Bad timing for Thunder firing of P.J.
The Thunder has not excelled on the public-relations front, from ticket policy to player/public interaction to general game presentation.
And here’s the perfect example of doing things the wrong way. The Thunder just fired coach P.J. Carlesimo at the absolute worst possible time.
This is no defense of Carlesimo. You can’t defend the Boomers’ performance: 1-12 is bad enough, but to get blown out every night is unforgivable. This team is non-competitive; it hasn’t been ready to compete at the NBA level, and that falls on the coach. The record falls on the front office, but the lack of effort and on-court disorganization falls on the coach.
Something had to be done, and clearly the easiest move was to put Carlesimo out of his misery.
But this was the worst possible time to do it: In the wee hours of a Saturday morning, when it will get the least bang around Oklahoma City of any other time of the week. And in the wee hours of a Saturday morning on the day of the biggest football game in the state in eight years.
OU-Texas Tech totally eclipses everything in Oklahoma today. Sometimes, that’s when you want to announce a firing, when it will draw the least eyes and ears.
Not this one. This was a firing that needed to be trumpeted. Needed to be done on the steps of city hall; needed to be leaked to The Oklahoman or the Sports Animal on a week day so that everyone could buzz about it.
The Thunder needed to send the message to the city that this start is unacceptable. That despite the long-term building plan, this kind of performance will be dealt with harshly. That’s a message OKC fans deserve, because frankly, they haven’t been given NBA basketball as promised. No one that I know of is upset with the 1-12. Almost everyone that I know of is either angered or amused by the ridiculous performance of how the Thunder got to 1-12.
Firing Carlesimo under dark of night, on a weekend, when the state’s sports fan has moved into serious football mode, means the gesture will lose its PR value.
There will be Thunder fans who don’t even realize the move has happened until Monday morning. Many of those who do hear the news will be so football-centric, the information won’t process until after the BCS and bowl implications are figured out this weekend.
This was a prime opportunity for the Thunder to let its fans know that this franchise is committed to a lot more than just counting the money they’ve spent on so-far horrid basketball.
The Thunder let that opportunity pass.
Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel.
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Comments
I completely understand with what Barry is saying about the bad timing. However, something had to be done. I was shocked by the news. I knew it was coming, but it did shock me. I still believe that people will hear it and soon. It’s front page news on Newsok. Good job Clay!! Let’s get us a good coach in there to motivate and coach these young players into the team that we know they can be!!!
What’s Avery Johnson doing? He was primarily fired for not “using” Kidd the way Cuban wanted him to in Dallas. Coach of the Year his first year? Clay, get Avery to OKC stat!!
Berry, our team is the Thunder. Give it up with this “Boomer” crap.
PJ needed to go. Lets get a coach that can motivate and inspire our players.
Well written. Will be interesting to watch how team’s management and owners address their next failed efforts.
Barry- Its all about the drama isnt it. You and your articles are so WWF Wrestling like. What we as citizens of OKC are entitled to is a NBA team that is professional and wins some games. And then sports writers that are professional. How will your sunday morning hang over be after, OU 21 Texas Tech 28????????????? Go Pokes!
Looks like Mr. Tramel had his meds refilled as he is actually making sense again (except for the whole Boomers thing).
Bennett has shown time and time again (from his ineptitude up in Seattle) that he doesn’t know what he is doing. This is nothing but a rich man’s toy for him. He has wanted to own a professional team for years and now he does (originally it was going to be an expansion NHL team).
Failures abound, beginning with the team name itself (not exactly a failure, a “C” at best). The problem with it isn’t necessarily that it is a singular noun but that it is too generic. Bennett said he didn’t like singular names but it was a nice safe choice (even though there is a loose Oklahoma weather connection), can move the team somewhere down the road and don’t have to worry about renaming the team…how many cities don’t have thunder?
The half-hearted attempt at the games (not just talking about the teams performance). They needed to go all out with the storm is coming in theme. Someone else in a thread long ago suggested this, get Gary England interrupt with a weather bulletin (even better, get all of the local weather guys involved, having the “channel” change from one to another). While using a local band for “Thunderstruck” was a nice thought, it definitely lost something in the translation. Need to use the original.
Utilize the refrain from Garth Brooks “The Thunder Rolls (and lightning strikes)” somewhere alone the way. Might be a good finale when the Thunder win a game (royalties would be cheap this year, would only have to pay for it one time). Maybe use it if the Thunder are ahead at the end of a quarter or the going into the half (has happened a few times, but Bennett would have to cough up some extra cash though).
