Thunder Coach Scott Brooks Faces Biggest Challenge and Opportunity of Career
Scott Brooks has had it easy for most of his career as the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, but he'll be defined by the way he navigates the hard times ahead.
Having Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook on the roster necessarily simplified things. Actual plays lost their importance when freelancing superstars with elite skill could get buckets on their own at will, and having players like KD and Westbrook naturally created a hierarchy on the roster that other teams struggle for years to establish.
Everything kind of fell into place.
No more; things are decidedly out of place now, and Brooks suddenly finds himself forced to coach a team that barely resembles the one he thought he'd be leading this season.
The fact that he never devised a complex offensive system didn't matter before. It matters now that Durant is out with a broken foot and Westbrook is sidelined with a broken hand. What critics have long hypothesized— that Brooks has survived on the strength of his team's talent—is about to be tested in real-world conditions.
And because Brooks has been called a good person as often as he's been labeled a bad coach, it's hard not to root for him.
Haralabos Voulgaris, noted NBA gambler and guest on a recent Bill Simmons podcast, summed up the scenario thusly: "If I had a kid and I didn't want to raise him, by all means I'd pick him to raise my kid because he seems like a great man. But I wouldn't want him making decisions on what to do and what not to do in a basketball game. I just wouldn't want that."
There's hyperbole there, but it's not totally out of line with the consensus on Brooks. We've all watched the strategic breakdowns when playoff defenses zero in on Durant and Westbrook. There's never been a system to fall back on. The counters haven't been there, and the adjustments have come too late—or not at all.
Adversity Spurring Growth
Durant and Westbrook were Brooks' training wheels—preventing him from tipping over but ultimately making it impossible for him to balance on his own.
The training wheels are off now, and it's worth noting that Brooks is faring better than expected.
No, the Thunder don't look spectacular. They're 1-4 through five games and appear to be wholly overmatched most nights. But we've seen some signs of progress from the coach.
Like this elevator play, for example, popularized last year by the Golden State Warriors and Stephen Curry:
That's an outside-the-box use of a smart design—made even smarter by the fact that Brooks employed it to spring his power forward for a three. I'm not sure we would have ever seen him try that with Durant and Westbrook healthy.
Also encouraging: Brooks handed the starting center job to second-year big man Steven Adams. The move was a long time coming, and by almost any objective analysis, Kendrick Perkins' demotion came years too late. But it finally happened, and Brooks seems to be getting more flexible in his personnel moves.
He's had no choice.
The Thunder are dropping like flies in the early season. In addition to Durant and Westbrook's major injuries, Reggie Jackson missed time with an ankle sprain, and Anthony Morrow and Jeremy Lamb are out for the next few weeks.
But wait, there's more!
Andre Roberson has a sprained foot. Perry Jones has a bruised knee.
Essentially, the Thunder have gone from playing shorthanded to playing with both hands tied behind their back. The injuries have been flat-out brutal, and the possibility for disaster increases with every undermanned loss.
Grantland's Zach Lowe offered a stark forecast: "The math from there is daunting. Oklahoma City would have to go 41-16 just to reach the 49 wins it took to snag the no. 8 spot last season. And that 8-17 record, as bad as it looks, might be optimistic."
Yikes.
Challenge and Opportunity
On one hand, maybe the dire straits facing the Thunder will result in Brooks getting a pass. Nobody could be expected to thrive with such a skeleton crew. Even when you lay out the possible routes for Brooks to make the best of this situation, they all come with convincing counterpoints that suck the optimism right out of the atmosphere.
For example, Brooks should probably lean on Jackson to lead the team. But Jackson has never been a leader, and he might be selfishly motivated by his impending free agency.
Similarly, Brooks must ask even more of his team's perennially underrated defense with his best scorers sidelined. But Oklahoma City is far less fearsome on D without KD and Russ clogging passing lanes and creating steals. To his credit, Brooks has experimented with some zone looks in the early going, a testament to his growing resourcefulness.
As mothers of invention go, it seems desperation is as good as necessity.
The best-case scenario here is that Brooks shines through as a motivator, emphasizing the traits that have helped him keep his job this long. Players work hard for him, and if OKC's remaining healthy bodies give Brooks their full commitment, that'll be as strong of a testament to his abilities as anything.
So far, so good. "It was an effort that I was encouraged with," Brooks said after falling to the Toronto Raptors, per Nick Gallo of Thunder.com. "I liked the guys' tenacity. They're scrapping."
At the same time, it's possible all the effort in the world won't save Brooks from the rising tide of criticism that has been kept at bay only by his team's success in recent years. If the Thunder fall apart without stars holding up the framework, it'll validate Brooks' detractors.
Don't Worry; It Only Means Everything
This is a crossroads moment for Brooks. But it's also a pivot point for the franchise as a whole.
A wasted season is never good, but if Oklahoma City doesn't make the most of this campaign with a strong closing run, it might have just one more attempt to convince Durant that his best path to a title is with this team and this coach.
Durant will become a free agent in 2016, and it's totally feasible that he'll decide he's given the Thunder long enough to provide him with the resources he needs to win a ring. Worries like that are a ways off (though they're not that far away); Brooks and the Thunder's immediate concern is surviving long enough to reach the playoffs this season.
That'll be tough enough.
Long viewed as a guy carried by the talent around him, Brooks has a chance to prove himself now—albeit one that arrives disguised as a setup for failure.
Unlikely as it seems, we might see Brooks use this challenge as a way to further endear himself to Durant and Westbrook. Supportive as they've been, they've still heard the critical rumblings these past few years. If OKC survives—and if Brooks is part of the reason for that survival—it could go a long way toward showing the team's stars that Brooks is still the man for the job.
That could mean everything this year, next year and in the distant future.
It won't be easy, of course. But there are plenty who'd say Brooks has had it easy long enough.
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