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Hey guys,

For all the talk that the Suns are back to being an elite team, they have had a terrible record since the 14-3 start.

Their record now is 26-19 compared to 25-20 last season. Not much of a difference.

How would you guys compare Porter and Gentry?

Porter was a moron and gentry has less talent and his plan worked for the beginning of the year and then teams caught on. I can't blame gentry for whats going on this season, however porter was an idiot and I can put most of the blame on him for the stupid things he did last year but even then the team never believed in his ideas.

I disagree that Gentry has less talent. Frye fits the system better than Shaq did.

Perhaps Porter wasn't THAT bad.

The Diesel wrote:I disagree that Gentry has less talent. Frye fits the system better than Shaq did.

Perhaps Porter wasn't THAT bad.

Porter ran a different system and shaq fit his system just fine however none of the others did and shaq got good numbers. Frye fit it well before teams figured it out now that teams figured it out frye cant do **** and we rely on lopez. Porter also had a healthier barbosa and jrich when jrich was actually making some shots. Porter was just too stupid to use players like dudley, lopez, and dragic.

They are both not good coachs. At least Porter tried to get them to play defense.

The reason they are or were coaching us is simple: They were cheap options.

Least years team sans Amare was healthier and playing better. This season LB is injured and J Rich is not playing as well.
We were better offensively last season.

The truth is we will never know whether Porter was THAT bad or whether the players never gave him a chance.

Shaq was one of the few players that bought in and actually played really well.

If more players bought in and stopped complaining (Bell and Amare), perhaps the team would have done better and Porter would still have his job.

But there's no question Gentry's system is a better fit for Nash.

Gentry is a much better coach because he doesnt try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

BurningHeart wrote:Gentry is a much better coach because he doesnt try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

.. and he doesn't believe in motivational craft sessions.

Gentry is better because he plays young players.

Gentry is a better coach for a re-building team, like us.

Gentry is still a far better coach despite the similarity in our records. Compared to last season, I would say we had less talent but Gentry had found a way to maximize the talent of this group and turned Dragic, Lopez, Dudley and Lou into key contributors. Something Porter never could do. Gentry is also more of a player's coach in the mold of D'Antoni and he has very good relationships with the players and he showed them his confidence by playing our young guys big minutes this season.

The Diesel wrote:Hey guys,

For all the talk that the Suns are back to being an elite team

--- what talk of elite status? there was a little bit of wishful thinking around here when we started so hot but we all came back to reality pretty quick. Most of the talk the last couple of months has been about dealing with the fact we're not an elite team anymore.

Porter v Gentry? Porter was the wrong guy for the team as constructed - Gentry is a very good coach but it comes down to the players. They're just not doing what they need to do - maybe some of them can't. Frye is straight-up about his lack of presence down low, and he tries but the fact is, he's a soft player. Just who and what he is.
Nash works hard on defense but doesn't have the physical attributes to keep up with people.
Amar'e, to be fair, has stepped up this year, with some lapses.

dragic

/thread

Porter was like a marine, he would break players down and build them back up. Unfortunately having an aging team of vets that were primadonas, of course that wouldn't have worked. Maybe with a young rebuilding team it could have.

Gentry is just a scapegoat and probably wont be brought back when his contract expires. Nash is basically the coach of the team.

So I'm gonna hijack this and turn it into a little bit of discussion about Gentry's performance as of late:

Poor. That is all.



Just kidding - to expand, I've been really disappointed in many of Gentry's strategical decisions lately. We've seen Nash/Amar'e pulled for most of the 4th quarter a few times over the last 6 games or so. We've seen players' (Goran) hot streaks challenged by random benching. And IMO, we've seen some pretty bad plays drawn up down the stretch in the 4th.

To continue with the lineup criticism, we lost 2 games and just barely won 1 because of some stubborn refusal to put even a fraction of the first unit on the floor until 6 and even 4 minutes left in the 4th. Also, players are given the "green light" at the wrong times and apparently punished for it..at all the wrong times. Nash will hog the ball and Gentry will turn the other cheek, until 7 turnovers later he decides to take our team leader out and sit him in the 4th. Amar'e gets a very erratic number of plays drawn for him from game to game. I don't care what's going on, Amar'e should get 20+ shots every night. As much criticism as he draws here on this board, he is a volume scorer - if he just got consistent looks he would easily drop 27+ PPG.

I do have to give him credit for moving Channing Chucks-a-lot to the bench in favor of Lopez. Lopez balances out the starting lineup and Frye can do his shooting thing as a spark off the bench. Besides that, I am really starting to question how talented Gentry is, or whether we should look to the open market this offseason (Silas cough cough)