FanHouse PjCarlesimo

Most in-season coaching moves in the NBA do little more than signal to upset fans that losing is unacceptable or perhaps shift moods in the locker room. But as we argued Saturday, the change in the Oklahoma City foretells larger concerns. Analysts expected Scott Brooks to slow down the fast but ugly Thunder attack when P.J. Carlesimo and top deputy Paul Westhead were sacked. Some fans, like myself, hoped Brooks would also shift Kevin Durant to the small forward position, his more natural home despite 90-some games as a two-guard.

Wish granted, reports Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman.

Durant says he's ready to take on the move full time.

"I definitely am," Durant said. "That's my natural position. I've been playing that mostly my whole life. The last game I felt a lot more comfortable at (small forward), guarding (small forwards) and just helping my team out in different areas. So I'm excited."

From an individual perspective, Durant's numbers should shoot up: his field goal percentage will be much better, adding a perimeter player will eventually space the floor more for his excellent slashing skills to take shape, and you'd expect him to earn a few more rebounds on each end. For the team, it's also a smart move long-term: it's a lot easier to find an undervalued two-guard than a power forward. Of late, teams have been allergic to shooting guards in the draft, with Eric Gordon the only true two taken in the top 10 last June. In the immediately (the next two years), OKC should be able to fill the two slot with a serviceable player. Going forward, it'll be easier to nab a high-power two than it would have been to find a four.

Most players appear diplomatic when a coach gets fired midseason, sure to share hope for tomorrow while careful of stomping on the grave of the unemployed. As Kevin Durant is even-handed/spirited at all times, his comments on the sacking of P.J. Carlesimo and simultaneous promotion of Scott Brooks are not surprising.

"Not taking anything away from P.J., he wanted the best out of us," said Durant. "But Scott did a great job of giving us a little bit of room for error. Once we messed up he just told us what we needed to do better and told us that play was over. I think that kind of made us feel a little better. We just got to continue to build on it."

Honest, measured and expected, just as you'd prefer from a potenital-ridden buck like Durant. There's also another factor I hadn't considered Saturday: with Carlesimo, so-called offensive coordinator Paul Westhead, the guru of go, was sacked. Westhead had implemented a fast offense as Carlesimo's top deputy, one which never resembled anything beautiful because of the vast oceans of inefficiency on the roster.

Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus suggested Brooks would slow things down. (Pelton has since written a lot more on Brooks' background and goals.) The early returns suggest that's right: under Carlesimo on Friday against New Orleans, the Thunder had roughly 99 possessions (despite N.O. playing a slow brand of basketball). Under Brooks on Saturday, the pace was down to 86. It will take time to figure just how much Brooks will slow down the Thunder's attack, but a reverse Tony Barone wouldn't be a shock. (Barone took over for Mike Fratello early in 2006-07. The league's slowest team became one of the fastest overnight. Memphis still sucked, of course. But they sucked quickly.)

I think it is safe to say that P.J. Carlesimo will never be an NBA head coach ever again. It took so long for Carlesimo to overcome the stigma of being the coach that Latrell Sprewell choked -- and when P.J. did eventually get a head job, it was one of the least desirable gigs in modern memory.

The Sonics/Thunder weren't just rebuilding when Carlesimo took the job; the team was completely cratering. In that sense, 21 wins and 74 losses isn't terribly surprising, and the 22% winning percentage shouldn't be completely hung around P.J.'s neck. But it will be. He's never getting an interview for a head job again.

Donyell Marshall wasn't exactly excited about leaving the playoff-bound Cavaliers for the basement-dwelling Sonics, but in the weeks since being traded he's warmed up to his new team.

In the latest entry on his blog, Marshall explains how he found out about the trade (from a reporter calling his cell phone), his blown-out-of-proportion flap with P.J. Carlesimo (it was over by halftime) and what he sees his role being with his new teammates, since he's not, you know, actually playing:

It was difficult, but I believe one reason that they brought a guy like me here was to mentor the young guys. And just like I was close to LeBron – within the first week me and Kevin Durant and Jeff Green talked a lot. Kevin said he really liked having me here and a lot of the players really don't talk to him. I sit down and have conversations with the young guys, and I guess it really wasn't like that before.

