Scott Brooks might have enabled the Washington Wizards to win the Eastern Conference championship in the NBA coaching carousel for 2016. (The Minnesota Timberwolves won the Western Conference title when they hired Tom Thibodeau.)
That notion — specifically, that the Wizards might have done something better than any other team in the East — is precisely what makes Ernie Grunfeld’s move such a good one.
This isn’t just a positive development for the Washington organization; the District of Columbia is probably the best possible place Brooks could have landed.
*
Recorded history is divided into AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ).
Similarly, NBA history can be marked by the arrival of certain players: “BMB” and “AMB” would refer to “Before Magic and Bird” and “After Magic and Bird,” otherwise known as the year 1979, the year which truly represented the gateway to the thriving modern NBA we have now.
Within the lives of certain franchises, the arrivals of certain players represent clear points of demarcation between misery and prosperity. The San Antonio Spurs can measure time in terms of life before Tim Duncan, and after him. The Golden State Warriors have two separate players who fit into this construct: Rick Barry and Stephen Curry. Naturally, Steph is the player who has separated eras for Golden State in the present tense.
You can that it’s impossible to ignore the night-and-day transformation in an organization relative to the development of one player.
The Spurs lived in a world BD and AD — before and after Duncan. The Warriors lived on this planet BB and AB — before and after Barry — and then BC and AC, before and after Curry.
Why mention all this in relationship to Scott Brooks, you ask? Fair question.
What might be a meandering and tangential set of thoughts is actually a way of shining a spotlight on the place where Brooks has relocated.
If D.C. has to be the District of Columbia, it can’t stand for something else.
In other words, D.C. cannot be the land of Duncan and Curry.
That, in short, is why this is the ideal spot for Scott Brooks to resume his coaching career.
Tim Duncan won’t be around forever — it only seems that way — but if he’s playing fewer minutes and gets ample nights off during the regular season, he can continue to play for a long time. He’s still one of the best defenders in the league. The San Antonio Spurs, owners of 67 regular season wins, should still be a factor in their present incarnation for a few more seasons at the very least.
Stephen Curry has an ankle to worry about, but provided that he never falls into the Bill Walton spiral of agony, the Golden State Warriors should continue to be a top team in the Western Conference for years to come.
Scott Brooks did not need to become the Houston Rockets’ or the Los Angeles Lakers’ next coach (a statement which is made with full awareness that the Lakers in particular have not made a decision on Byron Scott). He needed to get the heck out of the Western Conference, where climbing past the Warriors and Spurs was — and is, and will continue to be — very difficult.
Yes, LeBron James is in Cleveland, but in light of the way DeMar DeRozan has struggled in these playoffs; the way DeMarre Carroll (after an injury) has lost his explosiveness; and the way Chris Bosh has struggled to become healthy again, it is hardly unreasonable to say that Scott Brooks could at least get the Wizards to the Eastern Conference Finals next season.
The East doesn’t have the larger numbers of bad teams it possessed in previous years, but there’s still a relative lack of high-end heavyweights. Only one non-Cleveland team (Toronto) won more than 48 games this season. With John Wall and Bradley Beal on the scene in D.C., a land without Duncan and Curry should represent a liberated environment for Brooks and the Wizards.
It’s always great when the story of a sport, a great athlete, or a high-profile coach takes a new turn and opens up fresh possibilities. A broken-record version of thematic familiarity would have accompanied Brooks to Houston had he been hired to lead the Rockets. Every NBA blogger would have asked what was going to be different about this push up the Western Conference hillside.
Now in the East, Brooks gets a chance to ply his trade without having to worry about “D and C.” His D.C. home belongs to Wall, Beal, and what will almost surely become a remade frontcourt which will enable Washington to turn the page on several levels after the departure of Randy Wittman.
If Scott Brooks can regularly make East Finals and lead the Wizards to even one NBA Finals appearance, his reputation in NBA circles will improve. That he has such a reasonable chance to hit those targets is exactly why this move makes so much sense for him… and not just the organization which is now in better position to contend for a conference championship.
