OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Back when the Thunder were 3-29 last season, the notion of the playoffs coming to Oklahoma City any time soon was unimaginable.

But it was that same miserable stretch that made general manager Sam Presti confident that coach Scott Brooks was the right man to lead his team into the future.

While Oklahoma City struggled to the worst start in the NBA, Presti was impressed by the way Brooks stayed the course and never tried to force immediate changes in hopes of making the Thunder better. He has now taken the youngest roster in the league and turned the team into a 50-game winner and a playoff team just one season after the horrendous start.

For that best-in-the NBA turnaround, Brooks was recognized Wednesday as the NBA’s coach of the year. He received 71 of 123 first-place votes and 480 points to finish ahead of Milwaukee’s Scott Skiles (26 first-place votes, 313 points) and Portland’s Nate McMillan (9, 107).

“He’s someone that I think is incredibly consistent as a person. He is unaffected through adversities and also through successes, and I think that’s an important quality we want to have as we move forward,” Presti said. (more…)

The ever growing adidas Nations program is set to launch the 2010 campaign next week in Orlando. The top players from the class of 2012 will take part in this first installment of USA training camps April 9-11 at the ESPN Disney Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando. Keep an eye out for rosters, recaps and an update from the camp, as HallPass once again operates several aspects of this international grassroots basketball effort from adidas.

DAY 17:

Tuesday, March 9, 7:30 a.m. — Denver Nuggets coach George Karl pops in his mouthpiece and puts on his helmet and braces himself for a brutal 15 minutes, but this isn’t football. This is cancer radiation.

We’re at Denver’s Swedish Medical Center. The helmet is actually a white, hard-mesh mask that fits to every contour of Karl’s big bucket head. It has red crosses all over it, like a hockey goalie’s. He lays his 283 pounds on the table and the technicians clamp the mask on hard. How Karl breathes I’ll never know. They secure his limbs and ask him to hold a blue plastic donut so no part of him moves. He looks like Hannibal Lecter about to get fried.

“It makes you a little claustrophobic,” the 58-year-old coach tries to say through the mask. “But what are you gonna do? Leave?” Coaching the wildly talented but wildly uneven Nuggets is hard enough, let alone doing it with throat and neck cancer, but that’s what Karl is trying to do. Everybody tells him it’s not possible, and today, maybe he’s starting to believe them. (more…)

Virgin Mobile USA Believes in Melanie Oudin

Partners With World Ranked Teen Tennis Sensation

Comprehensive Relationship Includes $1,000,000 Donation to Homeless Youth with U.S. Open Win

WARREN, N.J., March 9, 2010 — Virgin Mobile USA has announced its sponsorship of tennis pro Melanie Oudin as she continues on her quest to become tennis royalty, trying to capture a WTA Championship at the 2010 BNP Paribas Open today in Indian Wells, California.

In celebration of the new sponsorship, Virgin Mobile USA is committing to donate — if Oudin wins this year’s U.S. Open in September — one million dollars to homeless youth organizations as part of The RE*Generation program, the company’s initiative to raise awareness for the issue of homeless youth in the United States.

“The RE*Generation initiative was founded by Virgin Mobile to empower young people to help less fortunate peers resurrect their lives. We’ve made significant strides in raising awareness and direct involvement with the troubling issue of youth homelessness, and having an ambassador like Melanie Oudin committed to this cause is very powerful,” said Bob Stohrer, vice president of marketing for Sprint’s Virgin Mobile brand. “Melanie’s ‘Believe’ mantra transcends tennis and naturally extends to the work we’ll do together.” (more…)