- Scott Brooks was a candidate for the Rockets coaching job, but he wasn’t a favorite, according to Feigen, who writes in the same piece. Marc Stein of ESPN.com heard Brooks and Jeff Van Gundy were the two front-runners for the Houston gig shortly before Brooks took the Wizards job instead.
- At his introductory press conference, new Wizards coach Scott Brooks sidestepped all questions regarding Kevin Durant coming to Washington, with GM Ernie Grunfeld stressing to reporters that Brooks was there to coach the team’s current roster and not to lure Durant, Stephen Wyno of The Associated Press relays.
- If the Wizards intend to maintain their “pace-and-space offense,” they need a playmaker off the bench who’s capable of sinking the long ball and should consider signing Seth Curry, Ben Standig of CSN Mid-Atlantic.com writes. The Kings combo guard averaged 16.4 points, 5.3 assists and 3.0 rebounds while shooting 45.9% from the field, including 48.9% from beyond the arc over Sacramento’s last seven contests, Standig notes. Curry, 25, has a player option on his deal for 2016/17 worth $1,015,696.
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The Wizards have officially announced the hiring of Scott Brooks as the team’s new head coach, confirming an April 21st report from Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical that they had an agreement in principle (via Twitter). It’s a five-year arrangement that will pay Brooks approximately $7MM per season, according to Wojnarowski.
“Scott’s approach to the game, track record for player development and ability to communicate with his players made him the clear-cut choice to guide our team as we continue to rise as contenders in the Eastern Conference,” owner Ted Leonsis said in the team’s statement. “His accomplishments as a coach are matched only by his sterling reputation around the league and we’re confident that our fans and players alike will embrace and support him as he leads the way.”
In seven seasons as an NBA coach, all with Oklahoma City, Brooks has a regular season record of 338-207. His career postseason mark is 39-34.
Though a lag of several days took place between the reported agreement and the signing, there was apparently a time element involved in the negotiations, with Washington wanting to secure Brooks prior to the Rockets post opening up, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Brooks and Jeff Van Gundy were the reported co-favorites for Houston’s head coaching job. The Wizards and Brooks simply decided to take their time once the agreement was in place, tweets Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post, indicating that they didn’t hit any sort of snag.
“Scott was our top candidate and we moved quickly on an agreement to make him our head coach,” Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld said in the statement. “His presence, the core players we have returning and our cap flexibility this summer have us all looking forward to the possibilities of what our team can accomplish.”
The Rockets still haven’t officially decided the fate of interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who reportedly enhanced his chances of keeping the job when the team clinched a playoff berth on the final night of the regular season, but the latest reports appear to cast significant doubt on his return. Brooks was reportedly wary of the uncertainty surrounding Dwight Howard‘s player option, as Ken Berger of CBSSports.com noted, even though Howard has long been expected to opt out. Stein reported earlier that the Rockets were second only to the Wizards among the options Brooks was considering but pointed to Houston’s focus on the playoffs as a disadvantage.
“I am beyond thrilled to return to coaching with a team that is filled with such potential and to be able to join an organization that is committed to helping us reach our goals,” Brooks said, according to the statement. “I’m very grateful to Ted Leonsis and Ernie Grunfeld for this opportunity and I can promise the great fans of Washington that we will work extremely hard both on and off the court to represent them in a manner fitting the most powerful city in the world.”
The hiring of Brooks is especially interesting given the looming unrestricted free agency of Kevin Durant, whom Brooks coached in Oklahoma City. Durant, who is from Washington, D.C., is almost assuredly going to be the franchise’s top priority this offseason, though reports have downplayed the idea that the Brooks hiring will be nearly enough to reel in the free agent prize.
Washington finished 41-41 this season but missed the playoffs. Former coach Randy Wittman guided the Wizards to back-to-back appearances in the second round of the playoffs the past two years, the first such accomplishment for the franchise since it made consecutive trips to the NBA finals in 1978 and 1979. However, a shift to a more perimeter-oriented attack this season fell flat, and multiple players publicly criticized the coach. These factors led to Wittman’s dismissal last week.
