Through a dismal Blazer season, Brooks says he still loves it here

Scotty Brooks (left) with head coach Chauncey Billups (courtesy Bruce Ely/Trail Blazers)

For nearly three decades, Scott Brooks made visits to Portland to play against the Trail Blazers — for the first 10 years as a player, then another 18 as a coach.

So it has been from a new perspective for Brooks in his first season as an assistant coach that he views the Blazers, working on the staff of Chauncey Billups.

In the most dismal of Blazer seasons — a 27-55 campaign in which the Blazers raised the white flag in the second half, disdaining victory in pursuit of a draft pick that never materialized — Brooks still gained a new appreciation for the city, the state of Oregon and the team’s fan base.

“I always knew the Blazers had one of the best crowds in the NBA,” Brooks says during a recent lunch with a reporter he has known for many years. “What they did this year was pretty incredible considering our record. They kept coming out and supporting us. I love the fans. I love the people here.

Brooks and Billups go over the stat sheet after a game (courtesy Bruce Ely/Trail Blazers)

“And the area is beautiful. All the surrounding neighborhoods. … I’ve been to the Coast a couple of times. I like to drive, and there’s not a lot of places like Oregon. Sometimes on the drive in to Moda Center before games, you can see Mount Hood on one side and Mount St. Helens on the other. It’s breathtaking.”

Imagine how much the central California native would have liked it in normal times, when the Blazers are playoff worthy and parts of the downtown area don’t look like a war zone.

But Brooks isn’t complaining. He still considers his first season in Portland a success under the circumstances. With the Blazers shutting down their key guys — Damian Lillard, Jusuf Nurkic and Anferee Simons, among others, and unloading CJ McCollum before the trade deadline — Billups was left with a G League-like roster. They made the best of the situation.

“When you don’t have your best players, it’s hard to win in this league,” Brooks says. “You can manage to win a few games here and there, but we lost our best players for the bulk of the season. That being said, we had a bunch of young players who were fighting hard every day. We weren’t not trying to win. We were trying to get better as a group.

“In a weird way, it was actually enjoyable. Chauncey handled it well, and the players were playing hard every night. I’ve been on teams as a player, and I’ve seen teams where, when you’re not going to have a chance to win, it gets ugly. Our guys practiced hard, did what they needed to do and got a great experience. Hopefully moving forward, there are a lot of good things that will result from it.”

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Brooks, 56, started his 10-year NBA playing career in 1988, a year before I began covering the Blazers for The Oregonian. Back in those days, he was “Scotty” Brooks, a 5-11, 165-pound guard who was heady, tenacious, a good shooter, but undersized and often overmatched in the talent department. He started only seven games in his career — never again after the second season — but made himself enough of an asset that he played for six franchises and lasted a decade. When he walked onto the floor in the Land of the Giants, he didn’t fit, but there he was, making a place for himself in the NBA. I admired the hell out of him.

Brooks heads to the arena for another game (courtesy Bruce Ely/Trail Blazers)

I first spoke with Brooks while covering the 1994 NBA Finals, won by Houston in seven games over New York. Scotty averaged 5.2 points and 2.0 assists in 16.8 minutes for the Rockets during the regular season, but wasn’t in the rotation during the Finals.

On off days, media availability gave reporters access to all players. One day Brooks was sitting by himself (as usual during that series — he didn’t play a second), so I went over and chatted with him. Seemed like a great guy. When I would see him before games in the years after that, we would exchange a few words.

After his playing days, Scotty surfaced as an assistant coach — first in Denver, then in Sacramento, then in Seattle as an assistant to P.J. Carlesimo. When the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City in 2008, Carlesimo was fired after a 1-12 start and Brooks inserted as interim head coach. The Thunder went 21-35 the rest of the way and Brooks got a new contract as head coach for the following season.

In 2009-10, behind young stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and a rookie sixth man named James Harden, the Thunder went 50-32 and made the playoffs. Brooks was honored as NBA Coach of the Year.

In seven seasons as the Thunder’s head man, Brooks’ teams went 338-207 (.620) in the regular season and 39-34 in the playoffs, reaching the NBA Finals in 2012. He twice was coach of the West team in the All-Star Game. After going 45-37 and missing the playoffs for the first time in 2014-15, Brooks was fired.

He took a year off to recharge and spend more time with his family — wife Sherry and children Chance and Lexi. He visited five different NBA training camps the following season. He spent two weeks in Spain with national team coach Sergio Scariolo.

