Igor fired - New Coaching Search Discussion

[BobbieL]

I think it would be foolish to fire Kokoskov but with SArver - who knows. I can see Igor not being fired just to save SArver money - which would be the wrong reason. Also I think it would be wrong to fire him just for the sake of firing him.

To the comments about Brett Brown - that has been my comp the whole time for Igor. First time head coach, vast experience both in the NBA and International - good solid resumes. But tough teams to coach. The Suns are so young this team - so young. They have like 40% of their cap not on the roster. That may sound like an excuse - its reality.

Ryan McD hosed over this team and roster. He had a chance last summer and he just was terrible in his decision making process.

I say give Igor another year.

[Damkac]

We are 27th in offensive efficiency and 29 in defensive efficiency.

So we cannot score and we cannot defend.

It would seem that we could somehow be good at something.

I have no idea why anyone is supporting Koko. He has had zero positive effect on this team. If he has please explain, without the normal excuse about no point guard. I am really tired of hearing that one. It seems like the only one.

It won't happen but we need a new GM and a new Coach. James Jones was in those meetings that decided to:

1. Hire Koko
2. Draft Ayton
3. Draft JJ
4. Give Booker the max contract (He may be our best player but if you think he is a max payer - I think you are sadly mistaken). I would have waited until this summer and I doubt that I would have given him the max this summer. Nice guy, nice player but not a max player or Super Star. We have gotten worse every year he has been on this roster but yet people heap praise on him.
5. Spend our salary space on miscellaneous garbage so we do not even have a max contract to hand out if we wanted to.

The problem is who would Jones replacement be and who would that replacement hire as head coach?

I thought we had hit the low point last year. However we have set the bar even lower, which I did not think possible.

Need a new owner first.

[Djedefre]

I say give Igor another year.

Absolutely. There is no coach in this wide world that'd make this organization start winning consistently.Dysfunctional roster, no scouts, no GM, not even a hint of some kind of a plan for the future, worst owner in the league. Sarver's got to go. The Clown as well. Then we could talk coaching changes. You should start asking yourselves who is crazy enough to agree to come here under this circumstances? Wright? Bennett? Few? Smart? Musselman? Huggins? Marshall? I can guarantee you not a single one is interested, even if a call is made.

[HiddenLeaf 44]

We need to keep Koko for continuity sake. (assuming Koko keeps respect of Ayton/Book/Josh/Bridges)

Continuity of being the worst team in the league?

We need to fix pg and pf for next year. How many teams have ever had 0 players at 2/5 positions?

I do think keeping continuity at the HC position is important for next year (as long as he maintains respect of our core). It seems like every opposing HC gives Igor a lot of complements after our losses.
It seems like Igor has a lot of respect around the league.

One of the biggest complaints about the suns the past few years has been our lack of player development. How are we supposed to develop players with a different coaching staff every year? If Igor keeps the respect of our players and the league, he needs another year. Maybe someone with more head coaching experience would get a couple more wins, but right now I think player development is the most important activity that will contribute to us winning games, and that requires continuity. If our young players continue to see our front office/coaching staff turned over each year, they are going to build 0 loyalty to the suns when it contract extension time comes around and trade requests will become more likely.

[darmani]

Top-3 players in minutes played this season:

Cavs: Sexton, Osman, Clarkson
Bulls: LaVine, Arcidiacono, Justin Holiday
Hawks: Trae, Huerter, Bembry

All these super-talented teams have more wins than the Suns. One of them has almost twice as many wins as the Suns.

[grumpysaddle]

We need to keep Koko for continuity sake. (assuming Koko keeps respect of Ayton/Book/Josh/Bridges)

Continuity of being the worst team in the league?

We need to fix pg and pf for next year. How many teams have ever had 0 players at 2/5 positions?

I do think keeping continuity at the HC position is important for next year (as long as he maintains respect of our core). It seems like every opposing HC gives Igor a lot of complements after our losses.
It seems like Igor has a lot of respect around the league.

