NBA News: Oklahoma City Thunder Fire Coach Scott Brooks After Seven Seasons

The Oklahoma City Thunder have confirmed the departure of coach Scott Brooks from the organisation with immediate effect. The move comes a week after the Thunder missed the playoffs this season.

University of Florida’s Billy Donovan and Connecticut’s Kevin Ollie are considered the favourites to replaces Brooks with both having a close connection to general manager Sam Presti. Ollie is also close to Thunder star Kevin Durant, which may be another factor to consider.

Brooks and the entire Thunder team had to deal with injuries throughout the season. Kevin Durant missed the first 17 games of the season with surgery for a right foot injury, which then cropped up again in February and ruled him out of the season. Serge Ibaka missed the final 18 games of the regular season after undergoing knee surgery. Russell Westbrook too missed 15 games with finger and cheekbone injuries, but still produced one of his best seasons and became the NBA scoring champion for the year.

"This is an extremely difficult decision on many levels. This decision is not a reflection of this past season, but rather an assessment of what we feel is necessary at this point in time in order to continually evolve, progress and sustain. We determined that, in order to stimulate progress and put ourselves in the best position next season and as we looked to the future, a transition of this kind was necessary for the program," said general manger Sam Presti in a statement released on the Thunder website.

Brook had a contract with the team till the end of next season, which could have been further extended by the team till 2016-17. He took over from P.J Carleismo in the 2008-09 season, and was voted Coach of the Year in 2009-10 for his 50 game winning record. The team also made the Western Conference finals three times in the last four seasons and Brooks had the highest winning percentage of any coach to have never won an NBA title, with a .620 winning percentage.

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