Former Tulsa Shock team doctor killed in shooting at medical center

Dr. Preston Phillips speaks at a Tulsa Shock event in 2010. (Rich Crimi/NBAE via Getty Images)

Dr. Preston Phillips, the former head team physician for the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock, was killed in a mass shooting Wednesday at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa.

The gunman targeted Phillips, who he blamed for his ongoing pain following a recent surgery, police said Thursday. Phillips had performed the surgery. The gunman killed four people before shooting himself. He used an AR-style rifle that he had bought hours earlier, according to police.

Phillips, 59, was a graduate of Harvard Medical School and an orthopedic surgeon and section chief at the Warren Clinic in Tulsa.

The Warren Clinic served as the official trainers and physicians of the Shock starting in 2010, with Phillips as the lead physician, according to the Tulsa World. The WNBA franchise moved out of Oklahoma and became the Dallas Wings in 2016.

Gary Kloppenburg, who served as head coach of the Tulsa Shock for the 2012 and 2013 seasons, tweeted Thursday that Phillips was a “kind and compassionate man.”

Kloppenburg, currently an assistant coach for the Indiana Fever, also denounced Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and the state legislature who, he wrote, “have failed to protect their citizenry by implementing insanely loose gun laws.”

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