Scott Brooks Gives Wizards a Better Pitch to Free Agents Than You Think
The Washington Wizards reached an agreement with Scott Brooks on Thursday to make the former Oklahoma City Thunder top man the team's new head coach. Per Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, Brooks' contract will pay him $35 million over five years.
It should come as no surprise that the move was immediately framed in terms of how it might impact the Wizards' expected pursuit of Kevin Durant in free agency this summer. As Chris Mannix of The Vertical wrote following the hiring:
"Durant isn't bound for Washington, friends say, because … it's Washington, it's home, and, like so many athletes, Durant isn't all that keen on returning to play in the city in which he grew up. Friends, family – some real, some claiming to be – all come out of the woodwork in those situations, and Durant, who has tightened his inner circle considerably in recent years, isn't interested in dealing with them. His lone trip to D.C. this season was stressful, league sources told The Vertical, reinforcing to friends that wherever Durant signs next summer, Washington won't be it.
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Although the pre-existing relationship between Durant and Brooks probably doesn't hurt, it seems unlikely the Thunder superstar will head to Washington just because of the new coach. The Wizards will have to sell any free agent they chase on a vision of winning basketball. They'll have to tell him how they're building toward winning big.
On that front, Brooks brings both strengths and weaknesses to the table, but he gives this team a chance in free agency regardless of where Durant lands this summer.
Developing Talent
In OKC, Brooks showed the ability to nurture a team from its infancy to perennial contention. The Thunder won just 22 of 69 games after he took over for P.J. Carlesimo as the interim coach during the 2008-09 campaign. In the six years following that, Brooks' squad averaged the equivalent of 54.5 wins per year.
Oklahoma City reached the NBA Finals in 2012 and went to the Western Conference Finals twice more. Were it not for injuries to Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and then Durant in three consecutive seasons (2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively), it's entirely possible the Thunder would have more than the lone Finals trip and Brooks would still be coaching in OKC.
While on the job, Brooks oversaw the progression of that trio into one of the NBA's best Big Threes. Durant and Westbrook each turned into surefire top-10 players on Brooks' watch, while Ibaka far exceeded the expectations of a typical No. 24 overall pick, let alone one as raw as he was when he entered the league.
Several other young Thunder players never lived up to expectations—Perry Jones III and Jeremy Lamb come to mind—and others were not afforded large enough roles to showcase the full array of their talents—James Harden and Reggie Jackson—but it's hard to ignore how much better those three pillars of OKC's success got while Brooks was in charge.
With a cadre of young wings on hand with Bradley Beal, Otto Porter and Kelly Oubre, not to mention combo forward Markieff Morris, the Wizards surely are banking somewhat on Brooks' ability to shepherd top talents further along the development curve.
The Offense
Brooks' offense was stilted at times in OKC, too often devolving into predictable isolation plays for Westbrook or Durant with precious little secondary action to distract the defense. That predictability hurt the Thunder come playoff time on a yearly basis.
But that boring, predictable offense also routinely finished among the top 10 in the league (fifth, second, first, sixth, 10th in last five full seasons, per Basketball-Reference).
The catch is it did so largely on the strength of the singular talents possessed by Durant and Westbrook. In Washington, Brooks is unlikely to have Durant. He can lean on John Wall as the Wizards' version of Westbrook, a downhill, attacking point guard blessed with otherworldly athleticism and marvelous court vision. He'll be the one at the controls, much like Russ so often was for Brooks' Thunder.
Beal seems likely to assume the role of secondary scorer if healthy, but that has to be considered a big "if" at this point. He's suffered repeated stress injuries to his leg, and he's missed at least 19 games due to injury in three of his four seasons.
Because of that, as well as the makeup of the rest of the roster, Brooks would do well to divide the offensive burden more evenly throughout his five-man units in Washington than he did in Oklahoma City. The Wizards themselves should hope Brooks learned something about how to do that during his one season out of the NBA.
The Defense
Where Brooks should be able to generate immediate improvement is on defense, the side of the floor that is likely to be overlooked when people discuss Brooks' hiring. Oklahoma City finished ninth, 15th, 11th, fourth, sixth and 16th in defensive efficiency during Brooks' six full seasons.
However, it should be noted his final campaign was one during which Durant and Ibaka combined to miss 73 games, and the Thunder had to incorporate sieves like Enes Kanter and wanderers like Dion Waiters into the rotation midseason.
In the few years before that, Brooks leveraged his team's collective athleticism into a top-five point prevention unit. He does not have an Ibaka-style rim-protector on hand in Washington, but he does have long-limbed athletes to pressure the perimeter and help aggressively in the paint in Wall, Porter and Oubre. He also has a strong, versatile defender (when he wants to be) in Morris, and he has the extremely underrated Marcin Gortat.
It wasn't that long ago that having Wall and Gortat on the floor together yielded the equivalent of an NBA-best defense. Per NBA.com, Washington allowed 97.3 points per 100 possessions when that duo shared the floor during the 2014-15 season, a rate better than any team allowed over the full season.
Brooks needs to figure out a way to tap back into that.
A unit that ranks in the top 10 on both sides of the floor is typically the mark of a real contender, and Brooks was able to craft that in Oklahoma City. He had more talent at the top of his roster during his time there than he will in Washington, though, so he's going to have to pull out some new ideas to get his next team to reach that level.
It's in those ideas that any free agents potentially interested in Washington will find Brooks' vision for what the next era of Wizards basketball will look like. It's up to Brooks to make sure they like what they hear.
All statistics via NBA.com/stats or Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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