Terry Porter Says He Wasn't Given Enough Time

[The Diesel]

Hey guys,

I remember reading an interview with Porter a few months ago in which he claims he wasn't given enough time while coach of the Suns.

Do you agree with him?

Personally, I agree with the decision to fire him. While I don't think he's a bad coach, his system was just not a good fit for this team.

When he took over the job, he said the Suns "are a contender" only to lead them to the # 9 seed at the All-Star break.

He stupidly slowed down Nash, built his offense around a 37 year old Shaq, brought Hill off the bench, ran out Diaw and Bell, and turned Amare into a role player. The defense got worse under him than it was under Mike D which must have been extremely embarrassing for Kerr because he ran out Mike over the lack of defense only to see the defense get worse under the guy he hired to improve the defense.

Or do the players deserve the blame for not buying into his system?

Was Porter to blame or were the players to blame and should Porter have been given more time?

Looking forward to your opinions,

Thanks.

[lou_skywalker]

yeah I agree that half a season was way too short...but I doubt a full season under him would made the difference..he probably would have ended up like Michael Curry anyways.. Our roster is not made for defense...blame Kerr for hiring him in the first place.

[The Diesel]

Kerr definitely made a huge mistake in hiring him because he completely misread his own team.

This team was not suited to play the way Porter wanted them to play.

He needed to hire a coach whose system fit the team and Porter was the wrong guy.

That's Kerr and David Griffin's fault.

Although it must be said that Paul Coro said after the season ended that some people within the organization were surprised in a bad way at the way the offense was being run under Porter.

Shaq was the only player who fit Porter's system.

Hill/J-Rich/Nash/Barbosa/Amare fit in better in an up-tempo offense, not Porter's system.

[pidi]

first, i agree terry is a realy good coach. if he has a team of young players, defensive minded players he could reach some huge wins with them. but here is the problem - if you´re on a team that wins about 55-60 games a season with the run-n-gun style you would not want to change the whole style.
you can change some facettes of the game, here a new play, there another defensive switch.

and that was the fault of terry porter - he lost the veterans and so he lost his job.

if we would give him enough time he would have changed the whole looking of the team and
could be succesful.

and another mistake he made is coming to phx and not having the right personal to play defensive minded but be that dumbheaded to let ´em play a style that they can´t play...

[lilfishi22]

Porter would be a great coach for a young team like the Nets and Thunder. Putting defense as the number 1 priority is always correct and if it wasn't for the type of players we have on our team, he would've been the right guy. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time he needed to turn this team around. It was Kerr's fault for putting Porter in a situation where he was expected to gain the respect of our veterans and win. It was unrealistic and Kerr should've seen that we didn't have the players to be a defense first team. Another big issue which I was concerned with even during the off season was the respect factor. Shaq, Hill, Bell and Nash all respected D'Antoni because of the recent success in Phoenix, but Porter was pretty much a rookie coach, having only been a head coach for a few years. He had to earn their respect, which he didn't and his ability to gain their respect was something I had doubted from the beginning.

Aside from that, Porter did have to take at least half the blame. He lost his veterans, killed the confidence of our young guys and ran Bell and Diaw out of Phoenix. While he was right to make our guys play defense and to put more responsibilities into their hands on defense, he should've kept the offense, the one thing puts us above other teams, the same and let Nash do his thing. He ran way too much offense through Shaq and despite Shaq putting up very efficient numbers, he turned the rest of our team into role players. Had he kept the offense the same, while putting a bigger emphasis on defense, there would've been a healthy balance between our vets wants of playing in an up-tempo offense and the defense he was asking them to play.

Even if Kerr had given him more time, our veterans wouldn't have. It was a huge mistake for Kerr to trade away Diaw and Bell who were good for team chemistry and who were arguably the heart and soul of the team in favor of keeping his rookie coach happy.

All in all, everybody, players, coach and GM all hold some of the blame. From the players not having more patience to the coach not maximizing the potential of this team to the GM not making the right decision when necessary.

[WTFsunsFTW]

Too much time imo...

[DirtyDez]

Kerr definitely made a huge mistake in hiring him because he completely misread his own team.

This team was not suited to play the way Porter wanted them to play.

He needed to hire a coach whose system fit the team and Porter was the wrong guy.

That's Kerr and David Griffin's fault.

Although it must be said that Paul Coro said after the season ended that some people within the organization were surprised in a bad way at the way the offense was being run under Porter.

Shaq was the only player who fit Porter's system.

Hill/J-Rich/Nash/Barbosa/Amare fit in better in an up-tempo offense, not Porter's system.

+1, Kerr's biggest mistake

[hunterxaz]

Kerr made the mistake, but Porter made an even bigger one in trying to force it to work, which it didn't. He and Kerr are the sole reason that the Suns missed the playoffs. Not because they were outplayed, but misdirected and misguided. Porter is a TERRIBLE coach, with an all-time losing record. I mean why would we even bring him in??? Made no sense.

