I don’t find myself often agreeing with Michael Smith of ESPN, but today and for the last few days I have.

I have to agree that the firing of Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks was a

load of crap.

Now, I will be the first person to say that Scott Brooks is not a championship winning coach, so I’m not arguing that he shouldn’t have

been fired.

What I am arguing though, is that if Sam Presti — Oklahoma City’s GM — even for a second put this season into consideration he made the wrong decision.

What has Sam Presti done to help Scott Brooks? That’s right, he just traded away James Harden one year after losing to LeBron James in the finals.

But let’s get past that, the next two years were on Scott Brooks. I don’t care that Westbrook got hurt in the playoffs, not getting past the conference semi finals is a failure.

The next year in the 2013-2014 season they failed to get past the Spurs with a healthy Durant and Westbrook.

By then, five years into his position he failed to win a championship, not because he didn’t have the talent, but because he wasn’t a great coach. You can’t win on talent in the Western Conference you have to be a great coach. So what do you do as Sam Presti? You fire him, right then and there, but no, he didn’t, he gave him another year.

In a story written by Andrew Gillman of Fox Sports Southwest after the announcement Sam Presti was quoted saying, “We could not make this decision about the past. We have to be in position to believe those results can be sustained and we have to adapt and continue to build.”

Oh really, Presti, I wonder why this isn’t about the past? Maybe because you messed up and realized you should have fired Scott Brooks two years ago if you wanted to continue to build.

It’s not like there weren’t coaches available, I’m pretty sure Mark Jackson would have taken this job. Better yet, why wasn’t Presti thinking about this when Steve Kerr was an option for the Knicks and Warriors? Oh yeah, that’s right, Presti screwed up, he wanted to give Brooks another shot.

So, let’s look at the “next” shot Brooks received.

Brooks may have gotten the least lucky last season a coach has ever had. Durant, who people forget is one of the two best scorers in the NBA, played just 27 games. Not to mention Durant missed the entire first month and last month of the season.

Russell Westbrook, who is the most explosive point guard in the NBA, missed the first 16 games of the season.

Then there was Serge Ibaka, who is one of the most underrated third pieces in the NBA, missed the last 19 games of the season.

All together those three played a total of 27 out of 82 games together this season and totaled a record of 18-9.

Then he got thrown another curveball, Presti decided to bring in new players across the board. The addition of Dion Waiters and Enes Kanter are two good acquisitions, but add that to the injuries they had and it’s hard to get chemistry going.

Throughout all of that Brooks found a way to keep this team together and get them to a record of 45-37, one double clutch Anthony Davis three away from the playoffs.

You can’t fault Brooks for what he did this year, [and] for Sam Presti to even consider this season when firing Brooks is awful. If you want to fire somebody that’s fine, but don’t come out and say that it wasn’t about the past. That is a stupid excuse.

Brooks is in no way a championship winning coach, everyone who has followed the Thunder knows that, so fire him after the 2013-2014 season. Or even better, come out and say he hasn’t produced in the last five seasons, but don’t fire him because he was dealt a bad hand this season.

But it’s done and now Sam Presti’s entire image relies on this next hire. A GM who has done a pretty magical job so far could be thought of by screwing up this change.

If the Thunder are knocked out in the second round things will go south very quick.

Though the Thunder aren’t playing right now, this may be the most important few weeks this organization has faced since they moved to Oklahoma City.