​Oklahoma City Thunder fans received an unexpected Shams Charania bomb concerning their favorite team on Tuesday afternoon.No, it wasn’t a tweet reporting a Cason Wallace contract extension. Nope, it was not any news about a Lu Dort trade.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThunder head coach Mark Daigneault is reportedly going to be added to the USA Basketball national team coaching staff.And he wasn’t the only one. Team USA is going to have a loaded sideline of great basketball minds. Charania, ESPN’s Senior NBA Insider, named two other coaching hires in addition to OKC’s former Coach of the Year.”USA Basketball is expected to name Oklahoma City’s Mark Daigneault, Detroit’s JB Bickerstaff and Gonzaga’s Mark Few as assistant coaches for national team coach Erik Spoelstra’s staff, sources tell ESPN.” – Shams Charania on X.Daigneault’s journey is a wholly unique one. The 41 year old started as a student manager for Jim Calhoun and the UConn Huskies basketball team while attending the University of Connecticut. He then became an assistant coach for Holy Cross. Daigneault decided to go to the University of Florida for graduate school and he became an assistant coach for future Thunder head coach Billy Donovan. Daigneault actually helped Donovan while he coached USA Basketball. He was then appointed head coach of the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s G League affiliate. After Donovan left OKC to join the Chicago Bulls, Daigneault was promoted to head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder. His time spent developing young players in college and the G League was a perfect fit for the upcoming OKC rebuild.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementOf course, everyone knows how the rest of Daigneault’s story goes from there. His teams were competitive and built winning habits even during the two tankathon seasons. While Sam Presti was mastering the quickest and most successful rebuild in NBA history, Daigneault was instilling his now infamous zero and zero mindset and a culture of stacking days to develop improvement from the top to bottom of the roster. He was named Coach of the Year in 2024. He headed a team that won 68 and 64 games in back to back seasons. He was an NBA All Star head coach in 2025. And, of course, Daigneault guided the Thunder to their first ever NBA Championship in 2025.Daigneault began his journey as a student manager in college and the road has taken him to a Larry O’Brien Trophy and now a spot on the Team USA coaching staff. He is one of the best brains in the basketball business. And this latest honor is truly deserved.