“These guys are uncommon,” said Daigneault, who was an assistant at Florida when the Thunder lost to Miami in the 2012 finals, was coaching Oklahoma City’s G League team in 2016 and has been at the Thunder helm since 2020. “They do everything right. They’re professional. They’re high character.”

On paper, this year's NBA Finals looks like a total mismatch. The Oklahoma City Thunder are -700 favorites with the Indiana Pacers at +500 (via FanDuel). You might be thinking: The Pacers are in the Finals,

Sean Marks built the Nets around Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving back in 2019, and added James Harden to a superteam a year later. But now as the general manager gears up for another rebuild, the superteam is dead, killed by the new collective bargaining agreement and its punitive second apron.