INDIANAPOLIS — Oklahoma City Thunder Mark Daigneault walked the corridor at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, going from one interview to another.
He had just finished answering questions about his team’s NBA Finals series against the Indiana Pacers and was about to sit down with ABC’s TV crew and ESPN’s radio crew for more questions about the same.
But he stopped to talk music, jam bands in particular, and in the moment, he preferred to talk about Grateful Dead songs rather than answer questions about the Thunder’s defense on Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton.
This was the day before Game 3, the game in which Michael Kang of jamband String Cheese Incident sang the national anthem.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle was introduced to the Grateful Dead four decades ago by then-Boston Celtics teammate Bill Walton, and Pacers alternate governor Steve Simon, the son of owner Herb Simon, is a longtime fan of the Grateful Dead and iterations of the band, including Dead and Co. He’s has been friends with Kang for 25 years.
Turns out, Daigneault is a big music fan and a jam band fan, having seen Phish and Dave Matthews Band concerts. He expressed his appreciation for the Grateful Dead, and he has started to listen to Billy Strings. Daigneault walked into the arena for Game 3, earbuds in and his head bopping to the beat of whatever song he had on.
Daigneault counts the Dead’s final studio album, “Built to Last,” as one of his favorites, and that album has songs that are underrated such as “Foolish Heart,” “Standing on the Moon” and “Victim or the Crime.” He listed “Ripple,” “Jack Straw” and “Franklin’s Tour” as a few of his favorite Dead songs.
After Basketball Hall of Famer and noted Deadhead Walton died a year ago, Carlisle relayed a story. Carlisle had a date with the woman who became his wife and wanted to take her to a Dead show near Washington, D.C. He called Walton.
“ ‘I don’t have any tickets. Can you help me?’ ” Carlisle said. “He said, ‘Just go to the back door, ask for Dennis McNally and tell him you’re Rick Carlisle from the Boston Celtics. You’ll be just fine.’ I said, ‘Really?’ I drove up to the loading dock. … I walked down, knocked on the door and the whole thing ended up working out.”
Simon said he first saw String Cheese Incident in 1997, met bandmembers in 2000 and invited Kang to a Pacers-Los Angeles Lakers Finals game that June.
“I’ve been a lifelong NBA fan,” Kang said.
At a String Cheese Incident concert outside of Indianapolis during the Eastern Conference finals, Kang told the crowd that if the Pacers reached the Finals, he’d be back to play the national anthem.
And that’s how Kang found himself in the national anthem singer’s greenroom hanging out with Simon and two associates just before tip-off of Game 3 on Wednesday, June 11.
“I became a citizen of the United States three years ago,” said Kang, who was born in South Korea. “I had a green card, and I’ve been living in the country for a long time but finally got my citizenship. It’s a long story, but it ended up happening during COVID. And then ever since then I’ve been actually super patriotic and feeling very connected to the values of the United States and the Constitution.”
Follow NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt