Scrappy attitude serving Brooks
Wizards coach draws on quality utilized as player
WASHINGTON — Not long after Rudy Tomjanovich needed a coach on the floor, Jeff Bzdelik just needed a coach.
The Nuggets had won 17 games the previous season, Bzdelik’s first as an NBA coach. He had a strong staff, but had one seat to fill.
With Scott Brooks’ playing career with the Rockets and five other teams over,
he was back in Southern California, scouting on his own and preparing for his next move.
Bzdelik remembered the point guard Tomjanovich had called on to close games through much of the Rockets’ first championship season and thought that was the mentality he
wanted to bring his team.
“When you’re in the league as long as he was and had the success he had, obviously, there’s a lot of positives to that,” Bzdelik, now the Rockets lead assistant, said before the Rockets would meet Brooks’ Washington Wizards on Monday. “No. 1, he obviously loves the game. No. 2, he’s got grit and perseverance and toughness, a great competitive spirit. He demonstrated a desire to want to coach and to study the game.
“You take all those ingredients and put them together, he was a valuable asset and very instrumental in our turnaround. We had at that time the sixthbest turnaround in history. He was instrumental in helping us get us to that point.”
Bzdelik gives him start
Bzdelik gave Brooks his first coaching job, beginning him on a career arc with the Nuggets, Kings and SuperSonics/Thunder before becoming Oklahoma City’s head coach for six-plus seasons, building a 339-211 record. He was fired after the 2014-15 season, sat out a season and returned to coaching this season with the Wizards.
He had not forgotten where that all began.
“I’m thankful for coach Bzdelik,” Brooks, 51, said via text message. “He gave me my first NBA coaching start. One of the best coaches I’ve ever been around. He has great understanding of the game, both ends of the floor.
“The accountability that he taught me with the coaching staff and the players is second to none. I learned about work. I learned how to transfer my playing career into a coaching career with his help.”
Brooks was just making that transition in 2003, still in good-enough shape for the epic pickup games on the Nuggets’ practice court. Even then, Bzdelik could see the tenacity and toughness that had kept all 5-11, 165 pounds of Brooks in the NBA for 10 seasons.
“We had some great staff games,” Bzdelik said. “We had Adrian Dantley, Scott Brooks, Chip Engelland, T.R. Dunn. I would pretty much ride the exercise bike or putz around in the weight room and watch them through the glass window. They would do nothing but post each other up and argue.”
Since Brooks gave up 5 inches to the next shortest assistants, Bzdelik got to see the qualities he wanted in his team, and is trying to drill into the Rockets.
“They hadn’t made the playoffs in nine years,” Bzdelik said. “We had to change the culture to one of professionalism, one of competitiveness, internal leadership.
“You want to put the right people on the bus. Scotty Brooks was the right person at the right time to put on the bus and change that culture.”
Bzdelik was not Brooks’ only fan at Rockets practice Sunday. The Rockets current point guard raved about the former Rockets point guard and the start he gave him in the first three seasons of his NBA career in Oklahoma City.
“Ohh, I loved playing for Scotty Brooks, man,” James Harden said. “He helped me grow as a player those first few years. As a rookie, a top-five pick, you think you’re going to come in and start. He made me work for everything I had and I appreciate him for that.”
Asked how Brooks would feel about seeing Harden in his former position, Harden laughed and said: “He better be nervous. No. He’s a great guy, great coach, great to be around. He’s hands-on with everything. He’s just great.”
Harden plays with gifts Brooks never had, but that’s not what Bzdelik wanted on his bench. It was not even what Tomjanovich wanted on the floor through much of that championship season when Kenny Smith was his starter and Sam Cassell was serving his apprenticeship before taking over the role late that season.
Never-say-die attitude
“Those guys, backup guys that physically probably shouldn’t be in this league, they’re so strongwilled and so intelligent they survive,” Bzdelik said. “You don’t have the success he had and the longevity that he had at this level and not have intelligence, toughness, a competitive spirit and leadership in the position he was in as a player. Then, he demonstrated to all of us in the Denver Nuggets organization that he had a great desire to want to continue that.”