Firing Scott Brooks Would Be The Wrong Move For Oklahoma City Thunder
It seemed inevitable that the heartbreaking end to the Oklahoma City Thunder's season would lead to speculation over Scott Brooks' future, but now is not the time to move on from the embattled head coach.
The Thunder battled through key injuries and a tough Western Conference to finish 45-37, which turned out to be just a win shy of making the playoffs. Since the end of the regular season, numerous reports have surfaced that suggest Brooks' days in Oklahoma City may be numbered.
The first came on April 16 from Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, who wrote that the Thunder will evaluate Brooks' future with the team, citing the following: "Several league sources close to Brooks have doubts about his job security."
Four days later, SNY.tv's Adam Zagoria tweeted that former Thunder player and current UConn Huskies coach Kevin Ollie is another potential replacement.
Despite the noise, Brooks expects to return for his eighth season as the Thunder's head coach, per ESPN.com's Royce Young.
"I expect to be the coach next season," Brooks said. "I'm not worried about what's out there. I'm worried about coaching the team and getting the team ready for next season."
Oklahoma City's reported desire to move on from Brooks is justifiable as the team comes off of a disappointing season. With Kevin Durant set to be an unrestricted free agent next summer, there is also added pressure to do whatever it takes to win now.
Still, Brooks shouldn't be the scapegoat for a down year that spiraled out of control due to costly injuries. Even with a short-handed roster, he nearly guided the Thunder back to the postseason. There is no guarantee another coach would have done a better job under those circumstances, nor is there any reason to believe the grass will be any greener next season with someone else on the sidelines.
Beloved By His Players
Brooks has always had a good working relationship with the men he leads, but that bond was never more evident than when rumors started flying that his days in OKC were numbered.
Just days after Wojnarowski's report, the three biggest names on the Thunder roster came to Brooks' defense, per Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman.
Here are Russell Westbrook's thoughts on Brooks' performance this season:
"He did a great job. I don’t think he gets enough credit for what he does behind the scenes. Obviously, a lot of people that’s not in (the practice facility) want him to do other things, want to see other things from him. But as a coach and as a friend, I think he does an amazing job of communicating what he wants out of the players.
"
Yes, Mr. Durant, you had something to add?
"He rallied us, man. He made sure everybody was emotionally stable. It was a lot of guys in and out the lineup and he kept everybody together. So that’s what your head coach is supposed to do. We can’t really say nothing about it because he did his job. He kept us together. That’s what the main thing was … So it’s kind of tough. But he did his best job he can do and I’m proud of him.
"
Serge Ibaka, in an interview with HoopsHype.com's Jorge Sierra, doesn't understand why Brooks is being blamed for things he couldn't control:
"Why are you going to fire him? What has he done? Injuries were not his fault. Why would he go? He has not done anything, he's not responsible for the injuries. He did his best with the team he had. Would other coach do better with a team with so many injuries? What could (Scott Brooks) possibly do about it? The team is with him. You can't blame him for what has happened.
"
The comments from the franchise's three most popular faces suggest Brooks hasn't lost his locker room. While the detractors focus on his lack of championship rings, his occasionally sketchy rotations and simplistic offensive sets, they miss just how far the team has come since he took over.
Brooks inherited a glorified AAU team 13 games into the 2009-10 season and turned it into a 50-win squad a year later. He won Coach of the Year honors in 2010 and led the Thunder to the NBA Finals in 2012. While those early OKC teams had talent, Brooks did an excellent job of blending it all together and making it work.
One of Brooks' other strong suits is player development, as Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman recently noted. Ibaka came to the team as a raw athlete from the Congo in 2008. Six years later, he's one of the game's best power forwards. Westbrook was an unfinished project coming out of UCLA as a sophomore, but is now the game's reigning scoring champion. Reggie Jackson didn't arrive with a ton of hype after his career at Boston College. Now, he's the starting point guard for the Detroit Pistons.
Brooks is in danger of becoming basketball's version of Buck Showalter. During his tenure with both the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks, Showalter led his teams to the cusp of greatness, only to watch another manager come in and win it all the year after he left.
As for Brooks, critical injuries in each of the last three seasons have derailed potential championship opportunities. He deserves to finish what he started in Oklahoma City, rather than suffer a fate similar to what Showalter endured.
Lack of Better Alternatives
Any time a team fails to meet expectations like the Thunder did this season, there's always a loud fraternity of fans calling for the head coach to be fired. That's fine, but very few bother to answer the most obvious follow-up question to their demands for change at the top.
Who should be the next in line?
