Washington Wizards: Scott Brooks will make or break playoff push

With the Washington Wizards still hovering at three games below the 8th seed, there’s one person who can keep them from getting there: Scott Brooks.

It’s nearly the end, Washington Wizards fans. And while there’s many different ways this season can go, many people want to see our Wizards make the playoffs and get the young core some experience.

Obviously most Washington Wizards fans want to see more Wizards basketball, and that includes me. However, there’s one very important obstacle standing in our way: the Wizards head coach, Scott Brooks.

It’s true, Scotty Brooks has had his shining moments, including a Coach of the Year award in 2010, though one could argue he got pretty lucky with stumbling into a lineup that featured Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. And after missing the playoffs one season, Brooks came in and snagged the best record in 30 years for our Washington Wizards squad.

He also has previous playoff experience and it runs deep, helping the Oklahoma City Thunder appear in the Western Conference finals two times. In seven seasons as their head coach, he the Thunder made the playoffs five times. That playoff experience will come a long way in leading this young squad to outperforming expectations.

Scott Brooks understand what it takes to win in this league and he can be the shining example for a bunch of early-20’s players who may or may not know what winning is all about. There is a potential here for Brooks to turn every criticism Wizards fans have had about him on its head and lead our team to victory, snagging that playoff berth.

But there’s many criticisms too, from his militaristic style of running things to his unimaginative offensive schemes and uninspired offensive play calling. Scott Brooks is all about structure, which in my experience can be a good thing if you have a team that completely buys in, but the verdict is out on this Washington Wizards squad on whether or not they’ve done exactly that.

Bradley Beal is probably the player that Brooks would most want to “reel in” and the opposite effect of a real micromanager style is that player’s with explosive and unique abilities, like Real Deal Beal, get pushed into a box that doesn’t quite fit them. Or worse, they accept their boxed in fate and fail to develop further, ruining their chance at future stardom.

As an example, let’s take Isaac Bonga, whose main strength is his athleticism combined with court vision and the ability to handle the ball in the open court. Sounds almost like LeBron James, though obviously Bonga is never going to be The King. He has a similar skill set.

So why is Bonga only averaging 1.1 assists, and only getting 10.5 percent usage on the season? That usage number is down from last year, by the way. If “Point Bonga” is going to be a thing, Scott Brooks needs to think outside the box and get the young wing the ball in his hands in positions to create, which may be a tall task to ask of Scott Brooks.

In Oklahoma City, Scott Brooks was known for having above average defense without necessarily having the personnel to pull it off (here’s looking at you Westbrook and James Harden), but that’s yet to materialize this season on this young Washington Wizards squad, as our defense gives the opposing team a virtual lay up line game in and game out.

Lastly, Scott Brooks has already ruined the development of our team with his minutes distribution when our young guys are healthy. Why in the world was our center 16/16/16 between Ian Mahinmi, Thomas Bryant, and Moritz Wagner last game, for instance?

I understand TB is just getting back from a stress reaction, so his minutes should assuredly be down, but why is that defensive slouch Mahinmi even seeing the floor when you have a 22-year-old Rising Star on the team?

The time to develop rookies, to be honest, has already passed us if we’re going to make a playoff push. Much of the reason it didn’t happen was because of the injuries, but Scott Brooks did not help matters in the least, failing to enable the development of Admiral Schofield, Isaac Bonga, and Moritz Wagner.

Playing the veterans now is probably our best chance to win, which is really an indictment of Scott Brooks as the head of a basketball program. I guess we’ll see how these final 28 games shake out, and hopefully get a win over the reeling Chicago Bulls tonight.