OKC Fired Scott Brooks

[K1rieIrving>AllOtherPG's]

finally.... he was a bad coach have no Idea why it took them 7 years to figure it out.
i watched some OKC games this year, the game plan was basically: give the ball to westbrick and get the hell out of the way until he chucks 40 shots...
no moving the ball or any sets or team movement.

and even when durant was healthy I remember how they played,

you're turn
my turn
you're turn
my turn

either brooks wanted them to play like that or he had no control of them

 

[tocov]

Should've stayed in Seattle.

 

[Man Called X]

Whatever happened to the scott brooks.... jam account?

 

[Marcus]

Been a long time coming. Not surprised in the slightest. All that talent and they appeared in one NBA Finals.

I think Durant is gone after this year.

 

[NorthCoastBias]

Ollie makes sense. He and KD were tight when Ollie closed out his career in OKC.

 

[MirORich]

Trading James Harden could be considered among the worst decisions in NBA history.

As it relates to how they handled the trade and the terrible return they got, I agree.

But someone explain to me how Westbrook, Durant, and Harden work together. All three perimeter players. All three most comfortable with the ball in their hand. All three think that they are a #1 player that and offense should be built around and run through.

As far as the future , yeah I agree the odds that one or both of Durant and Westbrook leave are high. But I also think you can make an argument that if fully healthy next year, they are as solid of a title contender as there is in the NBA. Going to be a fascinating situation to watch.

 

[macbdog]

Skip Bayless thinks this is an obvious sign Love is headed to the Lakers...

Could see this coming. No it's not his fault that team lost Durant but they have been underperforming their talent level for a few years now. I think it can end up being much better fire them in the long run.

 

[Marcus]

I honestly think Durant and Westbrook are good as gone.

That franchise made too many mistakes to recover from.

Trading James Harden could be considered among the worst decisions in NBA history.

I can understand the decision to trade him (he was the third best player out of three dynamic players), but the return they got for him was shit.

If you look at it as being a financial decision, it was fucking stupid to not give him a few more million per year, but I think it goes deeper than that. I doubt he would have been happy to continue playing in Durant's shadow.

 

[godfather]

Yeah, it's no secret I am not a fan of Harden, but that trade to me is the worst trade ever. For all the love Presti gets, he's kinda overrated. I mean, okay, the guy drafts well, not going to debate the fact he doesn't. The awful Kendrick Perkins trade and the Harden one is a bad blemish on his resume.

One thing that made sense about keeping Harden too, is I think he probably ran the offense the best of the three. I think Westbrook is an awesome player, but Harden definitely is more of an actual point guard, just trapped in a shooting guard's body.

Look the three went to an NBA finals, it clearly worked. If they had to trade Harden, they should have gotten back at least an immediate player that can help them, not draft picks/rookies that's basically useless on a team trying to win a title.

It was a terrible trade. Martin, a guy they tried replacing bolted. And he really wasn't even what they needed. If you're going to trade a guy like Harden, you at least get a serviceable big man out of the deal, that can mesh with your already potent perimeter play.

As for Brooks, solid coach. Great? No, but he wasn't what has holding them back either. A cluster fuck of a roster that really doesn't mesh very well together isn't going to get it done.

I think Durant is definitely gone. The Wizards just seem to be too good to be true. And I say that as someone that wants no part of him in Washington, realizing how absolutely scary that team would be with him.

 

[Jack Brickman]

As it relates to how they handled the trade and the terrible return they got, I agree.

But someone explain to me how Westbrook, Durant, and Harden work together. All three perimeter players. All three most comfortable with the ball in their hand. All three think that they are a #1 player that and offense should be built around and run through.

As far as the future , yeah I agree the odds that one or both of Durant and Westbrook leave are high. But I also think you can make an argument that if fully healthy next year, they are as solid of a title contender as there is in the NBA. Going to be a fascinating situation to watch.

Well, they got to the Finals together even though they were all incredibly young, and Harden wanted to stay. He just wanted to get paid too, and OKC was low-balling him. I just don't understand how you justify trading your third best player (who had just turned 23, mind you) three months after you made it to the Finals. To me, you never break up a team that's just made it to their first Finals, especially when your four best players are all 23 or under and not even in their primes yet.

Great players find a way to make it work, and if you're paying all three guys max money anyway, they're going to be willing to make some sacrifices in the name of winning because you've already invested in them long-term.

