So without further ado
Coaching - Overall Grade: B
Igor Kokoskov was a coach I was happy to have on board, I was happy with the resume and experience he had and overall I was happy with his performance this season. I think perspectives on new coaches on a a young and lottery-destined team will always be quite polarising just because coaches are generally graded on W/L's and but a team like ours just isn't conducive to winning so it's hard to judge him with that same W/L criteria.
I will talk real quickly about things I wasn't as happy with. For one, I do wish he was a little more "passionate" during games, especially when bad calls go our way. I don't think he should create a reputation for himself as a guy constantly berating refs but I did think there were a few situations where he should've taken a T (timely and strategically) for the team. The team tends to rally around each other when their leader takes one for them and there were plenty of times when things were going wayside and he could've used a T to bring everyone together. Another thing I wish he did more was played Crawford less than Melkobo more even though they sucked.
On the positive side, I think his player development has been solid (A grade) imo, especially with his handling of Ayton's defense. I think most coaches would've rather give Ayton the greenlight to do whatever he wanted on offense and to deal with his defensive failings in the follow of season but Igor was adamant about putting an emphasis on Ayton's D. Liekwise with Bridges, Igor kept his role restricted to 3&D and and it wasn't until Bridges become one of the better defenders in the league did he allow Bridges to take on more playmaking/scoring responsibilities. Igor integration of both Oubre and Johnson was commendable as well IMO, especially since we didn't have a floor general on the floor to really help those guys on the court.
I think Igor should return next season and I want to see what he has in store for our young guys next season.
Phoenix Suns Front Office (Jones/Bukstein) - Overall Grade: B
I don't think I can give them a better grade than B but I don't necessarily think I can give them a worse grade than that either. Both guys came in without a wealth of front office experience (I believe Bukstein was only Ast GM under McD) and with likely a mandate to keep 2020 cap space as free as possible were likely handcuffed in terms of what they could do. But I'll go through briefly the three biggest moves I think they made this season
- Signing Crawford
- Ariza for Oubre trade
- Anderson for Johnson trade
While I do wish they brought in a real PG early onward, the fact that we settled on TJo isn't necessarily the worst thing to happen. I was happy with the Oubre trade because we got back a better, younger player than Ariza who had already checked out and now we potentially have a good piece of the core going forward. Crawford was a head scratcher of a signing but as he became integrated into the team, it became clear what his true role there was and that’s mentoring. If only he played a little less, I think this front office probably would’ve gotten a higher mark.
I wished we had a more senior and more experienced decision maker in the front office but so far Jones and Bukstein have done a decent job even if at the time those moves were didn’t inspire confidence. With the addition of Bower, I think they could be a solid team going forward.
Overall team performance – Overall Grade: C-
If we’re talking overall term performance, I can’t help be consider this season to be an under-performance against expectation. I expected us to win around 30 games based on the addition of Ayton/Bridges and internal improvement but we were a lot further behind than I had anticipated. With the lack of progress from our higher draft picks from a few seasons ago (Bender/Jackson), injuries to key players (Booker/TJ/Oubre) and also learning curve for the team, including Igor, it’s really been a season of disappointment for me. That’s not to say there aren’t bright spots but with the 2nd worst record in franchise history in the record books now, it really wasn’t the season I think most fans were expecting.
While I do think we have the pieces to be a good team, this season has undoubtedly in my mind been below expectation and that’s why I’ve given it a C-