I don't know about you, but reading that kind of depressed me. I can imagine that some veterans might resent Durant for being hailed as the franchise's cornerstone even though he's the league's youngest player, but it also shouldn't have taken until the trading deadline for an older player to get into his corner. I know the salary cap dictated most of the team's deadline deals, but hearing this makes me wonder to what degree Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak and Kurt Thomas showed the rookie a cold shoulder.

Fear not, Sonics fans! Donyell Marshall and P.J. Carlesimo might have gotten into a tiff Wednesday night, which resulted in benchside expletives and a thrown (or kicked) Gatorade. But it's all good, because the pair go back. Or at least that's what Marshall tells Percy Allen of the Seattle Times.

"The little disagreement we had earlier was nothing," Marshall said. "It was nothing big. It's small. It's minor. It's something that was done as soon as it happened. We talked about it at halftime. ... [W]e've been friends for a long time. It's nothing. It's over and done with and we'll laugh and joke as soon as we get on the plane.

"I played for him at Golden State so I know how he is and he knows how I am. We've been in arguments in Golden State, so it don't matter. It don't mean anything."

Marshall could very well be protecting himself from a potential fine from the franchise (Gary Washburn of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes Donyell talked to his agent about the incident on Thursday), or Marshall might actually genuinely like P.J. and wants to protect him for similar uprising by the younger Supes. (This would make Donyell the first player in history who played for Carlesimo and simultaneously liked him.)

I can't blame Donyell for being upset, though. One minute, it's LeBron's Halloween party. The next, it's changing Jeff Green's diapers. Tough business for old men.

It does not appear Sonic enigma Robert Swift will play again this season. He totaled 99 minutes this year, which is 99 more than he played in 2006-07. In total, the high lottery selection of him has been a disaster of the worst sort. Why? Because not only has he failed to perform (due to injuries and a botched rehab), but also because Seattle knows no more about his potential today than it did in 2004.

P.J. Carlesimo tells the Tacoma News Tribune he expects to see Swift back with the team next fall. Swift's a restricted free agent, in the same boat as fellows like Ben Gordon, Emeka Okafor, and Andre Iguodala. The sensical procedure might be for Swift to sign his one-year qualifying offer ($3.6 million) so that Swift has a shot to rehab his image while Seattle gets 82 more games to figure out if this kid's going to be any good.

Will he turn out to be anything in the NBA? In the only season where he stood upright for enough measurable minutes (2005-06), he was good. He has the tools to be an effective rebounder, and his defense is rumored to be of a fair quality (which is a vital need for this Seattle squad). There's little doubt he could step in immediately and be no worse than Darko Milicic, and probably a good deal better within a few years. But my confidence in this estimate is muted; when you don't play for basically 3-1/2 seasons, people are not going to trust you can ever perform. Swift's going to have to prove it.

Clearly, Wally Szczerbiak has spent this season at odds with coach P.J. Carlesimo. But it's worse than you'd think. ESPN's Marc Stein gets the money quotes.

I wanted to come in and try to be the leader. I was healthy and I wanted to try to help replace Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, but the franchise had alternate ideas. ... They're doing it kind of backwards, but that's the way they wanted to do it. ...

But I think the writing is on the wall. We've got Jeff [Green] and [Kevin Durant] at my position and those are the guys of the future. I don't know if I have time to wait for this rebuilding, so I would definitely welcome [a trade].

Without question, Sonics general manager Sam Presti would definitely welcome a trade, too. Next season, Szczerbiak is slated to make about twice as much as any other SuperSonic... while getting less than half the possible minutes at two-guard and small forward. If Presti could find some extra cap relief, there's little doubt he'd give up Wally in a heartbeat.

(Stick this one in that file about players whose fat contracts end up ruining the end of their careers.)