[DirtyDez]

I remember Stephen A Smith saying TP made the players wear their uniforms from the time they left their hotel until game-time because that's the way they didn't in Portland and it's a privilege to wear it. Making grown men do that won't get you far in this league

[BurningHeart]

It was immediately apparent that it didn't, and would never work.

[toucansma]

He was given too much time, haha. As a person I do not mind him, but he was the wrong fit. He should have been given that Detroit job instead. However as a coach so far he is inflexible, it seems. I wish him luck elsewhere though.

[Risensun]

The headline should be renamed "Terry Porter Says He Wasn't Given Enough Time To Completely Destroy Team"

[Gorilla Warfare]

Too much time imo...

+1

[Austin]

Too much time imo...

+1

+2 Anything more than 0 time is too much for porter and the suns..

[JohnVancouver]

Kerr was completely at fault for hiring the guy, which he has pretty much copped to. Porter was at fault for, form what we can gather, attempting to change the team identity/offense in more radical fashion than was expected and not recognizing mistakes or being willing to adjust his plan when it becam obvious it wasn't working.
It didn't help that every time he opened his mouth he looked like a bigger idiot.

[aIvin adams]

i guess, technically, if he had been given more time he would have eventually had more success than he did...eventually..

bc in terms of %change he def was in the red. i think given more time the suns still would never be as good as the could have if they hadnt hired porter, but the rate at which he made the suns worse would have leveled off to nearly zero. so...

im not really sure why anyone defends this guy as a professional head coach. he got passed on by the org familiar w him for michael curry.

[Orange_Blooded]

I don't necessarily think he was a bad coach, just bad for our team. I think he'd work well on a young team who needs a disciplinarian. But glad to see him gone. Our guys were not fun to watch, part of it was the system but most of it was that they just seemed miserable playing for him.

[cmw17]

Porter was the worst coach I have ever seen in the NBA. I have never seen a coach do so little with so much talent. He had absolutely no idea how to not only maximize, but even utilize the talent that he had. How in the hell do you explain playing slow down half court basketball when you have the best passer (Nash) and the best finisher (Amare) in the game. The roster is built to run and he just didn't see that. How do you make an over the hill 400 pound center as your main scoring option? He just made every mistake possible as coach. He had the best offensive roster in the NBA and made them worse offensively and was brought in primarily to improve the defense, and actually managed to make them worse defensively. That pretty much takes the cake. How Kerr ran Dantoni out of Phoenix and brought in this joke of a coach is simply mindboggling. I don't even understand how he lasted half a season. What an embarrassment.

[JasonDaPsycho]

First of all, regarding Terry Porter's coaching, I'm gonna say it's horrible. It's not because he was trying to make the Suns play some D, but rather he was only utilizing one player's skill. That's why Shaq, all of a sudden, is an all star again. That's also why you hear multiple players complaining. Steve Nash's skills are not fully utilized (anybody can pass the ball to Shaq), and Amar'e automatically becomes the 2nd option on offese, making him unhappy (as well as the team). Yea, I know. Amar'e is still the scoring leader, BUT if Terry Porter stays here for one more year, and Shaq was not traded, Shaq WILL BE the scoring leader on the team.

Second, this is not the biggest mistake Terry Porter has made. Let's see. He gave the Thunder a first round pick, he gave away the Matrix AND a first round draft pick (as well as Banks, whom none of us care) for Shaq. There are way more than that, right?
However, what made his decision of hiring Terry Porter terrible is not even consider hiring Flip Saunders (who seemed like a good fit), not even attempting to interview him.

[The Diesel]

Porter was the worst coach I have ever seen in the NBA. I have never seen a coach do so little with so much talent. He had absolutely no idea how to not only maximize, but even utilize the talent that he had. How in the hell do you explain playing slow down half court basketball when you have the best passer (Nash) and the best finisher (Amare) in the game. The roster is built to run and he just didn't see that. How do you make an over the hill 400 pound center as your main scoring option? He just made every mistake possible as coach. He had the best offensive roster in the NBA and made them worse offensively and was brought in primarily to improve the defense, and actually managed to make them worse defensively. That pretty much takes the cake. How Kerr ran Dantoni out of Phoenix and brought in this joke of a coach is simply mindboggling. I don't even understand how he lasted half a season. What an embarrassment.

Porter actually did a really good job in Milwaukee and has been a really good assistant coach in the NBA. I think he's a good coach who was just a bad fit for this team and that's Kerr's fault for thinking he was the right guy for the job.

I think people are going to be disappointed in Gentry...his career coaching record is not too encouraging and he's been fired 3 times.