It wasn't Scott Brooks' fault that the Oklahoma City Thunder missed the playoffs this season, but the lost campaign probably still precipitated his firing as the Thunder's head coach Wednesday.
A year away from Kevin Durant hitting unrestricted free agency, there's a newfound sense of urgency in Oklahoma City around what might be the Thunder's last chance to win a championship with Durant and Russell Westbrook as teammates. And that made this the time for Oklahoma City to try to upgrade on the sidelines to compete with the NBA's best teams.
Injuries, bad luck doomed season
As I wrote in last week's Oklahoma City Roster Reload, the Thunder might have had the unluckiest six months in NBA history. That started with a stress fracture in Durant's right foot, one that would ultimately cost him 55 games. Oklahoma City perhaps could have survived Durant's injury alone, but other maladies struck Westbrook (who missed 15 games, including 14 during Durant's absence), Serge Ibaka (who missed the final 18 games) and a host of role players. No Thunder player saw action in more than 74 games. Along with a pair of midseason trades that brought Enes Kanter and Dion Waiters into the Oklahoma City rotation, the injuries forced Brooks to juggle his rotations all season long.
The Thunder ultimately lost 19.2 wins above replacement player (WARP) to injuries, the second-highest total for any team in the six seasons I've been tracking the statistic. And yet, Oklahoma City still had the point differential (plus-2.2 points per game) of a 47-win team. In nearly any other season in any other conference, the Thunder would have been a playoff team. They ended up in the lottery because they fell two games short of their expected record, putting them in a tie for eighth with the New Orleans Pelicans -- who won the head-to-head tiebreaker only because Anthony Davis made a 3-pointer at the buzzer at Oklahoma City in February.
It's difficult, if not impossible to blame Brooks for what went wrong for the Thunder in 2014-15. And in the press release announcing the move, Oklahoma City GM Sam Presti was careful to note that wasn't why Brooks was fired.
"It is very important to state that this decision is not a reflection of this past season," Presti said, "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."
Durant's free agency key to timing
So if not because of the 2014-15 season, why replace Brooks now? The answer surely lies in Durant's foray into unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2016, some 14-plus months away. After years of conservatively managing their assets with an eye toward the long term, the Thunder have adopted a more aggressive posture in the past year. From the outside, it appears Presti is attempting to win with Durant on the roster and leverage those results to convince Durant to re-sign for the long term.
That process started with the January trade for Waiters, the first time in Presti's eight years with the Oklahoma City organization dating back to when the team played in Seattle that he'd traded a future first-round pick. (The Thunder had traded its pick on draft night in the past, but only as part of deals to move up.) And while it yielded a young player in the 23-year-old Waiters, the trade also pushed Oklahoma City into the luxury tax for the first time.
The following month, the Thunder gave up yet another future first-round pick to acquire Kanter at the trade deadline. Again, Oklahoma City acquired a young player (Kanter won't turn 23 until next month) but added to its payroll. The Thunder will enter this summer with more than $80 million in salary committed to 13 players and a first-round pick before attempting to re-sign Kanter and potentially restricted free agent Kyle Singler, who was acquired in the same trade. If Kanter returns, Oklahoma City is likely to end up well north of the NBA's projected $81.6 million luxury-tax threshold.
In short, the Thunder is all-in on 2015-16, and that now includes the coach. Brooks has shown more tactical flexibility in recent seasons, but the Thunder continued to rely heavily on isolation basketball in a league that is moving toward more free-flowing offenses such as those of the Atlanta Hawks, Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs. Brooks isn't alone -- something similar could be said of the Houston Rockets, with former Oklahoma City guard James Harden, and the Cleveland Cavaliers with Kyrie Irving and LeBron James -- but if Thunder management had any question about Brooks' ability to lead them to a title, now was the time to make a move.
The pool of potential candidates would be much thinner if Oklahoma City were to fire Brooks midway through next season, and by next summer it might be too late to make a change if Durant decides to move on. The rapid rise of the NBA's salary cap, as detailed by Insider's Amin Elhassan, means multiple teams will have the ability to offer Durant the maximum salary as an unrestricted free agent.
Who replaces Brooks?
UConn coach Kevin Ollie -- a top potential college-to-NBA coaching candidate -- always has been a natural successor for Brooks. The danger of making this move now is that Brooks enjoyed a close relationship with his star players, including Durant, who has spent nearly his entire career under Brooks' tutelage.
Ollie would bring a personal relationship of his own, having played with Durant and mentored Westbrook during Ollie's final NBA season in Oklahoma City, along with a new philosophy on the sideline. Alas, before Brooks was fired Ollie released a statement Wednesday responding to rumors about the Thunder job by saying, "I have no plans to pursue other opportunities."
Another college coach, Florida's Billy Donovan, also has been linked to Oklahoma City. Donovan accepted the Orlando Magic coaching job in 2007 before changing his mind and returning to Gainesville a week later, so his interest in the NBA is established. However, the challenge of learning a new league would make Donovan a curious choice given the Thunder's win-now mentality.
In that regard, the most intriguing option might be Chicago Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau, who might not return to Chicago next season -- a topic the NBA Front Office panel recently discussed. Thibodeau could help an Oklahoma City defense that slipped to 16th on a per-possession basis this season and was particularly porous after Kanter's arrival and Ibaka's injury. The Thunder's defensive rating after the trade deadline ranked 27th in the league, per NBA.com/Stats, costing Oklahoma City a playoff berth.