flyer developmental players.

Oklahoma City has built a roster that not only has been good enough to put out the best season in franchise history, but an all-time campaign that is sustainable for years to come.

Sitting in the NBA Finals, for the first time since 2012, Oklahoma City's head coach Mark Daigneault was asked about the Thunder's roster construction and what conversations with OKC's General Manager, Sam Presti, are like in this process.

Most the time, Coaches have a distinct style of player they seek out and stick to a specific archetype. Daigneault went into great detail of how he believes that is a flawed process, especially in the modern NBA.

“It's not like here is the style of play I like, because I think the NBA system is so constraining with, you only have so many roster spots, you only have so much money, there is salary cap rules, there's CBA rules, the whole league is designed for parity the way the whole system is designed and so team building is very constraining because the system is so constraining in an intentional way, in a way that is good for the League," Daigneault explained. "When you are the coach and you are like 'on top of all those constraints, here is more constraints, here is more stuff you have to work around, I don't like this'. I don't believe in that."

The Oklahoma City Thunder bench boss continued his answer by explaining his relationship with top decision maker Sam Presti.

"We obviously want to have the best team we can, but I think our job is to maximize the team we do have and to figure out what the strengths of that team are, figure out the trade-offs of that team, and operate within that," Daigneault detailed. "Obviously, we have had a lot of players come through here. Sam [Presti] and I talk all the time about the players that are here, the team that's here, the roster, the draft. He is incredibly inclusive in that process and we have had hours and hours and hours of conversation about that..I try not to bring a strong hand in that conversation. I try to bring a lot of open-mindedness and a lot of flexibility to that conversation because ultimately I think that is how I can best contribute to us being successful.”

Oklahoma City has its entire roster under contract next year and a clean salary sheet to keep it that way in the future. Daigneault's ability to tailor his system to whoever Presti brings in makes it easy to see a long-term plan for the Thunder that features plenty of winning.