One of the biggest complaints about the suns the past few years has been our lack of player development. How are we supposed to develop players with a different coaching staff every year? If Igor keeps the respect of our players and the league, he needs another year. Maybe someone with more head coaching experience would get a couple more wins, but right now I think player development is the most important activity that will contribute to us winning games, and that requires continuity. If our young players continue to see our front office/coaching staff turned over each year, they are going to build 0 loyalty to the suns when it contract extension time comes around and trade requests will become more likely.

You bring in player development coaches to help with development. Assistant coaches help more with development than a head coach. A head coach is too busy (or should be too busy) building a system that works with the players he has to work with. The sad part is the player development coaches the Suns need won't be brought in because $arver won't put money into improving when the team is gaining value by being this awful. What's the point for him? His investment continues to add overall value while doing minimal new investment for a better product.

[bwgood77]

Continuity of being the worst team in the league?

We need to fix pg and pf for next year. How many teams have ever had 0 players at 2/5 positions?

I do think keeping continuity at the HC position is important for next year (as long as he maintains respect of our core). It seems like every opposing HC gives Igor a lot of complements after our losses.
It seems like Igor has a lot of respect around the league.

One of the biggest complaints about the suns the past few years has been our lack of player development. How are we supposed to develop players with a different coaching staff every year? If Igor keeps the respect of our players and the league, he needs another year. Maybe someone with more head coaching experience would get a couple more wins, but right now I think player development is the most important activity that will contribute to us winning games, and that requires continuity. If our young players continue to see our front office/coaching staff turned over each year, they are going to build 0 loyalty to the suns when it contract extension time comes around and trade requests will become more likely.

You bring in player development coaches to help with development. Assistant coaches help more with development than a head coach. A head coach is too busy (or should be too busy) building a system that works with the players he has to work with. The sad part is the player development coaches the Suns need won't be brought in because $arver won't put money into improving when the team is gaining value by being this awful. What's the point for him? His investment continues to add overall value while doing minimal new investment for a better product.

Just hard to develop a system in today's NBA when you can't hit 3s, have poor defenders, can't rebound due to no PF, and don't have a legit PG.

[grumpysaddle]

We need to fix pg and pf for next year. How many teams have ever had 0 players at 2/5 positions?

I do think keeping continuity at the HC position is important for next year (as long as he maintains respect of our core). It seems like every opposing HC gives Igor a lot of complements after our losses.
It seems like Igor has a lot of respect around the league.

One of the biggest complaints about the suns the past few years has been our lack of player development. How are we supposed to develop players with a different coaching staff every year? If Igor keeps the respect of our players and the league, he needs another year. Maybe someone with more head coaching experience would get a couple more wins, but right now I think player development is the most important activity that will contribute to us winning games, and that requires continuity. If our young players continue to see our front office/coaching staff turned over each year, they are going to build 0 loyalty to the suns when it contract extension time comes around and trade requests will become more likely.

You bring in player development coaches to help with development. Assistant coaches help more with development than a head coach. A head coach is too busy (or should be too busy) building a system that works with the players he has to work with. The sad part is the player development coaches the Suns need won't be brought in because $arver won't put money into improving when the team is gaining value by being this awful. What's the point for him? His investment continues to add overall value while doing minimal new investment for a better product.

Just hard to develop a system in today's NBA when you can't hit 3s, have poor defenders, can't rebound due to no PF, and don't have a legit PG.

Hence trading most of the team for players that can do those things. But we'll have to watch 90% of this team come back to do the same thing next season.

[Saberestar]

I say give Igor another year.

Absolutely. There is no coach in this wide world that'd make this organization start winning consistently.Dysfunctional roster, no scouts, no GM, not even a hint of some kind of a plan for the future, worst owner in the league. Sarver's got to go. The Clown as well. Then we could talk coaching changes. You should start asking yourselves who is crazy enough to agree to come here under this circumstances? Wright? Bennett? Few? Smart? Musselman? Huggins? Marshall? I can guarantee you not a single one is interested, even if a call is made.

