South Sudan head coach Royal Ivey: “I never knew I was going to be a coach. Sam Presti sat me down and said, ‘I think you can be a really good coach’ —offered 2 paths, a cushy player development job with the Thunder, “or there’s the option to go to the GLeague and work for this guy, Mark Daigneault”

story by Jonathan Feigen

Ivey had returned from China, knowing on some level that he was through as a player but needing to hear it from Thunder general manager Sam Presti. Presti had followed Ivey’s career since he was an assistant with the Spurs and Ivey was a part of Rick Barnes’ second recruiting class at Texas. They had gotten to know one another in Ivey’s two stints with the Thunder.

“I never knew I was going to be a coach,” Ivey said. “Sam Presti sat me down and said, ‘I think you can be a really good coach.’ I said, ‘Oh, really?” I took a leap of faith.”

It was more complicated than that. Over dinner in Portland, Ore., Presti offered Ivey two choices, believing there was a better path for Ivey, but keeping that thought to himself.

“It’s never an easy conversation to have with a player,” Presti said. “They have to decide when they’re ready. But I thought it was the right time to put it on the table and see what he was thinking.

“When we were talking about what was next, what’s life after basketball was going to be, I was throwing out the idea of potentially going into coaching. I explained to Royal there were two paths we could take. We could do something in player development, and he could be around the Thunder … and stay in the world you’re accustomed to, in the NBA and all the benefits that come with it in terms of the travel and the luxury that we’re all afforded. Or there is the option to go to the G League and work for this guy, Mark Daigneault (now the Thunder coach.)

“I told him, ‘It isn’t going to be very glamorous. It won’t be a fun path, but it will give you the most exposure to the things you have the least experience with.’ And then, I kind of held my breath waiting for the answer, knowing that if he really wanted to excel and build a life after basketball that would be sustainable and strong, the G League path was the path. But I didn’t want to push that on him.”

Ivey chose to be an assistant with the Oklahoma City Blue, a decision that Presti said was choosing “the path less traveled” not unlike a kid from Harlem choosing to play for Texas, or that Ivey said was like becoming the South Sudan coach to “get out of my comfort zone.”