In Wojnarowski's report, he cites University of Florida head coach Billy Donovan as a potential replacement. Donovan flirted with the idea of coming to the NBA in 2007, initially agreeing to take over the Orlando Magic, but had a change of heart and returned to Gainesville. He's won two national championships with the Gators, but has no experience running a team in the pros.
Then, there's Ollie, of whom Durant and Westbrook have both spoken highly over the years. Last March, Westbrook called Ollie's influence "huge" and described the coach as "one of the greatest guys I know in this league," per Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman.
In an interview with Grantland's Bill Simmons during last year's All-Star break, Durant credited Ollie with "changing the culture" in Oklahoma City during their time together as players in 2007.
"His mindset, his professionalism every single day and we all watched that. We all wanted to be like that," Durant said. "It rubbed off on Russell, myself, Jeff Green, James Harden. Everybody that comes through now, there's a standard you have to live up to as a Thunder player and that started with Kevin Ollie."
Still, both Ollie and Donovan are coming off disappointing seasons of their own. Ollie followed up a championship run with the Huskies in 2014 by going 20-15 and missing the NCAA tournament this year. Donovan's Gators were even worse, finishing 16-17.
The Thunder would be asking either coach to come into a high-pressure situation in Oklahoma City with no NBA experience at all and deliver immediately in what could be Durant's last year with the team.
As impressive as Steve Kerr's 67-15 record is in his debut season with the Golden State Warriors, such a performance by an inexperienced rookie coach doesn't happen very often, as Tom Thibodeau in 2010-11 (62-20) with the Chicago Bulls and Paul Westphal in 1992-93 (62-20) with the Phoenix Suns are the only comparable efforts of the last 25 years.
There's also the precedent of dumping a veteran coach with a history of success in favor of a hot prospect with a rising stock. In 2013, the Denver Nuggets canned George Karl, fresh off a Coach of the Year campaign, and replaced him with then-Indiana Pacers associate head coach Brian Shaw.
How did that turn out for the Nuggets? Shaw went 56-85 (39.7 percent) in fewer than two years and was fired midway into this season.
As for more-seasoned replacements, Thibodeau is one of the bigger names that might be available this summer. According to a report from The Chicago Tribune's K.C. Johnson in January, the relationship between Thibs and the Bulls front office is "beyond repair" and the two could part ways after this season.
Thibodeau has transformed the Bulls into a potential championship contender, notching 255 wins in five seasons. Since he took over in 2010, the Bulls have finished no worse than 11th in defensive efficiency.
However, much like Brooks, critical injuries have hindered any hopes of an NBA title in the Windy City, and Thibodeau's postseason record is a ho-hum 19-22 (46.3 percent).
| Name | Yrs. as Coach | Career Reg. Season Wins | Playoff Record | Playoff Win Percentage |
| Karl | 26 | 1,142 | 80-105 | 43.2 |
| Popovich | 19 | 1,022 | 149-91 | 62.1 |
| Rivers | 16 | 700 | 71-64 | 52.6 |
| Saunders | 17 | 654 | 47-51 | 48 |
| Carlisle | 13 | 619 | 56-55 | 50.5 |
| Scott | 14 | 437 | 33-24 | 57.9 |
| SVG | 9 | 403 | 48-39 | 55.2 |
| Spoelstra | 7 | 351 | 63-36 | 63.6 |
| Brooks | 7 | 338 | 39-34 | 53.4 |
As for Brooks, he's ninth among active coaches with 338 wins in seven seasons. Of the eight coaches ahead of him on that list, only four have a better playoff winning percentage than Brooks' 53.4 percent: Gregg Popovich (62.1 percent), Erik Spoelstra (63.6), Byron Scott (57.9) and Stan Van Gundy (55.2).
Brooks takes a lot of heat for failing to win a championship with an elite roster, but consider this statistic: Since the 1990-91 season, only eight coaches (Popovich, Spoelstra, Phil Jackson, Doc Rivers, Rudy Tomjanovich, Larry Brown, Pat Riley and Rick Carlisle) have won an NBA title.
Eight coaches. In 24 years.
You can't put too much blame on Brooks for not winning a ring when so few have done it.
The disappointing ending to the Oklahoma City Thunder's season puts the team at a bit of a crossroads: does it use this season as an excuse to start over, or does it give Scott Brooks another chance to prove himself next year under improved circumstances?
Given the relationship Brooks has formed with his team and the lack of ideal replacements available, it would be in the Thunder's best interest to roll the dice on Brooks turning all of the speculation over his job security into a championship season.
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