"Can’t wait for him to cuss me out at first practice game if I mess up" - Alex Caruso reveals first exchange with Thunder coach after Bulls trade
Alex Caruso and Mark Daigneault will be reunited in Oklahoma after the Thunder traded Josh Giddey to Chicago for the defensive ace. The deal allows Caruso and Daigneault to join forces again after spending time together with the Oklahoma City Blue in the G League in 2016. They worked together before Daigneault was promoted as an assistant coach under Billy Donovan.
After spending a year in the development league, Caruso signed with the LA Lakers in 2017. He played a key role as part of LeBron James’ supporting cast in the team’s run to the 2020 championship. The “Carushow” left Hollywood when the Lakers preferred Talen Horton-Tucker over him.
From Los Angeles, Alex Caruso took his talents to Windy City where he played over the past three years. After months of trade talks, he is headed back West to play for a very familiar face.
In Caruso’s first talk with the media following the trade, he had this to say about Mark Daigneault:
“I was smiling ear to ear talking to him [Daigneault] on the phone just because I was excited to get to play for him again. He told me, ‘Don’t be a smarta**.’ I told him, ‘I can’t wait for him to cuss me out at the first practice game or mess something up.”
Caruso will now be playing for a team that Mark Daigneault guided to the top of the Western Conference standings in the regular season. The OKC Thunder, however, were eliminated by the Dallas Mavericks in the conference semifinals. Despite the loss as the top-ranked team in the West, many still saw Oklahoma’s campaign as a big success.
Daigneault will insert Alex Caruso into a rotation that will largely return for another round. A starting five of Caruso, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Lu Dort will be a problem that not many teams will have answers to.
Alex Caruso is confident of quickly blending in with Mark Daigneault’s style
Mark Daigneault won NBA Coach of the Year last season after forming a team that was tough to beat on both ends of the court. The Thunder ranked second in the league in net rating (7.3) in the regular season behind only the Boston Celtics’ eye-popping (11.7) figure. Daigneault asked his players for end-to-end hustle, energy and effort, something Alex Caruso will relish.
Here’s what the All-NBA Defensive team member had to say about working with Daigneault again:
“We’ll hit the ground running and it will be great, just like it always is for both of us. … A lot of growth from when we first started together. I think there’s a lot of positives and a lot of learning experiences that we both can take from those years.”
The opening salvo in trades between the Chicago Bulls and OKC Thunder might end up dictating who wins the 2025 NBA championship. Reuniting Mark Daigneault and Alex Caruso in a team that already had a deep playoff run could be a nightmare to the rest of the league.