The OKC Thunder may have 2024 Coach of the Year, Mark Daigneault, calling the shots on the sidelines, but, in this year's NBA Finals, the celebrated headman is raising many eyebrows with his decision-making.
Right from the jump, Daigneault surprised the masses by shying away from his double-big unit with Isaiah Hartenstein in the fold and, alternatively, went with a more small-ball oriented primary lineup consisting of Cason Wallace as the fifth and final starter.
Though the fifth-year coach has been quite vocal in defense of his shake-up, particularly celebrating it as a sign of rotational "optionality," now down 2-1 to the Indiana Pacers in this championship round, the critics are begining to grow louder than his supporters, with Charles Barkley becoming the most recent leader of the naysayer pack.
Charles Barkley calls out Thunder coach for unnecessary shake-ups
During a post-Game 3 reactionary roundtable, the Hall of Famer-turned-analyst tore into the Thunder head coach for his lineup tweaks, particularly highlighting the negative effect it has had on the club's once-elite secondary unit.
"If I've got the best team in the world, I'm not changing anything. I'm not changing anything! We're in the NBA Finals [and] we've been the best team in the NBA all year... I didn't like the lineup adjustment because I'm not sure how it benefits them. They were the deepest team in the league, [and] now their bench is being outplayed... That's been the biggest difference in this series so far," Barkley said.
Barkley would further elaborate his stance on why this surprise rotational adjustment has been a net negative for the Thunder, as he stated that it "takes guys 100 percent out of their role," before dropping the final kill shot on Daigneault by saying "some of these guys think they're damn Red Auerbach out there, acting like they're the smartest dude in the room."
Clearly, consensus opinion on Oklahoma City's lineup shake-up is that it has been highly unnecessary and, up to this point, has played a detrimental role in the team's lack of on-court success.
By inserting Wallace into the starting five, it directly takes away one of the most effective producers from this Thunder bench unit, as he wrapped up as one of their top scoring weapons off the pine in 2024-25 with 8.3 points per game while registering in with the fourth-best plus-minus at +5.5.
Simultaneously, they have broken up one of the most effective tandems OKC has at their disposal in Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren by sending the former to the bench, as the pair ranked within the 96 percentile in point differential (+13.5), 95 percentile in points per 100 possessions (123.4), and the 99 percentile in effective field-goal percentage (60.8) during the regular season.
Though perhaps one of the most overused phrases of all time, the classic "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra is something that this Thunder coaching staff desperately needs to adopt if they wish to drastically improve their odds of taking home this year's Larry O'Brien Trophy.
This means strongly considering reverting back to a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein starting lineup that boasted a ridiculous winning percentage of 69.2 percent in the regular season and an even more elite 75.0 percent this postseason.