“I got to watch European basketball, which was fantastic,” he says. “I loved what I did that year.”

Brooks was then hired as head coach at Washington. Led by guards John Wall and Bradley Beal, the Wizards made the playoffs the first two seasons, going 49-31 and 43-39. A rash of injuries to key players, including Wall, helped cause a dip to 32-50 in 2018-19.  With Wall out the entire 2019-20 season, the Wizards fell to 25-47. In 2020-21, with Westbrook teaming with Beal in the backcourt, Washington rebounded from a 3-12 start to finish the regular season 34-38, then won the play-in game to make the playoffs.

“We had seven of our top 10 players out for three weeks with COVID, and we still made the playoffs,” Brooks recalls. “That was a big achievement.”

Even so, Brooks couldn’t come to terms with the Wizards on a new contract and was let go. He figured it was time for another year away from coaching, returning to his home in Newport Beach, Calif.

“That’s what I thought I was going to do,” Brook says. “Then Chauncey called.”

They hardly knew each other. Ironically, they were briefly teammates. In 1996, toward the end of his playing career, Brooks was a throw-in piece in a trade that sent him from New York to Boston. Billups was a rookie guard with the Celtics. Shortly thereafter, Boston waived Brooks.

“We were teammates for two days,” Brooks says. “It might have been a week. I went to one practice, then left the next day because I knew they were going to cut me.”

Last summer, the Lakers had made overtures about hiring Brooks as an assistant to Frank Vogel. Brooks wasn’t sure he was interested. Westbrook had yet to be acquired — Brooks has an excellent relationship with the talented but troubled guard — and Brooks had questions about the situation in L.A. Soon thereafter, Billups called.

“He sparked my interest the first conversation, just how authentic and passionate he was, and so honest,” Brooks says. “We talked a week later and a few days after that. I knew by that time, ‘OK, this is the guy I want to be with.’ He just has that quality that you want to connect with. That’s why I think he is going to be super successful with the group we have moving forward, once we get healthy and whole.”

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Over a dozen years as an NBA head coach, Brooks has compiled a regular-season record of 521-414, with winning marks in each of his first eight full seasons. He is one of 35 coaches in the league’s 75-year history to amass 500 or more wins. (Terry Stotts is just below him on the list at 517-486).

Rookie forward Greg Brown III chats with Brooks prior to a game (courtesy Bruce Ely/Trail Blazers)

Few of his peers have come from such humble beginnings.

Scotty was the youngest of seven children raised by his mother, Lee Brooks. Scotty’s father left the family when he was two. They have never had a relationship.

“My mom taught me everything,” he says. “Watching her raise seven kids on her own. … she was a superstar in my eyes.”

Scotty was born in French Camp, Calif., in the San Joaquin Valley. When he was six, the family moved to the next town over, Lathrop — 10 miles south of Stockton, 60 miles south of Sacramento.

The Brooks were on government assistance for Scotty’s early years. He remembers at about age seven, his mother saying, ‘We’re going to make it as a family.’ She then worked several jobs, the last one rebuilding automotive parts. The kids all contributed by working the fields.

“In order to make it as a family, we worked on the weekends,” he says. “We either topped onions or picked walnuts every weekend, sunrise to sunset, just to make ends meet.”

There was little discretionary money available. Scotty says he really didn’t notice.

“When you don’t have anything, you don’t know,” he says. “Nobody could have told me my family didn’t have money. My mom gave us all we needed, and that was plenty.

“I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything. It taught me a lot of great lessons.”

Sports were Scotty’s passion.

“I liked them all, whatever season it was and whatever we were playing on the streets,” he says. “But I fell in love with basketball.”

Brooks — who may be closer to 5-9 than 5-11 — had three stops in college but made the most of the last one, excelling for two seasons at Cal Irvine. Even so, he went undrafted, though the draft in 1987 went seven rounds. As a free agent, he tried out with Philadelphia but was cut, winding up playing for Bill Musselman in Albany of the CBA. The next year, he made the 76ers, beginning a run of 10 years that few could have envisioned during his time growing up in Lathrop.

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Brooks, personable and knowledgeable, made a connection with many of the Blazer players this season. He developed a particular affinity for the team’s star, Damian Lillard.

“The ‘Bubble’ (in 2020) was the first time I’d ever spoken with him,” Brooks says. “I’d always respected him. He is one of my son’s favorite players. I hated coaching against him for many years. He makes timely shots and daggers. No matter how you defend him, he finds a way. When I got to meet him and see him up close, I learned the reason why. You don’t get that good through osmosis. You have to put the work in. He does.”