Yeah, it's no secret I am not a fan of Harden, but that trade to me is the worst trade ever. For all the love Presti gets, he's kinda overrated. I mean, okay, the guy drafts well, not going to debate the fact he doesn't. The awful Kendrick Perkins trade and the Harden one is a bad blemish on his resume.

I think the Perkins trade made some sense at the time. Perkins was the defensive anchor of a title team and multiple deep playoff runs. The injuries just made him a shell of himself. Maybe the medical staff in OKC should have caught that. I don't know. Regardless, at least that trade made some sense on paper. Dealing Harden made no sense. It was motivated by nothing other than keeping Bennett's ledger clean.

Also, the Perkins trade wasn't a total disaster solely because Jeff Green isn't very good either. They probably could have gotten a better deal for him in hindsight, but it's not as if they traded him and he started lighting it up elsewhere. He's a role-player. No huge loss.

 

[godfather]

^^^

Well, maybe the owner refused to want to play Harden the max contract. I have no idea, it didn't seem like the max deal was that much more. They were going to be in the luxury tax one way or another. If the owner was being really cheap, then I guess I can give him some lean way. Either way, you don't just rush to trade someone that's really good like Harden.

If you have to trade him, realizing he can't come back, your owner refuses to give him a max(I have no idea if that was the case or not), you wait it out, and not just rush the deal like they did. It was just very strange, and very bad on Presti.

They've clearly regressed since then. Sure, their regular season success really hasn't taken many lumps, and they've had injuries too that have inhibited them.

But last year, when they went against the Spurs, a team they cruised by their year to the finals. It was obvious they were missing Harden, and that was an ultimate difference.

If Harden was still there, I think the Thunder advance to the finals. And who knows, maybe they take down the Heat that year too and win a title.

 

[godfather]

Also, when it comes to the Perkins trade. I am saying, his contract was bad. And if it came down to MONEY, then obviously trading for Perkins came back to haunt them.

If they weren't paying him 7 mil a year, way more than he deserved, maybe they keep Harden. I don't know. Presti screwed up though. I think he definitely deserves the axe before Brooks personally.

I don't think Brooks is a great coach, a good one, and he obviously has limitation that are well documented. But it's really hard to see fault with the job he did in OKC all things considered.

If they kept the team in tact, I think they'd have a championship by now.

 

[blommen]

I actually thought they'd give him next year as well considering how hobbled the team was by injuries this season. Can't say I didn't see it coming though. When you are that inept at changing the game plan to take advantage of some pretty obvious mismatches you aren't capable of running a contender.

 

[godfather]

they wouldn't fire him when the team underperformed while healthy, but now they fire him when they basically overperform while unhealthy?

When did they under perform? Making improvements as a team, and how far they went every single year in the post with their original big 3, that's under performing? This is the same team, under the same coach, that beat the Spurs 4 times straight, to go to the NBA finals.

I didn't like all the decisions he made in the finals, but Durant played like dog shit, and they were a young team clearly overwhelmed by the moment, going against LeBron James and the Heat. There's no "shame" in losing to them.

The next year, after Harden leaves, Westbrook goes down, they lose to Memphis, and Durant came up very small late in games. No one can seriously fault Brooks for losing that one.

And then last year, they beat down a Clipper team a lot of people liked getting to the finals possibly. Ibaka gets hurt, but comes back, and they still make a competitive series against the Spurs. A hell of a lot more than the Heat did against them.

So again, how is that under performing? Because he had injuries and guys didn't play that well, or because they got beat by clearly superior teams?

And no, this guy is a better coach than Mike Brown (where someone was comparing the two). Mike Brown was as average as it gets, and did what exactly? Ohhh, that's right, took us to the finals in '07, in one of the worst conferences in YEARS! Mike Brown was a product of LeBron, where as Scott, I think did a pretty serviceable job being the mentor/teacher to a very young team. Maybe not the greatest Xs and Os guy out there, but his team responded to him. Mike Brown was just a guy in a suit almost, a glorified defensive assistant coach..

There's no way you can be a bad coach, and get a young team to the finals, coming out of the West, which is loaded with much more talented teams than the shitty Eastern Conference.

A good coach, flawed, that unfortunately has to be the one to take the axe because his boss made a lot of bad mistakes.

 

[Cavatt]

I thought they should have fired him after their finals debacle when they were so easily shut down by the Heat.

Agree on the Harden trade. Cheaping out on a finals roster is the worst thing to do. Even the Heat dumping Miller had repercussions. Only finals team that should have been broken up was Cavs 2007 team. We got a better team out of it.