This roster was not seen that bad entering the season.

I remember bet sites and experts all giving us around 27-28 WINS. And they really know about basketball.

This team has played way worse than expected...that is the truth. The goal was to be a competitive team, 30 wins would have been a good result and that was not crazy talk during the preseason.

We needed a a good PG, but other than that the roster was decent on paper. Not playoff team at all, but decent.

Canaan/Crawford
Booker/Bridges/Daniels
Ariza/Jackson
Anderson/Warren/Bender
Ayton/Chandler/Holmes

That team is better than 11-48.

11W - 48L !!!!!!

Kokoskov has disappointed me.

I was not a big fan but I had hope. I expected at least some interesting and different sets on offense and more specific plays for our scorers.

He is soft and he needs to be more tough with the young players. Discipline.
He is too nice...like Hornacek was on the Suns.

I would be OK giving him another season...but I would not cry if he is fired during the summer.

[bwgood77]

You bring in player development coaches to help with development. Assistant coaches help more with development than a head coach. A head coach is too busy (or should be too busy) building a system that works with the players he has to work with. The sad part is the player development coaches the Suns need won't be brought in because $arver won't put money into improving when the team is gaining value by being this awful. What's the point for him? His investment continues to add overall value while doing minimal new investment for a better product.

Just hard to develop a system in today's NBA when you can't hit 3s, have poor defenders, can't rebound due to no PF, and don't have a legit PG.

Hence trading most of the team for players that can do those things. But we'll have to watch 90% of this team come back to do the same thing next season.

Well, as for 3s, Ayton is working on it, Booker should get back to form, Bridges likely improves, an hopefully we get a PG and PF who can hit them. Then maybe TJ off the bench.

Ayton improving defensively, and hopefully a PF who plays good D and rebounds.

[HiddenLeaf 44]

Continuity of being the worst team in the league?

We need to fix pg and pf for next year. How many teams have ever had 0 players at 2/5 positions?

I do think keeping continuity at the HC position is important for next year (as long as he maintains respect of our core). It seems like every opposing HC gives Igor a lot of complements after our losses.
It seems like Igor has a lot of respect around the league.

One of the biggest complaints about the suns the past few years has been our lack of player development. How are we supposed to develop players with a different coaching staff every year? If Igor keeps the respect of our players and the league, he needs another year. Maybe someone with more head coaching experience would get a couple more wins, but right now I think player development is the most important activity that will contribute to us winning games, and that requires continuity. If our young players continue to see our front office/coaching staff turned over each year, they are going to build 0 loyalty to the suns when it contract extension time comes around and trade requests will become more likely.

You bring in player development coaches to help with development. Assistant coaches help more with development than a head coach. A head coach is too busy (or should be too busy) building a system that works with the players he has to work with. The sad part is the player development coaches the Suns need won't be brought in because $arver won't put money into improving when the team is gaining value by being this awful. What's the point for him? His investment continues to add overall value while doing minimal new investment for a better product.

I feel you, there has been so many problems with this team. I think it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact problem from the outside and say Koko is the main problem. If we get rid of another coach we are guaranteed to have continuity issues which I explained above. If the players and inside personnel believe in Koko, I think it worth it to give him another year.

If we fix pg/pf and give our core players another year to develop/gel, we can come back strong next year. Most of this season has been crap, but we have seen some really nice stretches from our key players (Ayton/Booker/Bridges/Josh/TJ/Melton/Oubre)

[Puff]

Just hard to develop a system in today's NBA when you can't hit 3s, have poor defenders, can't rebound due to no PF, and don't have a legit PG.

Hence trading most of the team for players that can do those things. But we'll have to watch 90% of this team come back to do the same thing next season.

