Scott Brooks had a .620 winning percentage in the regular season, good enough for the best all-time among coaches to never win a championship.  This season marks the first time he led a team that failed to make the playoffs.  

Brooks’ team made the Western Conference finals three of the past four seasons and appeared in the NBA Finals in 2011.

He groomed and developed an MVP and two perennial MVP contenders.  

Brooks did all of this, and for some odd reason he is now out of a job.

The Oklahoma City Thunder announced it’s decision to part ways with it’s head coach after seven seasons and I have yet to make complete sense of why this move was made. 

After Brooks’ firing, general manager Sam Presti stated the decision was the best move for the team.

“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,” Presti said.

Tell us then, Presti which season is it a reflection of?  2011, when Brooks led the Thunder to the Finals? Maybe it is a result of 2010 or 2013, years in which the Thunder made the conference finals before being bested by the eventual NBA champions?    Certainly not 2012, when the squad saw its star point guard sidelined after a slight tear in his right meniscus in game two of the first round.

Scott Brooks was also known to be well liked by his team, most notably by  MVP Kevin Durant.

“He led us, man,” the MVP said of his former coach. “He made sure everybody was emotionally stable because we had a lot of guys in and out of the lineup and he kept everybody together.”

Tie Durant’s words into the fact that Presti himself was cited as saying the Thunder were not directly consulted and the theory that the team played a factor in this decision is immediately eliminated.

The move could be an attempt to woo University of Connecticut head coach Kevin Ollie or Florida’s Billy Donovan.  Ollie is known to be good friends with Durant but has already said he is committed to UConn.  As far as Donovan, let’s hope if a deal is made he does not back out like he did eight years ago with the Orlando Magic and the Thunder reeling.

Whatever the front office’s logic may be, Thunder fans can only hope it is well-calculated.  With 2016 free agency looming and Durant being one of the big names on the market that summer, the wrong hire  could leave the Thunder without an MVP or a coach who did nothing but win.