During pre-game shooting before the Blazers’ first preseason game, Brooks was feeding balls to Lillard.

“After a 20-minute workout, he sits on the bench,” Brooks says. “I’m thinking, ‘When is he going to go back into the locker room?’ He stays on the bench until basically 45 minutes on the clock, before we all go in.

“The season starts, I still see him do that every game. A month into the season, he’s still doing that. He’s addicted to the game. He likes to be around everything. He doesn’t want to miss anything.”

Brooks says his children tell him he has ‘FOMO’ — fear of missing out.

“I told Dame he has that, too,” Brooks laughs. Since Lillard’s season was shut down due to abdominal surgery, “he is on the bench watching every workout. No star does that. Nobody else in 75 years has done that. But he is there, every game, supporting his teammates.

“Right then and there I knew: ‘This kid is special.” He is not out only for his own good. He wants his teammates to do well, and he holds them accountable, which is a great quality in a leader.”

Brooks was impressed with the way Lillard played 29 games despite the injury.

“That was toughness and grit,” he says. “I I like that he was putting himself out there. He was competing for us every night. In a way, it pissed me off. I told him, ‘You’re not even healthy and you’re averaging 24 points. It took me every ounce of what I had to average five in my career.’

“He has a great way about him with his teammates and his coaches. It drives me crazy how much emphasis everybody puts on winning a ring. Sure, that’s everybody’s ultimate goal. I got one. Does that make me a champion? There are a lot of great players who prepare and play like champions. In my mind, Dame is a champion.”

Brooks likes what he sees in Anfernee Simons, who averaged 22 points and 5.5 assists in 30 games as a starter this season. Simons, who turns 23 in June, is ticketed to start in the backcourt with Lillard next season.

“ ‘Ant’ had a breakout year, and he has only scratched the surface,” Brooks says. “That kid is going to be a star for many years.”

Brooks says center Jusuf Nurkic has surprised him. They have become texting buddies.

“I’ve loved getting to know him,” he says. “Being around ‘Nurk’ this year opened my eyes up a lot, just to who he is as a person. He is a man of principle. He is the perfect player to have on your team. He understands the game and he cares about his teammates. There are many times when he could have been selfish. We had all these injuries and he could have tried to go for 35 a night, but he was trying to do the right things and play the right way.

“He is still young (turns 28 in August). I think he is one of the better centers in the league right now. His best basketball is ahead of him.”

With general manager Joe Cronin’s eyes on a high lottery pick — and also on landing New Orleans’ first-round selection — Cronin ordered Lillard to take the season off after his surgery. And Nurkic, then Simons, were told to sit down for a major part of the second half of the season. And Josh Hart, impressive after being acquired from the Pelicans. Suddenly, the Blazers simply couldn’t compete, dropping 21 of their final 23 contests.

“In my career as a head coach, I’ve never had to deal with as much as Chauncey did this year,” Brooks says. “Changed general managers (Cronin for the fired Neil Olshey). Injuries. Trades. COVID. A lot of things happened, but Chauncey handled it all like a champ.”

Lillard and Hart will be back. Cronin will re-sign free agents Nurkic and Simons (restricted). And the GM will have plenty of cap room to add talent to the nucleus that is returning, along with a lottery pick in the draft.

“We have a chance to be really good next season,” Brooks says. “We’ve picked up some good pieces. Hart is exactly what every team wants — a tough defender who competes on a nightly basis.

“We have to get better defensively, but every team does. I’ve never been around a coach who is satisfied (with his team’s defensive play), and Chauncey definitely is not. I like his approach. He wants us to be a good two-way team. He wants to be able to put scorers and defenders on the floor at the same time.”

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Brooks, who signed a three-year contract with Portland, will return next season unless he gets a head job in the NBA. The Lakers have already fired Vogel; if they contact Brooks, he would have to listen.

Even if he never gets another head job in the league, his resume is bursting. Ten years as a player, 19 as a coach. NBA Coach of the Year, twice an All-Star coach, once coach of a team in the Finals.

Not bad for a kid from Lathrop.

“I was listening to (an interview with) Doc Rivers yesterday,” he says. “He went over all the things he has been able to accomplish in basketball, all the places it takes you. I’m like, wow, that’s a great perspective by Doc.

“And I did some reflecting on my life. All the things I’ve been able to do because of the game of basketball … it’s really humbling. I’m grateful.”

So, too, should be the folks who have had the fortune to work with Brooks through his remarkable NBA journey.

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