Five years ago — before the championship-or-bust expectations, emotion-filled MVP speeches, and shirtless True Religion ads — the Oklahoma City Thunder were a collection of young, scrappy, fresh-faced former lottery picks led by their fiery young head coach, Scott Brooks.
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The youthful group would experience their first 50-win season together — which marked a staggering 27-win improvement when compared to the year prior.
Things were going swimmingly — their star small forward, Kevin Durant, captured his of first of many scoring titles; their mercurial second-year point guard, Russell Westbrook, exploded onto the national scene during their first round tilt of the NBA playoffs against the defending champs, Los Angeles Lakers; and their mild-mannered coach, serving in his first full season as the head man of OKC, was awarded the NBA Coach of the Year award, and deservedly so.
Back then, pundits weren’t criticizing his in-game adjustments, lack of creativity on offense, or his head-scratching allegiance towards a particular lineup; most were too busy praising his ability to develop his battalion of young prospects, and how he got them to play with such vigorous emotion and effort.
Fast forward to present day, the very same highly esteemed, baby-faced Brooks is now out of a job after failing to reach the 50-win mark — despite the prolonged absence of last season’s MVP, Kevin Durant — for the first time in his six full seasons as an NBA head coach.
While he may have failed in his quest to push the Thunder over the top, and he’s far from a schematic genius, one thing is for certain: Brooks is a damn good coach — especially for a young, developing team. Players play hard for him, young prospects improve under his leadership — he is an exemplary leader to say the least.
This brings us to the Minnesota Timerwolves, a team filled with inexperienced, sprightly talent in their early-20s.
Let me know if this sounds eerily familiar: the team is led by a gangly, highly-touted small forward who is coming off a Rookie of the Year campaign (in Andrew Wiggins), houses an erratic combo guard blessed with a nonpareil brand of run-and-jump athleticism (in Zach LaVine), an explosive, ultra-aggressive barrel-chested left-handed scoring swingman (in Shabazz Muhammad), and a top-four lottery pick in this year’s draft, which almost everyone hopes to yield a certain lanky, shot-blocking big man with range (in Karl-Anthony Towns).
Now I’m not saying the aforementioned foursome is the next KD, Westbrook, James Harden, and Serge Ibaka; however, the potential is certainly there.
And Scott Brooks has proven he can hone and refine top-level elite talent. He let Russ be Russ during the early 2010s, when everyone else told him to move him to the off-guard position. He encouraged Ibaka to extend his range out to 20 feet and spawned his growth as a rare shot-altering stretch 4.
He let Durant handle the ball and fine-tune his ballhandling skills at 6-foot-11, despite the high volume of turnovers KD was committing just several seasons ago.
It’s his unwavering support that inspired the KDs, the Hardens, and the Westbrooks to develop into perennial MVP candidates. The same kind of support Wiggins, LaVine, and their 2015 lottery pick can use going forward.
Dunking with Wolves
However, incumbent coach and president of basketball operations, Flip Saunders, has expressed on numerous occasions his desire for coaching; though, majority owner, Glen Taylor, did recently comment on how he would like Saunders to “eventually” concentrate on his duties as the de facto general manager.
Specifically, Taylor told Phil Ervin of Fox Sports that, “I still like the idea of having Flip over the responsibility of selecting players, putting the team together, working with him on that, and I don’t want to overburden him with coaching,” Taylor said. “My thought was always that if you could have yourself the right coach, then I’d like to have Flip just have the president of basketball operations (responsibilities) and take care of all that and have a coach and have him responsible for the coaching.”
For now, it seems as though Saunders is steadfast to continue his coaching career; but, if he does decide to take up Taylor’s advice, the Wolves should look no further than Scott Brooks to assume the job, and usher in this new, invigorating era of Minnesota Timberwolves basketball.
Next: Top 5 Games Of Timberwolves' 2014-15 Season
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