Oklahoma City Thunder
11/22 Fire P.J. Carlesimo and name Scott Brooks interim head coach
Not much has happened in the NBA on the transaction front the last few weeks except for a good old fashioned coaching dump off. In each of the three cases of coach firings, the terminations do not seem to be no-brainers. All three teams have played poorly, compared to even modest expectations. Yet there are clear mitigating factors in each instance. Starting with P.J., we know the knock…the team wasn’t winning and they were afraid that Kevin Durant was not developing. In terms of the youngsters, both Jeff Green and Durant actually look a bit better than last year so far. The real problem was blow out losses all over the place. Of course, it’s not clear how the Thunder can hope to win with the current roster. When a team accumulates cap room and youngsters, it generally loses a lot and badly. The Sonics are a bad defensive team (24th in defensive efficiency) and a horrible offensive team (last in offensive efficiency) to boot. While I’m not a huge Carlesimo fan, Phil Jackson or Red Auerbach would stink coaching this team too. As for Brooks, he was a heady player but we have no idea how he’ll be ultimately as a coach. In the short term, it seems like he’ll be in the exact same boat as Carlesimo, taking lumps with chance for modest improvement near the end of the year. While Thunder management doesn’t really have to worry about being fair to its coaches, this job is rigged for failure in the short term and any deck shuffling is only meant to distract the fans.