NBA Rumors: By declining the OKC Thunder’s head coaching vacancy, does Kevin Ollie know something that we don’t?
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Timing does not come second nature to the Oklahoma City Thunder. When the franchise is about to enter, perhaps, its most important season in its short history thus far, they are currently sitting without a head coach.
After firing Scott Brooks a few days ago, in hopes of quickly finding his replacement, rumors began to swirl around the idea of Kevin Ollie leaving UCONN to coach his old teammates Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and the Thunder. It sounds like a good idea on paper and logically, after all they had been reportedly recruiting Ollie for about a year, but there’s only one problem with this grand idea — Ollie reportedly doesn’t have much interest, if any at all, in coaching the Thunder.
Ollie reportedly removed himself from consideration for the Thunder head coaching job. Uhmm…
UConn's Kevin Ollie has removed himself from consideration for the OKC head coaching position, sources told @CBSSports. Story coming.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) April 23, 2015
Didn’t Ollie know what was happening here when the Thunder fired Brooks — if in fact OKC was actually “recruiting” Ollie for the past year? If this was the Thunder’s master plan all along, or for the past year, wouldn’t they kind of make sure Ollie was in on it?
Nevertheless, it seems like the Thunder are going to have to deepen its search. But what’s more interesting is dissecting why Ollie doesn’t want the Thunder job. It’s probably the best vacancy the NBA has seen since the Lakers job, with Kobe Bryant and Shaquile O’Neal in the midst of their primes, opened. This isn’t an NBA job that is open every year. It’s not even a job that’s open once every 10 years. It’s a once in a generation job opening.
Ollie, who reportedly eventually wants to make the move to the NBA one day, declined.
But why?
The only idea that comes to my mind is that he knows something that we don’t about Kevin Durant.
Kevin Ollie hangs up the phone with KD’s agent. Calls Presti: “Nah, I’m good."
— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) April 23, 2015
While this tweet (above) comes off as more of a joke than anything, it could also very well be exactly what happened yesterday. Ollie and Durant are probably friends on some level. If that is so, what would stop Ollie from calling Durant for some assurance beyond next season?
Nothing.
In fact, it would be quite ignorant for Ollie not to check on Durant’s thought process as he enters the final year of his contract in OKC, before hypothetically taking the Thunder head coaching vacancy.
So, I’m just going to take a stab in the dark and assume Ollie did call Durant and he told him that he wasn’t certain he was re-signing with OKC in the summer. Or perhaps Durant went all the way to say that he wasn’t re-signing with the Thunder.
In response, Ollie removed himself from consideration for the vacancy.
Ollie could very well know something we all don’t about Kevin Durant. In fact, I’m sure he almost certainly does.