The Oklahoma City Thunder fired head coach Scott Brooks. Kurt Helin at NBC says it wasn’t because of injuries to Brooks’ team, but rather because the coach’s “simple offense” doomed OKC to failure. Maybe the Thunder were looking for results more like what Phil Jackson had bringing his complex triangle offense to the New York Knicks this year? Westbrook and Durant were so good that they hid the simplicity of Brooks’ weak offensive schemes, goes the story the Thunder are telling themselves, and when those two stars (and Serge Ibaka) missed games the coach was exposed. Well of course he was exposed!
Scott Brooks was exposed for being a coach without top talent on the floor. Look at what happened to the Miami Heat and its highly effective offense once that guy LeBron James left. You just can’t win without your best players in the NBA. And Brooks didn’t have his best players–including last year’s league MVP–most of the season. The Thunder are scared of failure and not smart enough to see what’s clearly in front of them. They fired Brooks to get Durant to stay. Instead they gave KD easy excuses–lack of loyalty, bad org culture–to leave.
