Oklahoma City Thunder's NBA championship-winning staff includes pair of former Gators

USA Today

5 hours ago

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the 2025 NBA champions after prevailing in a grueling seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers in the finals. Among the victors' coaching staff were two former members of the Florida basketball program.
First of all, OKC's head coach Mark Daigneault has roots in Gainesville, where he served under Gators legend Billy Donovan from 2011-2014 as a graduate assistant before ultimately joining the staff in full capacity. During his tenure on Florida's bench after graduation, the Orange and Blue logged a 120-30 overall record that included three SEC regular-season championships, while reaching the Elite Eight thrice and making one appearance in the Final Four.
His next stop would be with OKC's G-League squad, the Oklahoma City Blue, as head coach before taking his current role with the parent team in 2019.
Secondly, there is Devon Walker, who currently serves as the Thunder's director of advanced scouting and player analyst, who represents another branch of the Donovan tree that has borne fruit. He played guard for the Gators from 2012 to 2016, appearing in 85 games with 11 starts while averaging 1.7 points and 1.2 rebounds per game during his collegiate career.
Walker transferred to the Troy Trojans for his redshirt senior season (he missed the 2014-15 campaign with an ACL tear), where he started 36 of the 37 games he appeared in, averaging 7.8 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals during his Troy tenure. According to his LinkedIn profile, he played pro ball in Bosnia, Macedonia, Germany and Qatar until 2020 before spending a year with Raire Label — a marketing firm — as a director of activations and talent.
The nascent NBA champion began his coaching career with Oklahoma City as a player analyst in late 2021 and has since worked his way up to his current position in 2023 via a senior analyst role in the year between.
This is the second straight year and third in the past four that Florida has had representation among the NBA Finals winners, with former Gators forward/center Al Horford earning a ring with the Boston Celtics last season; former Gators guard Chris Chiozza cut down the nets with the Golden State Warriors in 2022.
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