Wizards point guard John Wall insists that hiring Scott Brooks as the team’s new coach wasn’t a ploy to attract Kevin Durant, according to Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. The Wizards are expected to be among the teams pursuing Durant in free agency, and Brooks served as his coach for seven seasons in Oklahoma City. Wall said he is “very excited” to have Brooks on board and says the move is about the current team, not about getting Durant’s attention. “We didn’t sign Scotty Brooks to say, ‘Okay, Scotty, go get him. You got to bring us Kevin Durant,’” Wall said. “We got Scotty Brooks because we feel like he can help John Wall and make him a better player and make our team get to the next step. We didn’t get Scotty Brooks just to get Kevin Durant. That’s not what Scott is on board to do. And I hope everybody doesn’t expect just because we got Scotty Brooks, he’s automatically going to get K.D., he’s going to automatically jump.”
There’s more news from Washington:
- Durant said he’s happy to see Brooks get the opportunity in Washington, but he dismissed the idea that it will affect his free agency decision, tweets Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman. “I’m not really into theories,” Durant said. “I’m focused on [the playoff series with] the Mavericks.”
- Otto Porter should continue to improve under Brooks, writes Ben Standig of CSN Mid-Atlantic. Standig expects Porter to be the clear starter at small forward entering next season and notes Brooks’ record of developing young players with the Thunder. Porter averaged 11.6 points and 5.2 rebounds per game this season and is under contract to the Wizards through 2016/17.
- Dez Wells doesn’t seem likely to rejoin the Wizards as he tries to earn a spot in the NBA, according to J. Michael of CSNMid-Atlantic. Wells hooked up with Washington after going undrafted last summer but suffered a thumb injury in mini-camp before summer league play. He spent the season with Oklahoma City’s affiliate in the D-League and is expected to stay associated with the Thunder this offseason.
The Wizards’ deal to hire Scott Brooks as their new coach was a safe move for the franchise, as he is likely to be a solid leader for the team, writes Jerry Brewer of The Washington Post. But the jury still remains out on how successful Brooks can be without Kevin Durant to aid him, Brewer adds, with the scribe also noting that Brooks was fired after a season that saw the small forward limited to just 27 games. It’s also remains to be seen how well Brooks will coexist with John Wall after the coach had his difficulties at times with Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City, with many believing Brooks’ offense limited the point guard’s productivity, Brewer adds.
Washington may have to hope that Brooks doesn’t require the presence of Durant to succeed, as friends of the player have indicated that he doesn’t want to sign with the Wizards and deal with the pressure of being surrounded by family, friends and hangers-on from his native Washington. Here’s more from the nation’s capital:
- Some possible candidates for Brooks’ coaching staff in Washington include Raptors assistant Rex Kalamian, Thunder assistant Maurice Cheeks and former Nets interim coach Tony Brown, David Aldridge of NBA.com relays (Twitter links).
- Brooks is an ardent believer in the potential of 2013 No. 3 overall pick Otto Porter, Aldridge notes. Porter, 22, appeared in 75 games for the Wizards this season and averaged 11.6 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists, all of which were career highs.
- The deal with Brooks is the culmination of the team’s moves the past few seasons, all of which were aimed at luring Durant to Washington D.C., writes J. Michael of CSN Mid-Atlantic. The front office doesn’t view Brooks’ five-year pact as a risk, seeing the coach as a known quantity, Michael adds. Brooks should bring a fresh start to the team’s locker room, though he would be wise to add a disciplinarian to his coaching staff to help balance out his affable personality, the scribe opines.
- Durant said today that he’s happy Brooks landed the new position but insisted he’s focused on the playoffs when asked if the move increased his chances of joining the Wizards, as Erik Horne of The Oklahoman relays.
The specter of a head coaching vacancy on the Lakers intrigued Scott Brooks, but Washington’s quick work to secure him on a five-year, $35MM deal cut off both the Lakers, who’ve yet to decide on the fate of Byron Scott, and the Rockets, TNT’s David Aldridge tweets. Houston reportedly made him one of the favorites for its job but still has interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff in place. All five seasons of Brooks’ contract with the Wizards will be guaranteed, Aldridge hears (Twitter link), and his $7MM annual take ties him with Rick Carlisle for the highest salary among NBA coaches who don’t also have player personnel control, notes Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post (Twitter link). See more on the impending Brooks hiring and other issues from the nation’s capital:
- The Brooks deal, which will pay him more than double the roughly $3MM a year that Randy Wittman was making, signals that owner Ted Leonsis is planning to spare no expense in free agency this summer, even if Kevin Durant takes a pass on returning to his native D.C., argues Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post.