The entertainment during commercial time outs and half time. THIS is professional level entertainment? I was expecting much more than what I saw at Hawks game. From what i heard about the Hornets game experience blew the Thunder away. According to an earlier article, they were supposedly going to be using the Hornets as an example.
Something that is a complete failure is the logo and colors (absolutely no connection with the team name) and just poorly done for many reasons. But as long as people keep buying the merchandise with it on them, that won’t change. Logo and colors were nearly universally panned yet sales of shirts and hats set NBA records (go figure).
The Thunder Girls? That took a lot of imagination to come up with that one. Thought they were using it as placeholder until they came up with the real name. (like using “Boomers” until the name is announced…by the way, Mr. Tramel, you can stop using that now, they announced the team name)
Doubling of ticket prices,. Bringing them up to the league average when the team is NOT even close to being an average team (the worst in the NBA)? But just like shirts and hats, people snapped up all of the season tickets the Thunder would sell. Will be interesting to see if that is the case next year (especially if the team record doesn’t improve…but they may have bought themselves some time with the coaching change). And if the economy doesn’t get better, people may not be able to afford those double ticket prices again.
The last line summed it up pretty well: “This was a prime opportunity for the Thunder to let its fans know that this franchise is committed to a lot more than just counting the money…”
But it is “just a business” after all. At least that is what Mr. Tramel wrote before, so why be surprised?
Barry, What is it with you and your trying to create nicknames for teams and stadiums?
It’s like you’re trying to create a nickname legacy for yourself. Give it up the Thunder works just fine as a name all on it’s own.
The only reason the timing is bad for firing PJ is because it didn’t happen last year.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, StrawBerry.
This news was the first thing I heard about when I got out of the shower and it’s all we’ve been talking about this morning at work.
Sure Berry, I too am convinced that Sam Presti and Clay were just torn over whether last night was a good time to pull the trigger because the OU game was upcoming…haha…these are two separate entities, Tramel, I doubt Sam Presti even knew about OU football before he moved here. I’m a huge OU fan (all sports, not just pigskin), but to say the Thunder picked a bad time to make a decision regarding the future of the club, because of a college football, is shallow and homerish. Say it’s because all the Thunder fans were either asleep or at IHOP trying to eat enough pancakes to think they weren’t drunk anymore. But not because of a football game.
Agree Billy, Tramel is clueless …….. and the fact that this is what he draws from the coach being fired just proves the fact.
Of all the angles to this firing, this is what he comes up. Just because football is on his mind .
Thats pathetic.
Berry’s just miffed because the firing didn’t make it into Saturday’s Oklahoman, what with printing deadlines and all, and if it’s not in the paper, well, it didn’t happen, right?
Even granting that PBC’s PR efforts are generally clumsy at best, this is a weak argument Tramel’s making here.
LOL, welcome to Bennet’s version of the NBA. Y’all are welcome to pay outrageous prices for a rich man’s toy. I grew up watching the Supersonics. The last few years have been anything but… all due to greed and incompetence. Now OK can pay through the nose for a team that doesn’t know how to treat it’s fans! Good riddance to the NBA in Seattle. I’m now watching college ball. Now that’s a game! LA is doing fine without football, Seattle will do fine without the NBA. Welcome to the big leagues folks. Well…. at least you get to see professional players come to visit. Too bad you’re the equivalant of the Washington Generals! 
He should have been given an ultimatum. A winning team in one year or they will get another coach(Kind of like the one Seattle was given)….Impossible-no…unlikely..Absolutely. The water is poisoned….The Bennett has made it so….He never intended PJ to succeed(In Seattle). Therefore, it was almost impossible for it to happen in OKC.
Don’t agree with you on this one… Firing a coach should never be a “pr” move. I guarantee you they weren’t thinking about using OU/TT as cover. Hard as it is to believe, I’m a Thunder fan because I couldn’t care less about the Sooners. Their rationale: We just got killed by the Hornets at home…Embarrassed on national tv and in front of the home fans…against the team that holds the standard that we are trying to live up to…and a string of horrible efforts to boot.
People will hear about this in due time…..
