Hours after I finalized the first edition of Peace, Love and Thunderstanding, I had decided that the second article would focus on creating a vocal movement to fire head coach P.J. Carlesimo. The plan was for it to be a running segment of PLT, but Thunder general manager Sam Presti ruined that less than 48 hours into my planning phase. Rather than explain, why don't we just start out with...
GOAT OF THE WEEK: P.J. Carlesimo
It could be argued that P.J. Carlesimo was doing his job too well. Knowing this team is loaded with players who will likely be playing in Europe within the next few years, the unstated objective has to be collecting ping-pong balls for the Blake Griffin/Ricky Rubio raffle. From that standpoint, losing the attention of his team and leading them to a 1-12 start might have been by design.
Every game the team found a unique way to lose. Whether it was coming out strong early against the defending champion Celtics before being outclassed the rest of the way, getting anihilated early by Utah before making it competitive near the end, or just getting completely shellacked by Orlando, the games was something of (morbid) interest.
His deft incompetence reached a tipping point, though, in the game on Wednesday night versus the L.A. Clippers. Carlesimo's players just gave up. Oklahoma City fans can accept a lot. They will take it in stride when the team is out performed, but they will not take a team who doesn't even compete. And as Robert Swift stood idle while Marcus Camby snatched rebound after rebound of half hearted shots from a cavalcade of Thunder players who seemed to want to be anywhere else while boo-birds reigned from the crowd, Carlesimo's fate was sealed.