by “Be where your feet are.”
It is a fight that has adopted the thunder of Oklahoma City to help them stay in the present moment. Thunder -head coach Mark Daigneault shared it for the first time with his team on 7 February 2023, when they were confronted with the Los Angeles Lakers, whose LeBron James would break the scoring record of the NBA in the course of the game. Daigneault did not want his players to get lost in something other than participating in the game itself.
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“The idea behind it was that there would be so much in the Arena during the moment of LeBron that you should be where your feet are,” said Oklahoma City All-Star Jaliams between Games 3 and 4 of the NBA Finals of 2025.
Oh, how far they got.
For many, that night was their first National Television -Glimic Thunder, who had spent the previous two seasons. Those years a foundation of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander yielded through trade and both Williams and Chet Holmgren in the design. Holmgren was then injured in LA, but Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams combined 55 points in a narrow victory that spoiled James’ party evening.
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We thought it was the beginning of something. No one could have predicted the birth of one of the largest teams in the NBA history, a budding dynasty that night, but that is exactly what happened. Two short years later the feet of the Thunder brought them to Game 7 of the NBA Finals, where they defeated the Indiana Pacers 103-91 on Sunday, conquered the first championship of the franchise since it moved to OKC in 2008.
I can almost hear you wonder Really, this is one of the best teams ever? And the answer is yes, absolutely. This Thunder is one of the seven teams in the competition history that win 68 games during the regular season and the first since the Golden State Warriors won an NBA record 73 games in the 2015-16 season.
Only this Thunder won the title.
Oklahoma City also has the second best net rating (+12.8) in the competition history, with only Michael Jordan’s 72-win Chicago Bulls from 1995-96. They are generally considered one of the largest teams in NBA history, together with the Warriors 2016-17, 1985-86 Boston Celtics, 1986-87 Los Angeles Lakers and others.
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Point is: The thunder is now part of it. How did they come here? By being where their feet are.
The thunder is where their feet are … as NBA champions. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty images)
(Getty Images)
“I think it attacks every day, every representative attacks, every possession attacks and tries to make that a habit, and to understand the composite nature and when you do that,” said Daigneault, a 40-year-old in his first NBA head coaching performance. “These are boys who have seen that success has followed that approach. If you do something, you will find success, it strengthens it, breed dedication. The boys have now done great work by building that muscle for a long period.”
“It is almost like a standard,” said Gilgous-Alexander, who changed himself into an MVP.
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The success of the Thunder has followed a linear progression of a 24-win team in 2021-22 to a 40-win play-in team a year later, the same season that they spoiled James’ Big Night, to a 57-win no. 1 seed in 2023-24 and eventually to the 68-win Juggernaut they were. Their internal development cannot be refused.
“When you stack the days, stacks the assets, stacks the games, it will bring you as far as you are able at that time,” Daigneault said. “We are now clearly further than then.
It should give hope to every team that is there. The only thing needed was three seasons that leaned in a growth mindset to transform one of the worst teams in the NBA, a team that didn’t even try to win, to a champion.
Of course it is easier said than done. The Thunder identified Gilgeous-Alexander, who on average 10.8 points per match as a Rookie on the clippers in Los Angeles, as a future star, and could not even imagine that he would have reached this level. They set up Williams and Holmgren, a few All-Star-Kaliber complements, on the same night in 2022. They have one of the smartest general managers in all basketball, Sam Presti, who has listed concept choices and started, one of the deepest rosters in the competition. And they focused on two of the best role players in the game, Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein, this last season, in the hope that they were the last pieces for a championship puzzle.
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And it all worked. This is not always how development unfolds. You can have a motto – “Be where your feet are” – but you need everyone to buy in it. You need everyone to take it. You need everyone to live with it, and that is not always easy. The players credit their coach. The coach credits his players.
Anyway, they all had to remind of their mantra before Game 7, like none of them, but Caruso had been to this place, hours of an NBA championship. So Daigneault has returned the message. All the work they had done, the hours they did, the moments they took, prepared them for this.
“I think that’s the deal,” said Daigneault. “You want to be prepared. You definitely want to learn the lessons, get the game plan in the game, but not at the expense of aggressiveness, trust, instincts. That has been a power of us this season. We should definitely lean.
So, when the pressure reached its top, when they needed the most to be present, when the score was blown, 56-56, halfway through the third quarter of game 7, they bowed. They called every possession that they stacked, every representative they attacked. At that time, SGA, Holmgren and Williams made contact with consecutive 3-Pointers, making a tie game a comfortable advantage. From there, the team trusted his defense – the muscle that had worked so hard to build up over time – to take them to the championship.
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“You must have those themes,” said Daigneault of the mantra of his team. “This team responds well to those things. If you place the right one for them, they really go there. I think that’s the right way to approach competition. But these guys bring it to life with the way they play. You can talk about it, but it comes down to how you perform. These guys perform as competitive monsters.”
When the moment asked for it, they were present as themselves, calluses as champions.
“Winning is what is remembered,” added Holmgren. “It is a bit immortal. I am just so happy that we could do it. There was so much hard work that many people did not see that in this. Years of hard work for everyone who led to this. It makes it all worth it. It is just a great feeling.”
Be where your feet are. On the NBA Mountaintop.