With all due respect. I am not hear to troll. But you guys do realize that PJ was chosen to fail in Seattle, right? It was no different than trading Ray Allen or Rashard Lewis. Clay did everything absolutely possible to fail in Seattle. Clay was waiting for an excuse to fire PJ. He would’ve done it sooner if it were not so obvious. 1-12 is the perfect excuse. Clay took a chapter out of the movie Major League and purposely killed the team in Seattle so he could get out. This horrible team you are forced to watch was meant for us, not you. Unfortunately Clay got out earlier than he expected, and you’re now being punished as we were. Luckily you have the ability to watch this crap knowing that if it ever gets better, you get to reap the rewards. We didn’t have that luxury last year. And considering that fact, I think you guys should realize that Seattle’s support during last year was actually quite valiant. But as for you 1-12 nationally disgraceful team. That’s what happens when you purposefully poison the well. If I were an OKC fan, I’d just hope that the poisoned well hasn’t been permanantly tainted. The poop pr relations and player/public connection that Trammel mentioned were all happening in Seattle. But that was on purpose. Clay wouldn’t allow players to give interviews on the local sports radio station for example. But these things made sense in Seattle due to Clay’s main objective. Unfortunately these things seem to have warped into team policy, even in OKC. I had friends who worked for the Supes, one who worked in the locker room. And everybody in Seattle was well aware of a total lack of team chemistry. Sounds like Nick Collison has already voiced his discontent this season. A lot of players want out of that organization, bad. And I’m not knocking on OKC like many of my Seattle friends do. I don’t think you’re city hinders you in any way. But your owner does. There was a lot of talk here about how much Kevin Durant, Collison, and Jeff Green, among others, did not respect how the ownership treated the players. It’s true with any business. If the owner treats his employees like trash and creates a toxic working environment, you’re going to have big problems. I sincerely hope things work out for y’all. But I will never root for that Clay Bennett. OKC fans deserve better.
Berry, there will be plenty of buzz about PJ’s firing. If other fans are like me, the more blowouts I attend, the more I look for news on team developments. I’ve been expecting to see lineup changes at the very least, and perhaps deeper personnel upheavals beyond that. So this was not a huge surprise. After so many debacles, it’s just encouraging to see some motion.
Oh, and if you don’t think Clay Clay was waiting desperately to fire PJ, his Seattle tank job coach. Any coincidence that Clay fired PJ after OKC’s one and only nationally televised game? One in which they got creamed? lol. He needed people nationally to take notice, so he didn’t seem so obvious. Don’t worry. Y’all will be hip to the way Clay does business in due time. We over here have 2 years of experience. He wasn’t named on ESPN’s 50 worst owners of all time list for nothing.
Dear Berry, are you guys minor league or major league? They obviously didn’t want PJ on the trip to New Orleans, so they canned him. Could they have done it before yesterday? Sure. After tonight? Sure. Whatever. Today is college football. Tonight is YOUR PRO team. You have one of those, right? Are you guys not capable of juggling these things? Apparently your nemesis in New Orleans have no problem with this. LSU on Saturday, Hornets tonight, and Saints tomorrow (in this case Monday night). Get with the program, dude. The more teams you have, the more you have to do. Do your job and quit whining. The importance of today’s news is the news itself, not it’s timing. Go park some cars, dude.
Clay dismantled the team in Seattle in order to discourage the locals and hired a coach that would fill an interim position. What is currently being experienced is the price Clay paid for such a strategy. The question wasn’t *if* P.J. was going to be fired, it was *when*. If anyone here thinks the Thunder was going to win out of the gate they are incredibly naive. Like the economy, things will probably get worse before they have *even the possibility* of getting better. In fact, with the Thunder, they may not ever get better. There is that “Clipperish” notion, high draft picks or not. I feel sorry for everyone who purchased season tickets. Did they really think that the experience would be like watching the Hornets? . I’d rather watch on TV and have the option of turning it off after the first quarter. The current Thunder team isn’t even close to being an NBA quality.
Everyone who cares about basketball and the Thunder knew first thing thismorning when they looked at the Sports news online, or bumped into a friend. This will be one of the topics of conversation at every pre-game tailgate today. The people who don’t know until Monday aren’t paying attention.
But, this isn’t/wasn’t an emergency, and I don’t think the fact that the PBC made a change needs to be shouted from the rafters. Personally, I have mixed feelings about it. The problems with this team won’t be completely solved by firing PJ, who was clearly a nice guy who cared about his players. We do need a coach that can get this team to play above its’ ability if we can, but this isn’t going to be the remake of “The Mighty Ducks”. We’re still going to lose most of our games, just as virtually every sports prognosticator in the country predicted. It was no mistake that we were pegged to finish last in the league this season. Our players are either too young, or would basically be bench players for almost every other team in the league. We have to plan to be a Portland or Atlanta, and build a winner through a couple of losing seasons.
The good news is that the fans will cheer for effort. We’re all waiting for anything good to happen every game, and if they try ,and even can keep games close, we’ll be there for the team.
