The Washington Wizards have gotten off to a dreadful start to the season in spite of renewed high hopes. Head coach Scott Brooks may have to take the fall.
The Washington Wizards came into the new season with renewed hopes after trading John Wall to the Houston Rockets for Russell Westbrook this offseason. While Wall might have a rejuvenated season himself this year, the Wizards were nearly a playoff team without any contributions last year from him and it seemed like adding a talent like Westbrook could only help.
Instead, the Wizards are off to a miserable 0-4 start to what was supposed to be a competitive season, and there’s always a fall guy when expectations aren’t met. Because you can’t fire players in the NBA, that ends up being the head coach more often than not, and as a result, Scott Brooks is on the hottest seat of all.
The Wizards head coach entered the season as the odds-on favorite to be the next head coach fired, according to sportsbook BetOnline. With Westbrook coming off a season where he showed flashes of his MVP run, this winless opening to their campaign isn’t going to go over well with ownership or management.
Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis is renowned for excessive loyalty if anything, generally requiring only the most clear-cut malpractice to pull the trigger on a firing, and that could keep Brooks around a bit longer than might be the case with other organizations.
However, if the ship doesn’t get righted quickly and the Wizards don’t vault back into playoff contention, there’s only one way to go.
Scott Brooks may not be to blame for the Washington Wizards’ start
It won’t be fair to blame Brooks for the failings of this team, to be sure. Westbrook has been at his least efficient, shooting 41.4 percent from the floor, just 47.9 percent from 2-point range and a startling 10.0 percent from 3-point range. He’s scoring 19.3 points per game on 21 shooting possessions per game, and even though he has his lowest usage since the second season of his career at 29.7 percent, his inefficiency can’t help but bog the offense down.
Davis Bertans has been operating with a minutes limit, restricting how useful he can be, and Bradley Beal has been misfiring from 3-point range, hitting just 24.0 percent from long distance. To top it off, at its best, this team wasn’t going to be a high-level contender, so they have less margin for error than many teams have.
It might not be fair, but fairness isn’t part of the equation when it comes to dismissing a head coach from his job in the NBA. As the saying goes, a coach is hired to be fired, and even when things are going well it’s only a matter of time until they aren’t and he’s out of here.
In spite of Westbrook being partially to blame for this poor start, he may also be Scott Brooks’ best advocate. Thanks to their time together with the OKC Thunder, Westbrook’s advocacy could buy him time. But at a certain point, wins are going to have to come or there won’t be anything even he can do to save his job with the Washington Wizards.