I’M a die-hard Oklahoma City Thunder fan because of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. It was therefore heartbreaking to find out on Thursday morning last week that Thunder Head Coach Scott Brooks was dismissed after seven seasons of leading a team whose average age is 25 years old according to ESPN.com.
The ESPN report adds that Brooks has a .620 winning percentage with the team and guided the Thunder to five playoff appearances in seven seasons, including three of the past four Western Conference finals and the NBA Finals in 2012.
Coaching in any sport and in any league is one of the most thankless jobs. When the team loses, the coach is blamed, but when the team wins it all, the players get the lion’s share of the credit. Brooks was responsible for guiding the future Hall of Fame careers of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
What Kevin Durant had to say in his Instagram account about the only professional head coach he knew was touching:
“Today was tough for me. While I support our team’s decision 100 percent and look forward to the upcoming season and the future in OKC, Scotty was my coach and a friend for the past seven seasons. We accomplished a lot together, and those times will never be taken away from us. I grew both as a man and a ball player under his guidance and for that I will forever be grateful. I wish nothing but the best for him and his family who have also been such a big part of this city and organization. I know he will be very successful in wherever his next steps in life are.”
The firing, according to Thunder General Manager Sam Presti, was not a result of this past season where the Thunder didn’t make the playoffs for the first time since the 2008-2009 season, but that it was looking ahead into the future. To sustain continued success. Most of the players liked Scott Brooks but many of them were excited at the thought of a new voice and a new direction. With Kevin Durant’s free agency next year looming in the horizon, Sam Presti felt now was as good a time as any to make a move to be ready for their best player’s contract year.
“This is an extremely difficult decision on many levels,” Presti said in a statement. “This decision is not a reflection of this past season, but rather an assessment of what we feel is necessary at this point in time in order to continually evolve, progress and sustain. We determined that, in order to stimulate progress and put ourselves in the best position next season and as we looked to the future, a transition of this kind was necessary for the program.”
Reading the statement, you can sense that it was an agonizing decision that had to be made. You don’t have to be a front-office executive of a professional sports organization, to feel that you want to dig yourself a hole big enough to hide in after firing a high character and quality coach like Brooks.
The Oklahoma City Thunder organization, just like any other organization follows the same policy: if a person doesn’t produce, then that person has to go. Produce meaning NBA Larry O’Brien trophies.
According to a Bleacher Report article, “In Fickle, Unforgiving World of NBA Coaches, Those Who Endure Deserve the Honors,” by NBA senior writer Kevin Ding, coaches are constantly being evaluated and re-evaluated because they’re constantly being challenged by new personalities. Maximizing talent, no matter the packaging, is the job profile. The nature of the job is to take this particular player and that specific player and coach them differently but successfully toward the greater good and establish a strong community.
Then do it again with some other people next season, sticking to what you believe in while being eager to grow and adjust. Repeat it often enough, you might actually have a sliver of job security.”
The San Antonio Spurs’ Greg Popovich has done a masterful job of adjusting and coaching this player and that player differently, hence the success of the Spurs organization since winning their first title in 1999. Phil Jackson, with his 11 rings, has won Coach of the Year only once, in 1996.
George Karl won Coach of the Year in 2013 but was eventually fired. The same Bleacher Report article says “Before George Karl was named Coach of the Year in 2013, he cited the peculiar nature of the award to Benjamin Hochman of HYPERLINK “https://www.denverpost.com/ci_23408257/firing-by-denver-nuggets-bizarre-ending-george-karl The Denver Post, asking: “Have you seen what happens to guys who win Coach of the Year?”
If I were Presti, I would hire Spurs Assistant Coach Ettore Messina, one of the greatest coaching minds in European basketball history who is a disciple of ball movement and player movement to keep the defense constantly moving and off-balanced. A disciplinarian, he may be the guy to teach Russell Westbrook to pass and move the ball more.