Why Mark Daigneault was ‘lucky’ to coach Al Horford in 2020-21 season
Three years ago, Al Horford was playing for the Thunder inside an empty Paycom Center. The pandemic wasn’t even a year old. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t yet a star. Mark Daigneault was in his first year as head coach and Chet Holmgren was still in high school.
Feels like forever ago, especially in a league where time elapses in dog years. But the Thunder went from a rebuilder to a contender in a snap.
Horford was back playing at Paycom Center on Tuesday night, only this time in front of a packed house against a Thunder squad bearing little resemblance to the one on which Horford played. Only Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Kenrich Williams and Aleksej Pokusevski have been around long enough to have called Horford a teammate.
Horford, now in his second stint with the Celtics, only played in 28 games for the Thunder in that 2020-21 season before he and the Thunder mutually agreed for him to shut things down, but Horford’s layover in OKC came at an impactful time for a young team with an inexperienced coach.
“I told him this multiple times, as recently I think as this summer, but every first-year NBA head coach should be as lucky as I was to have Al Horford on their team,” Daigneault said before the Thunder’s 127-123 win against the Celtics. “Stud professional and person.
“And for a guy that has as much experience as he has, not cynical, very solution-oriented, not a know-it-all — he knows it all, but he always channels that toward solutions and toward the team.”
Horford, now 37 and in his 17th season, had seven points and five blocks Tuesday in 20 minutes off the bench.
He averaged 14.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists as a Thunder. Horford attempted a career-high 5.4 3pointers per game and made them at a 37% rate. The decision to shut down Horford coincided with Gilgeous-Alexander’s plantar fascia injury, but when the two were on the court together, Horford showed how a floor-spacing big could unleash SGA’s game.
The Thunder was a respectable 19-25 at full health but OKC won just three games through the rest of the truncated 72-game season.
“We weren’t very good, so it would’ve been very easy to poke holes in things back then, and he just never did that,” Daigneault said of Horford. “He was great with the young guys, and then he was fully into the team.”
When Daigneault thinks about Horford’s time in OKC, one game stands out. It was a February home game against the Spurs. The one where Lu Dort buried a game-winning 3-pointer from the corner.
Dort soon found himself on the bottom of a dog pile.
“And (Horford’s) like the first guy in the pile,” Daigneault said. “He’s like 35 years old and just got traded here and we’re not contending. That’s who he is.”