Well, as for 3s, Ayton is working on it, Booker should get back to form, Bridges likely improves, an hopefully we get a PG and PF who can hit them. Then maybe TJ off the bench.

Ayton improving defensively, and hopefully a PF who plays good D and rebounds.

You are not serious are you.

1. I saw that in the paper today that Ayton was working on his threes and said to myself WTF do we need that for. God help this franchise - please.
2. He did say he was working on some moves to the basket. That is great and we should bring Amare in to show him how it is done. There is no reason for him not getting the ball in the post turn make one or two dribbles and go to the basket no matter who is there. He should live at the free throw line not the 3 point line. Koko should be working with him on this and have it as part of his game. This could be my biggest frustration with Koko. If Ayton does not follow orders bench his ass. We certainly could not be any worse.
3. If Booker can stay healthy for more than 5 games in a row that would be a big help.
4. I believe the stats say that we are better with both Booker and TJ on the floor together. That is rare in that either one of them or both of them seem to be hurt all the time.
5. I really have no confidence that we are going to find legit help this summer at either the PG or PF. We will plug someone in that someone else doesn't want. That is what we do.

The only question is if we have hit rock bottom. I have no idea how a coach with Ayton and Booker on their team could have only 11 wins at the all star break. I also do know why any Suns Fan can think the coach is doing a good job.

I am tired of being positive. I thought Johnson might help and all the other teams were wrong. I thought Jones made a good move. Johnson Sucks.

[JDJ26]

I think if the Suns continue to be completely awful and incompetent Adam Silver and the league office will probably intervene and tell Sarver to sort this out or they will do it for him.

[Saberestar]

I think if the Suns continue to be completely awful and incompetent Adam Silver and the league office will probably intervene and tell Sarver to sort this out or they will do it for him.

We can only hope.

[JDJ26]

I think if the Suns continue to be completely awful and incompetent Adam Silver and the league office will probably intervene and tell Sarver to sort this out or they will do it for him.

We can only hope.

I honestly hope it happens after this season.

I know if the Suns draft Zion and are still awful the league will definitely step in and do something.

[stoo]

Are we again forgetting that the goal for this season is to be bottom 4. We have to get some talent thru draft. And i Believe, with Igor, it s gonna be a solid pick. It wouldnt be very possible to be bottom 4 with few more wins, considering other bottom teams

[RaisingArizona]

Are we again forgetting that the goal for this season is to be bottom 4. We have to get some talent thru draft. And i Believe, with Igor, it s gonna be a solid pick. It wouldnt be very possible to be bottom 4 with few more wins, considering other bottom teams

What? Losing was not the goal. Also, due to the lottery odds, even the team with the worst record can drop to 5 or 6 very easily. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting change is insanity.

[Djedefre]

I say give Igor another year.

Absolutely. There is no coach in this wide world that'd make this organization start winning consistently.Dysfunctional roster, no scouts, no GM, not even a hint of some kind of a plan for the future, worst owner in the league. Sarver's got to go. The Clown as well. Then we could talk coaching changes. You should start asking yourselves who is crazy enough to agree to come here under this circumstances? Wright? Bennett? Few? Smart? Musselman? Huggins? Marshall? I can guarantee you not a single one is interested, even if a call is made.

This roster was not seen that bad entering the season.

I remember bet sites and experts all giving us around 27-28 WINS. And they really know about basketball.

This team has played way worse than expected...that is the truth. The goal was to be a competitive team, 30 wins would have been a good result and that was not crazy talk during the preseason.

We needed a a good PG, but other than that the roster was decent on paper. Not playoff team at all, but decent.

Canaan/Crawford
Booker/Bridges/Daniels
Ariza/Jackson
Anderson/Warren/Bender
Ayton/Chandler/Holmes

That team is better than 11-48.

11W - 48L !!!!!!

Kokoskov has disappointed me.

I was not a big fan but I had hope. I expected at least some interesting and different sets on offense and more specific plays for our scorers.