With all the losing, and the practical homelessness, and the sheer lack of attention for anyone without the initials K.D. in Sonicsland, it's little surprise things have turned rancid. Given P.J. Carlesimo's NBA track record, you'd expect some... personality conflicts under his boot watch. But would you imagine Wally Szczerbiak getting brushed back by Coach Carlesimo?

Wally tells Gary Washburn of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer what happened when he and fellow veteran Kurt Thomas asserted themselves early on in the doomed campaign.

"I tried to be kind of vocal at the beginning of the year," he said. "And it didn't seem that was my place really, so I kind of backed off. The beginning of the year I was told I was talking a little too much, so I have kind of kept my mouth shut as far as that goes."

When asked who told him to be quiet, Szczerbiak said Carlesimo.

Does Wally Szczerbiak have to choke a coach?

All those fears exhibited by every fanbase connected to P.J. rumors over the last few years are not yet justified, but this is good example of rampant concerns folks had. Perhaps it's not so much the unending screaming (plenty of coaches do that), but the insatiable demand for control. I mean, you don't want your two most-experienced veterans -- dudes with flawless reputations -- helping encourage your young guys? If true, it's absurd.

Recently, we've spent much ink many pixels on the body sculpting ways of Greg Oden. Unable to work out in normal fashion whilst recovering from the microfracture, Oden took to the weight bench, gaining roughly 30 pounds of upper body muscle in a month or so. The Blazers got nervous about the extra weight's impact on his recovery and shut him down a little bit.

Seattle's Robert Swift was not so lucky to have suits breathing down his neck over the summer. The once-gangly Sonic spent last season on the shelf with a jacked knee suffered in preseason; he added 40 pounds of muscle (and possibly a gallon of ink). Now, all the bodybuilding is being blamed for Swift's incomplete knee recovery, according to a Percy Allen story in the Seattle Times.

"He might be too big," the Sonics coach [P.J. Carlesimo] said after a brief practice Thursday morning. "He worked hard in the summer ... but right now the additional weight is a little bit of a challenge and he's working on shedding a few pounds and that will help him out with the rehab."

The continuing knee problems have helped limit Bob to 81 minutes of playing time this year. My question: How much can you blame the problems on the recent turmoil the Sonics franchise has seen? From April 19 to July 3 -- almost three months -- Swift didn't have a coach. I can't find corroboration the strength and conditioning staff remained in place in Seattle during that span, though I doubt it -- KeyArena was mostly abandoned all summer. Did Swift add all the bulk only after Carlesimo came to town? Not likely -- by the middle of August Seattle journalists were already reporting on Bob's new bod. I'm not saying Clay Bennett's lack of... zest to fill key franchise openings in the spring could cost Swift's year and/or career. But I'm guessing having someone to pay attention to your 21-year-old . I'm not saying insecure center would help in such situations.

There hasn't been a lot of anxiety on what position Kevin Durant will play in Seattle; if nothing else, the lack of standout talent beyond KD has quieted any real concern the Sonics won't be the kid's celestial body to hold atop his shoulders. Small forward, shooting guard, power forward -- does it really matter?

If it does, P.J. Carlesimo's announcement Durant will be the team's starting two-guard may be of import.

"He's like -- he's not like Magic Johnson at all -- but he's like Magic in that you can play him probably any of four positions, if not five. Playing the 2, he's not going to get beat up, box to box, the whole game."

Smart move, when you put it that way. You hope KD will get the chance to mix it up a little; he did average 11 rebounds a game last year and his size and agility indicate he could bring a devastating post game to the table -- and the sooner the better, from a fan's standpoint. (See: LeBron's inability to deliver a consistent post repertoire and his assumed comfort level as a perimeter-oriented player despite his incomparable physical gifts.) Durant can be an All-Pro shooting guard... but we all expect much more. We haven't seen complacency at all for him, but you can't help but pray he presses on to explore all his potential, of which being the most imposing offensive player in memory is included. But preserving KD's body while he grows into NBA strength can't hurt, and I heartily endorse the decision. For now.