Tramel, you couldn’t be further from the truth. The timing for NBA decisions doesn’t revolve around NCAA football. When a team is this bad, it doesn’t matter ‘how’ it’s done, it matters ‘when’ it was done. That coach should have been fired two weeks ago. To say that OKC fans aren’t going to notice until Monday is basically saying that they aren’t smart enough to process all of this. We’ve got great fans in OKC, and everybody will still continue to support the team and I’m sure everybody understands why this decision was made.
Thunder fans althought forgiving and new, want a team that’s some what headed in the right direction. So maybe they can turn the rest of season around for the fans.
Carlisimo lost this team long ago; it was obvious to anyone who’s paid close attention to this team. HUGE disconnect between him and the players. What’s your complaint, Berry? That the Oklahoman doesn’t have an “in” with the Thunder? Sounds like sour grapes…
Go Fight Win–We’re behind you no matter what…..rah rah rah!!! That’s fine Jill if the majority think that way, but the Avg NBA market doesn’t. If OKC does over the LONG haul, then they truly deserve praise and KUDOS.
This is ridiculous. Can we please trade this team for the Hornets? We all saw it first hand last night. Everybody knows this, just won’t admit it.
Jaren in Seattle is so right. OKC is a good town and we in Seattle were frustrated too. In fact we booed a time or two as well. P.J. IS a horrible coach. Maybe they’ll get it right, but the analogy to the movie, “Major League,” is a great one. Clay et al created this to make the team fail here so they could move it there because of lack of interest. EVERYONE knew what was going on and that P.J. was the perfect coach for that. Unfortunately for you, a good chunk of the season is gone now and you get to see what we saw last year.
Berry, This isn’t the old OKC. We’re a big league city now. Big league teams don’t operate based on the local college team’s schedule. The Sooners are just one of our many teams not. Not the only one. Get used to it, or move to Little Rock.
So the Thunder expect people to believe that the loss last night was the tipping point and fired their coach the evening/morning of their next game, after all this time. They couldn’t wait until a break in the schedule allowed a practice or two with a new coach? LOL!! Yep, this is a Big League Front Office running the show. They didn’t try to stand up the game tonight. They are not that smart.
Barry,
What a gutless article. I think he’s not the greatest coach in the world, but to suggest that you should trumpet the firing from the steps of city hall?
I hope oklahomans are not as mean spirited and gutless as you.
NewsOK please discipline BT. Our team is named Thunder NOT Boomer and I for one am tired of his reference to the team as such. If he continues to disrespect our team,put his arse on waivers
Barry, get over it. Be positive or say nothing. We do not need your negative words.
Be a part of Oklahoma City or get out of the way. It is a very simple understanding.
Please set your personal agenda elsewhere.
Respectfully –
[...] Tramel writes on his blog that the timing of the decision is terrible – except not in the way you’d imagine – He wanted them to do it on a weekday (so more fans [...]
Duh, I am such a hillbilly I didn’t have time to have someone read the paper to me because I was so caught up in the only pro sports I know which are OU football, Ou football OU football, and Nascar and guzzling beer at the karaoke bar.
Tramel, you are a fool and part of what gives us here in OKC our sterotype.
Terrible journalism.
This is the first article Barry has written that I have read that makes any sence. Probably his last. Clay’s wife is more than likely reviewing his contract as we speak. About time you grew a pair. You still need to change your picture, you look like your drunk… That is if you are still employed by this rag tomorrow.
Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games…well fun anyway but not much game. With all the money you all have dished out it would have been better spent getting everyone in OKC a season pass to the Cowboy Museum…now there’s time well spent. We don’t have a world class museum like that and now we don’t have an underachieving, misled group of overpaid wussies either.
Hang in there, we had the sonics for 40 years and had 1 championship, 39 more to go huh? I’m sure Bennet & co will sell at a loss just like their stock options in due order. In the mean time enjoy ownerships heavy handed approach to sports managment, should be a couple of wonderful years.
Peace
Nothing that the Thunder do, or its ownership will be taken seriously. The team wasn’t taken seriously its last 2 years in Seattle. Bennett fired all the PR and media people when he left town and the biggest complaint people had about the Supes players was that they never did any charity work or appearances any more (this was a direct order of Bennett which he was publicly chastised on Sports Radion 950 AM for) and that the team no longer donated items to local kids organizations or charity fundraisers.
NBA ownership to Bennett is purely a rich man’s hobby and he wants OKC to kiss his butt for all the work he put into this project of his. I say go for it….kiss his fat A** goodbye as soon as you can!!!
This wasn’t a PR stunt, Berry, and it didn’t need to be handled like one.