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A year ago, Terry Porter was in his first week of hands-on Suns coaching. That training camp started a tenure that would last for barely three months of the regular season, rather than the three seasons of his contract.
Now, as the Suns train here with a new coach, Porter is living in Portland with his family. He works on college plans for his daughter rather than game plans, and he spends time with his sons.
Porter took no solace in the Suns missing the playoffs without him and still has an interest in them, although he did not watch their games after he was fired in February with the Suns at 28-23.
Porter lived in Phoenix through the summer before moving to Portland, where he played most of his career and where his daughter wanted to have her senior year.
He said it was tough to hear people discuss the Suns but not as rough as being fired as a head coach for the second time.
"I did everything I could to try to make that team successful," he said. "All the parties were disappointed with how it turned out. To be able to work with Steve (Kerr, the Suns' general manager) was unbelievable. Robert (Sarver, the managing partner) was good to me. To coach those guys was a good experience. I would've liked to coach them longer."
Porter was hired by Kerr, a former teammate and good friend, to improve the defense, impart structure and maintain the offensive ways by using his background with Rick Adelman.
The plan went awry when players resisted a more conventional offense and a back-to-basics camp approach. Porter's stated goals were to score about 100 points per game, reduce possessions and improve defensively but he made changes during the season to appease the players' offensive desires. Two of the unhappier players, Raja Bell and Boris Diaw, were traded.
The spiral continued and the spirit worsened. Steve Nash, Amaré Stoudemire and Grant Hill lamented how the system didn't fit the way the roster was constructed.
Last week, Nash said: "When Steve Kerr hired Terry, that (fast system) is the way he wanted us to play. Somehow, we got a little bit away from that."
Stoudemire celebrated the offense of Porter's predecessor, Mike D'Antoni, and said: "We went to a completely different team. It changed us. It affected me because I wasn't as versatile as I wanted."
Porter said his vision was based on the Suns staff's input and tried to address its desires. He noted that Shaquille O'Neal was acquired before his arrival and that his camp lost Leandro Barbosa to be with his dying mother, and Stoudemire with a torn iris.
Without much buy-in from players and tall orders from brass, did Porter get a fair chance?
"Fair is always in the eye of the beholder," he said. "All I could worry about was what I could control. There's not any coach who gets 100 percent buy-in. You get 100 percent buy-in when everyone lifts the trophy in June.
"I don't know what they made the decision (to fire me) based on."
Porter and Kerr have talked since the firing.
"I don't think one incident will change our friendship," said Porter, who is unsure whether he will coach again. He wants to stay in the game and will be involved with the Trail Blazers' 40th anniversary season. Meanwhile, he will collect about $4.5 million for not coaching his contract's final two years.
"I wish I was earning it," Porter said. "I got fired so you do a lot of soul searching."
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/articles/2009/10/01/20091001sunsporter1002.html
I must say I feel bad for Porter because he seems like a really nice guy who stepped into a very difficult job.
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