Suns interviews don’t include usual suspects
The initial list of probable candidates for the Phoenix Suns vacant coaching position didn’t excite me at all. Avery Johnson lost his team and has been described as paranoid by those close to the situation in Dallas. Eddie Johnson and Dan Majerle don’t have any coaching experience, plus hiring either one of them would weaken the Suns broadcast team considerably. We’ve been to through the Paul Westphal experience once. Wasn’t he accused of running a country club back in the mid 90’s? Jeff Van Gundy seems qualified, but his Knicks and Rockets teams played the most boring brand of basketball ever. Jeff Hornacek, no experience. Kurt Rambis, meh. Mark Jackson, no experience.
Now there’s a new wave of candidates, and some of them have already been interviewed by the Suns. Terry Porter had 2 years of head coaching experience with the Bucks from 2003-05 and posted a 71-93 record. Utah assistant Phil Johnson will be interviewed as well. Johnson has toiled under Jerry Sloan in Utah for 18 seasons, and actually does have head coaching on his resume. He coached the Kansas City Kings (yes KC had a team once) and again after the Kings moved to Sacramento. But he hasn’t been the main man since 1986! And now it looks like Elston Howard, an assistant with Houston, will get an interview as well.
My point is, isn’t a guy with who won 70% of his games and has an NBA Coach of the Year Award on his mantle more exciting than the cast of candidates the Suns has produced? I’m not saying these guys can’t coach. I’m saying I know the Suns had a guy with a pretty good track record. Its just pretty disheartening when the guy that excites me most in this group is a guy with a record that is 22 games under .500 and has coached 5 playoff games total. No disrespect to any of the candidates, but this seems like a huge step backwards to me.
Join the discussion at The Locker Room Forum. Arizona Sports 24/7.
Posted by Vince Marotta
Vince has been part of the Phoenix Sports scene in a few different capacities. First as a fan, Vince has been yelling at his tv during Suns and ASU games since the late 1970's. Vince also saw the media side of things as a radio talk show host from 1996 to 2002, and then again in 2007.
http://azsportshub.com
(Rate this post)
Loading ...Related Articles:
I don’t understand why Steve Kerr would love to have a TV announcer behind the bench. Suns need a coach!