In one of the most bizarre and unexpected moments of the NBA season, Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault was caught on a hot mic calling his own players “idiots” just moments after they pulled off an astonishing play that left the crowd speechless.
The incident occurred late in the fourth quarter of last night’s dramatic 121–119 win over the Denver Nuggets, a victory that solidified OKC’s hold on the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. With less than 10 seconds left on the clock and the game tied, the Thunder forced a turnover on Nikola Jokić near midcourt. What followed was sheer chaos and brilliance.
Instead of calling a timeout, the Thunder players improvised. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander passed the ball behind his back to Chet Holmgren, who immediately launched a no-look alley-oop to Jalen Williams, who dunked it over Michael Porter Jr. with 0.7 seconds remaining. The play was electric. The crowd exploded.
The bench erupted. Everyone thought it was genius… except their coach.
Seconds after the play, TNT’s broadcast picked up Daigneault turning to his assistants and muttering:
“They’re idiots. That’s the dumbest brilliant play I’ve ever seen. What if it didn’t work?!”
While his tone was half-joking, it didn’t take long for the comment to go viral.
After the game, Daigneault addressed the moment with a smirk on his face.
“Look, I love my guys. They’re fearless. But sometimes they do things that age me 10 years in 10 seconds,” he laughed. “It was risky. It was unnecessary. And it was… kind of amazing. But yeah, in the moment, I called them idiots. They know I didn’t mean it harshly.”
“I’ll take creative, confident ‘idiots’ over scared basketball any day,” he added.
Jalen Williams responded to the moment on X (formerly Twitter), writing:
“Coach really called us idiots on national TV 😂. Love you too, Coach.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander chimed in postgame:
“We knew what we were doing… kind of. Sometimes you just have to hoop.”
The Thunder have been one of the league’s biggest surprises this season, boasting one of the youngest rosters but playing with the poise of a veteran contender. Daigneault, a Coach of the Year frontrunner, has built a culture of trust, freedom, and creativity and last night’s wild ending was a testament to that.
Still, moments like this remind fans that when you let young stars play with total freedom, you might get a little madness with the magic.
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