Wizards offer Scott Brooks head coaching position
By Tom West
The Washington Wizards have reportedly made an offer to Scott Brooks to be their new head coach, who is enthusiastic to complete a deal.
For teams watching the NBA playoffs from home, particularly those hovering around the bottom of their respective conferences, it’s time to make coaching changes. Yesterday, the Minnesota Timberwolves made a brilliant move for their young roster by hiring defensive specialist Tom Thibodeau on a five-year deal. It’s the best acquisition made by a losing team so far, and now teams like the Washington Wizards will need to look elsewhere for a new head coach.
However, the Wizards think they have the right man to help turn around their franchise after they plummeted to the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference with 41 wins. Now, they’re just waiting on Scott Brooks to accept their offer.
Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical has reported that the Wizards offered Brooks the head coaching position for around $7 million per year:
"Washington Wizards general manager Ernie Grunfeld met with Scott Brooks on Wednesday in Southern California, offering him the franchise’s head-coaching job, league sources told The Vertical.Brooks has been enthusiastic about reaching an agreement with the Wizards and could complete negotiations on a contract that will pay him in the range of $7 million a season, league sources told The Vertical."
After Randy Wittman’s run-and-gun, fast-paced offense completely failed in Washington this season, ranking a thoroughly disappointing 19th in efficiency, it makes sense that they want a change. With John Wall and Bradley Beal, they already have a great deal of talent before Brooks even looks past the starting backcourt.
Brooks will need to make adjustments and run an offense that doesn’t rely so heavily on Wall, but during his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder, he was criticized for the way he used his stars. Rather than establishing a more team-based offense that took pressure off Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook whenever possible, there were often too many plays that resulted in isolations at key moments that failed to deliver.
And seeing as he had two elite players in his time as head coach, Brook’s 338-207 record and trip to the 2012 NBA Finals have been viewed with a mixture of praise and doubt. If he didn’t have two major stars, would he be able to build up a lesser team?
Currently, it seems to be the trend for teams in search of a new head coach to look among the pool of big names who have recently been fired, rather than searching for promising assistant coaches.
Past success and failures aside, though, there’s no doubt that Brooks has experience. And if the Wizards have made their offer, it looks like it’s only a short matter of time until the hiring is official if Brooks is as enthusiastic as Wojnarowski reports.
Next, the speculation arises as to whether the hiring of Brooks adds some incentive for Durant to make his homecoming to Washington in free agency this summer.
Well, until they look remotely close to being a playoff contender, let alone a championship contender, Wizards fans should probably be realistic and hold off with such thoughts. That is, if you want to avoid heartbreak when he signs elsewhere.
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