- Brooks would still be coaching the Thunder if Durant really had his heart set on playing for him, one league source told Bontemps for the same piece. Some of Durant’s friends who spoke with Chris Mannix of The Vertical cast serious doubt on the idea of Durant playing for the Wizards.
- Jared Dudley would prefer to re-sign with the Wizards this summer, but he wants to do so with the security of a three-year contract, as he tells Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. That jibes with an earlier report from J. Michael of CSN Mid-Atlantic, who wrote that Dudley was open to returning to Washington as long as the team fired Wittman, a move that took place last week. Dudley would also like to see the Wizards re-sign Alan Anderson and Garrett Temple, as Castillo relays.
Kevin Durant is unlikely to sign with the Wizards this summer because he doesn’t want to deal with the pressure of being surrounded by family, friends and hangers-on from his native Washington, friends of his tell Chris Mannix of The Vertical. Instead, the Warriors and Spurs will be in the mix for him with the Celtics a darkhorse, Mannix writes, reiterating his report from March, when he also cited Golden State, San Antonio and Boston.
Durant’s lack of fondness for the Wizards doesn’t have to do with Scott Brooks, who’s reportedly agreed to become the team’s next coach, as Mannix details, and indeed, Durant made a point of praising the former Thunder coach last week. The one-time MVP has largely been mum over the years about the possibility of joining the Wizards, despite rampant speculation, and he downplayed the idea when asked about it in 2014, as Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman notes.
Still, the Wizards will encourage Brooks to retain assistant coach David Atkins, who was a high school assistant coach for Durant, as TNT’s David Aldridge hears (Twitter link), and they’ll nonetheless make their long-planned effort to sign Durant this summer, according to Mannix. The Warriors instead have appeared to be significant front-runners to land the four-time scoring champ should he decide to leave the Thunder, as The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported in February, though Mannix puts Golden State on equal footing with the Spurs in his latest report. It was widely believed the Celtics would move onto Durant’s radar, Mannix wrote last month, and the latest dispatch from the scribe who also works for CSN New England suggests that Boston would be Durant’s top Eastern Conference choice if he wants to escape the brutal competition atop the Western Conference.
People around the NBA sense that Durant is “very much in play” and that a decent chance exists he’ll leave Oklahoma City, as Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck said recently, though Durant’s mother this week cited his loyalty to the Thunder, at least in terms of maintaining focus on the playoffs.
- Randy Wittman‘s refusal to criticize Nene was at the heart of the reason John Wall recently cited a lack of accountability on the Wizards, sources told J. Michael of CSN Mid-Atlantic. Other Wizards players also saw it as part of the ex-coach’s declining favor within the locker room this past season, Michael writes. Wittman was also loath to criticize Ramon Sessions, who went so far as to ask the coach to be more critical of him, according to Michael. Washington fired Wittman last week, and Nene and Sessions are set to become free agents this summer.
The Wizards have made Scott Brooks a formal offer to become their next head coach, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical. Washington president Ernie Grunfeld met with Brooks in California today and made the former Thunder coach an official offer, the Vertical scribe adds. Brooks has been enthusiastic about reaching an agreement with the Wizards and could complete negotiations on a pact that would pay him approximately $7MM per season, Wojnarowski notes.
There is apparently a time element involved in the negotiations, with the Wizards wanting to secure Brooks prior to the Rockets post opening up, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Brooks and Jeff Van Gundy are reportedly the co-favorites for the Rockets head coaching job. Houston still hasn’t officially decided the fate of interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who reportedly enhanced his chances of keeping the job when the team clinched a playoff berth on the final night of the regular season, but the latest reports appear to cast significant doubt on his return. Brooks is wary of the uncertainty surrounding Dwight Howard‘s player option, as Ken Berger of CBSSports.com reported, even though Howard has long been expected to opt out. Stein reported earlier that the Rockets were second only to the Wizards among the options Brooks was considering but pointed to Houston’s focus on the playoffs as a disadvantage.
In seven seasons as an NBA coach, all with Oklahoma City, Brooks has a regular season record of 338-207. His career postseason mark is 39-34.