Thunderous Intentions
Fansided

Oklahoma City Thunder Must Fire Scott Brooks

By Jeremy Lambert

facebooktwitterreddit

Earlier this year I wrote that the Oklahoma City Thunder wouldn’t win a title with Scott Brooks. It turns out they won’t even get a chance to win a title this year as they failed to make the playoffs for the first time under a full season with Brooks. Rumor has it that Brooks might be fired. Hopefully, those rumors are true. 

More from Thunder News

We’ll hear about the injuries: If Kevin Durant returned in March like he was scheduled to, if Russell Westbrook didn’t miss 15 early games, if Serge Ibaka didn’t miss 17 games late in the season…then chances are OKC would be playing this weekend.

Injuries are excuses for Brooks and his supporters. Here are the facts:

  • The Thunder was 41-30 with 11 games remaining, a full four games up on the 37-34 Pelicans. OKC went 4-7 in their final 11 games including losses to the non-playoff Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers while the Pelicans went 8-3 including victories over the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs.
  • They had a losing record, 25-27, against the Western Conference including an abysmal 7-22 against the eight West playoff teams.
  • They played in 29 games in which they were ahead or behind by three points with two minutes or less remaining in the game. Their record was 10-19. With Durant it was 5-1, meaning that without Durant bailing out the team, they were 5-18 in “clutch games.”

There’s no reason why OKC shouldn’t have made the playoffs. Even without Durant, this was still a good team with a top five player in the league playing the best basketball of his career. Poor execution in crucial moments and during crucial games is the reason why the Thunder is sitting at home right now.

That’s been the story of Brooks’ coaching career. When the team needs a basket, the play has always been “pray Durant makes his shot.” Without Durant, the play became “pray Westbrook makes his shot.” Unfortunately, Durant is a much better shooter than Westbrook so OKC struggled in late game situations without KD. While the late-game offense struggled without Durant, the whole game defense struggled without Ibaka and Brooks, once again, seemingly had no answer.

Brooks’ supporters will point to his 338-207 career coaching record, his three conference finals appearances, and his one Finals appearance as to why he should stick around. They’ll say that, “Consistency is good for the team…look at the Spurs.” It’s a fair point. Teams that undergo a lot of change usually don’t find much success, but only four players remain from OKC’s 2011-2012 Finals team, so the team has already rebuilt their entire depth. Also, the Spurs actually won titles.

A better example would be the Golden State Warriors. Mark Jackson improved the Warriors’ regular season record in each of his three seasons and took them to two straight playoff appearances. Yet he was fired as management felt that he reached his ceiling with the team. They brought in Steve Kerr and now the Warriors are in a prime position to win an NBA Championship following a 67-win season. The players liked Jackson and he seemed to be a good coach, but management knew that they had a talented nucleus and didn’t feel that Jackson was the guy to lead them to the promised land. So they replaced Jackson with an unproven NBA head coach and the results, at least in the regular season, speak for themselves.

There’s also the Mike Brown-led Cleveland Cavaliers. He went to the playoffs five straight seasons with Cleveland, but was fired following a 61-21 season and a second-round exit. He had plenty of success with Cleveland, but he failed to win a title despite having the best player in the league on his team. In the end, LeBron James left Cleveland for greener pastures. OKC is in a similar situation this upcoming season. There’s no guarantee that Durant sticks around after next year and it would be a shame if he left OKC without a title due to poor coaching.

Just because Brooks has a winning track record with the Thunder doesn’t mean he should be the head coach. When your team has arguably the best offensive player in the game, a top-five point guard, a top-five power forward and one of the best rim protectors in the game…you’re going to win basketball games. But you should also be winning championships or at least getting to the Finals.

Again, Brooks has had a lot of bad luck in the playoffs with top players going down with injuries. But what’s the excuse for missing the playoffs this year? Winning a title without Durant and an ailing Ibaka was never very realistic, but when you’re four games up with 11 games to play, it’s inexcusable to not make the playoffs.

The players seem to like Brooks. Westbrook defended him in his exit interview saying, “He (Brooks) did a great job. I don’t think he got enough credit behind the scenes,” and Durant has always praised him. The Warriors players seemed to like Jackson, but I bet they’re pretty happy with Kerr right now.

General Manager Sam Presti might be loyal to a fault, but winning a title should be the priority here. Brooks has reached his ceiling as a head coach. There’s no evidence that he’s going to improve. The only improvements he seems to make are when his star players return from injury and he’s able to play them.

Would Jackson or rumored replacement candidate Billy Donovan lead OKC to a championship? That remains to be seen, but I’d sure like to find out. I know that this team is going to win 50+ games based on talent alone, so it would be welcome change if they had a better coach who could get them over the hump when it matters.

Brooks is entering the final year of his contract. Unless he wins a title or makes it to the Finals, there’s a strong chance that he won’t return. Do we really want to put that kind of pressure on a guy who has proven to have no answers specifically when the pressure is on?

“I expect to be the coach (next year),” said Brooks in his exit interview on Thursday. This came six days after he said, “If we don’t make the playoffs, I’ll be very disappointed in myself. But not in our team.” Given that he seemingly blames himself for missing the playoffs, his expectancy of being the head coach seems a bit unjustified. He should hope to be the coach, but if he isn’t – and he shouldn’t be – he should understand that he has no one but himself to blame.

More from Thunderous Intentions

[subscribe]

Home/Thunder News