He is soft and he needs to be more tough with the young players. Discipline.
He is too nice...like Hornacek was on the Suns.

I would be OK giving him another season...but I would not cry if he is fired during the summer.

We all know how this W/L predictions are made - 80 percent is based on previous season's record with subjectively adding or subtracting wins depending on the reputation new players have around the league and in general public. There are no analytic approach and advanced models involved. Did anyone take into account for example strength of schedule, where Suns are sitting at the top by a long margin? What about the context and playing in western or (l)eastern conference? What about the fact that 9 teams in the west already have 30 or more wins?

To be honest, i also expected a few wins more at this point before the season start, but...

This roster simply WAS NOT DECENT, neither on paper nor in practice. Let's delve in briefly:

Canaan - not even a Euroleague level starting PG; total garbage most of the time on the court
Crawford - one of the oldest players in the league and even in prime known as an off-the-bench-ball-hog-score-first-second-and-third-and-ask-questions-later type of player
Daniels - definition of a one dimensional player
Booker - great scorer with no trace of defensive presence whatsoever; great as a 1st scoring option but dubious as a real franchise player and cornerstone
Bridges - an older rookie known as a system player living off ball movement and struggling to create on his own
Ariza - aside from few good games here and there pure trash (he continued to fall apart consistently in Washington too) even though his addition was praised all around the league, from experts to casual fans - he'll teach this young squad how to win // best 3&D player around // instrumental in Houston's success...; replaced in a classic lateral move with Oubre who only looks for his own while giving a live presentation for his next contract
Anderson - utterly unusable
Jackson - has work in progress on his forehead; one step forward, two steps back; hard to direct and develop properly and takes time
Okobo - rookie PG from Europe picked up in the 2nd round as a project
Melton - 2nd round rookie PG that hasn't played ball for a year lacking some of the basic PG skills such as distributing the ball and shooting
Bender - failed project, on his way back to Europe
Warren - versatile scorer now extending his game and on his way to becoming a complete offensive package, while still average defender at best
Chandler - vet who ended up here by mistake, a complimentary piece who never was; gave up long time ago, never gave a damn, pretty much hibernating till the day he was finally traded
Holmes - nice hustle&energy addition, but really not a top tier of that type of centers
Ayton - possibly the biggest flop of our clownish FO given the relative value of the pick; solid to good offensively oriented center with absolutely below average defense, huge motor problems, lack of heart and motivation - exactly everything we knew months before the draft (yet we still picked him, in the year 2018.)

And on top of that roster so dangerously thin with real NBA-level contributors you have Booker missing 15 games, Warren 16, Ayton 6. With this team and those ever returning injuries we simply could not reach any consistency. We even had a brief win streak which even could've extended to 7 if it weren't for that heart-breaking loss in D.C.

Igor made some mistakes, that's for sure - after all, he's a beginner as an NBA head coach. I can point you to Brad Stevens' rookie season with Boston - it wasn't milk and honey to say the least. But unlike Brad, Igor is pretty much alone and exposed to all the winds of this world - he doesn't have a proper GM, proper scouts and executives and (last but not least) doesn't have a supportive owner who knows his role and leaves the job of running the franchise to the professionals who are actually payed for that job.

As long as we're making these cosmetic changes (i.e. hiring Jones, firing McD or even Kokoskov) things won't change for the better. I thought after all these miserable years in which THE ONLY CONSTANT is Mr. Robert Sarver it is clear as day. Enough is enough, cut down the rotten tree!

[bwgood77]

Also, bet sites are based on what they think public's perception is and their goal is to get 50% betting on each side. My guess is the Suns win total is inflated a bit too given Phx's proximity to Vegas. I bet more Suns fans even bet the over while unbiased fans probably balanced it out betting the under.

[sunsbg]

They will not fire Igor before the start of next season, but if the results stay the same he is gone by mid-season most likely, deservedly so.