The Upcoming Season

[The Diesel]

tsherkin,

I completely agree with you. Even Charles Barkley said that he feels bad for Shaq for taking so much blame from the media for the Suns' collapse even though he was their best player last season.

Blame Kerr and Porter, not Shaq. Shaq was one of the few players who played hard for Porter and didn't quit on him.

To me, here is what caused the Suns' collapse:

- Kerr running out one of the best coaches in the NBA.

- He replaced him with an inexperienced coach who commanded ZERO respect from this veteran team.

- He didn't hire Flip Saunders to replace D'Antoni

- The majority of the players (Shaq NOT being one of them) quitting on Porter according to Steve Nash

- Trading away Bell and Diaw cost the Suns their two best defenders and it cost them a playoff spot because Diaw would have replaced Amare MUCH better than Barnes did. It was PAINFUL watching Barnes try to replace Amare.

To blame Shaq for this is completely ridiculous.

Despite the fact that Kerr's mistakes destroyed this past season, Shaq stayed loyal to the Suns and rejected a deal to Portland at the trading deadline because Kerr treated him so well.

99% of the players in his position would have jumped at the chance to go to a team like Portland, but Shaq chose to stay even though Kerr is a terrible GM.

Kerr/Porter and the players who quit on Porter like Amare and Bell deserve the blame for the disastrous 2008/2009 season.

Shaq had an incredible season for a 37 year old player.

[aIvin adams]

Because I'm a loud-mouth and a mod for this board, I thought I'd collect my thoughts on Phoenix's upcoming season

...

Bleh. I am horribly unenthused by this team.

added some brevity to an otherwise awesome post

[tsherkin]

Flip Saunders would have also been a mistake; he doesn't know the first thing about defense and isn't good at postseason coaching.

[The Diesel]

Well who should Kerr have hired, then?

[aIvin adams]

Flip Saunders would have also been a mistake; he doesn't know the first thing about defense and isn't good at postseason coaching.

y simplify when u can over simplify?

saunders is a great coach and would be a huge improvement over porter and probably gentry imo

[The Diesel]

I don't think people should get too excited over the fact that Gentry is now coaching the team instead of Porter.

Gentry has been fired THREE times and was Porter's lead assistant!

[rsavaj]

No, I think we should be very, VERY excited that Gentry's coaching the team instead of Porter.

[tsherkin]

y simplify when u can over simplify?

saunders is a great coach and would be a huge improvement over porter and probably gentry imo

Saunders is a bad playoff coach and a decent offensive coach. His near-complete lack of playoff success in Minny is not his fault, but he did hurt his team's chances with his odd substitutions and abject lack of mid-game adjustments.

Better than Porter and Gentry? Maybe, as long as he listened to long-time Phoenix assistants who knew about the transition game that favored the talents of the Suns.

Flip Saunders is FAR from a "great" coach, though; he's not especially creative, doesn't have a gimmick system that he can apply, he has no defining elements to his game. He knows how to maximize basic plays in the regular season, so he was able to get the already-successful Pistons to do more of what they already knew how to do (even as their defense declined), but you could have put any half-way competent coach on that team and seen the same result.

Flip Saunders = The Big Ne-Ne.

[The Diesel]

Speaking of Porter, I know Barkley disagreed with the decision to fire him and said he "got stabbed in the back," and you hate to see anyone lose their job, but Porter HAD to go in my opinion because he completely lost the team.

However, Nash's stunning admission that the majority of the team quit on him as early as training camp really disappointed me.

Just because his system was not as fun as D'Antoni's DOES NOT give the players an excuse to refuse to buy in and quit on their coach the way Bell and Amare did.

[MaryvalesFinest]

Speaking of Porter, I know Barkley disagreed with the decision to fire him and said he "got stabbed in the back," and you hate to see anyone lose their job, but Porter HAD to go in my opinion because he completely lost the team.

However, Nash's stunning admission that the majority of the team quit on him as early as training camp really disappointed me.

Just because his system was not as fun as D'Antoni's DOES NOT give the players an excuse to refuse to buy in and quit on their coach the way Bell, Nash and Hill did.

Fixed

[The Diesel]

Nash and Hill are WAY too professional to ever quit on their coach.

However, there is no doubt that Raja and Amare quit on Porter.

Who can ever forget that disgraceful performance against the Celtics when they fell behind by 50 points on national television this past season?

Marc Spears (a columnist for Yahoo Sports) said a Suns player cursed Porter behind his back after the loss in a show of frustration.

I think it was Amare, who scored ZERO points on 0-7 shooting that disgraceful night and who has ripped Porter on more than one occasion since the season ended.

[MaryvalesFinest]

Nash and Hill are WAY too professional to ever quit on their coach.

However, there is no doubt that Raja and Amare quit on Porter.

Who can ever forget that disgraceful performance against the Celtics when they fell behind by 50 points on national television this past season?

Marc Spears (a columnist for Yahoo Sports) said a Suns player cursed Porter behind his back after the loss in a show of frustration.

I think it was Amare, who scored ZERO points on 0-7 shooting that disgraceful night and who has ripped Porter on more than one occasion since the season ended.

There was an article on azcentral that said management had a meeting with Nash and Hill and a few days later Porter was fired...

[The Diesel]

That meeting happened after the home loss to the Bulls just a few days after the Bulls owner called their season "a disaster."

Porter was part of that meeting.

Speaking of that loss, Johnny Ludden said that the day after that loss, Hill gave an emotional speech to the team urging them to have fun and play for each-other only to have Porter walk into the room and spend the next two and a half hours criticizing the team over their performance and pointing out everything they did wrong.

His source told him that it just sucked the energy out of the room.

Porter is a really nice guy who just didn't relate well to the players.

[phx#7]

Well who should Kerr have hired, then?

Shouldn't have run D'Antoni out of town because there was no one better. I wouldn't have been against letting D'Antoni go if there was a better coach on the market. Carlisle was the best coach available and he likely would have been just as mismatched as Porter.

[JohnVancouver]

Where did nash say this?