Thanks to the Thunder owning the Western Conference’s best record at the league deadline, Thunder head coach Scott Brooks and his staff will represent the team in Orlando during All-Star Weekend. Standing at 21-6, the Thunder also own the NBA’s second best overall record as the All-Star break approaches. Two years after winning the NBA’ s Coach of the Year award, Brooks has another accolade to add to his resume.
“To make an All-Star team, it’s a celebration of everybody in the organization,” Brooks said. “You don’t get it by yourself, you need everybody on this team to help you have success. That’s what teams are about. That’s what we’re about, that’s what we’re building.”
Not only is Brooks being honored, but his assistant coaching staff will also have the opportunity to coach the Western Conference All-Stars. The Thunder staff will see familiar faces when they look at their All-Star roster, as Kevin Durant, who was selected by fans as a starter, and Russell Westbrook, who was selected by Western Conference head coaches as a reserve, will both participate in Sunday's showcase event.
“Guys are getting better,” Brooks said. “As a coaching staff you want to improve your players, you want to make your players better every day. I think we’ve done a good job with that. Not just the coaching staff, but the training staff and everybody in our organization believes in development.”
In Brooks and his staff’s first year in Oklahoma City and his first as a head coach the Thunder went 22-47, but since then his team has compiled a 126-65 regular season record. In addition, the Thunder has enjoyed two playoff berths under Brooks’ tutelage, including a Western Conference Finals appearance in 2011. Brooks, however, knows that he and his staff still have work to do in order to continue to improve moving forward.
“We can’t rest on it,” Brooks said. “We have to figure out ways to get better in how we coach, how we train, always pushing it forward and our guys have done a good job of buying into what we do. We give them most of the credit. They’re the workers out of the group.”