Terry Porter: Suns Didn't Embrace the System

[tsherkin]

Here, Porter talks about his thoughts on his time as Phoenix's head coach.

He's nutters, IMO.

[Mr. Sun]

Didn't say anything we already didn't know. I would like to ask him if he'd still had taken the job knowing what he knows now.

[pidi]

man, he costs us the playoffs and better shut up.

[realsunsfan]

He is nutter's......... When he came here, he himself said the offense would pretty much stay the same but with a new emphasis on defense. So the players accepted him and applauded the hiring thinking he was going to help the team defensively. Porter opens training camp with a completely new system offensively and defensively, everything the players worked on during the off season was thrown out the window. The new system he wanted to run did not fit the personnel on the team. He came in swinging a sledgehammer when he should have just tightened a few screws......

[b-ball forever]

When u **** up your assignment as badly as he did the the only reasonable thing to do is STFU, admit failure, learn from your mistakes, and not do em again next time... Instead the tard chooses to live in denial and put all the blame on the players instead

Nice job shooting himself in the foot.

[tsherkin]

I think it's apparent that Porter doesn't realize a couple of things:

1) Good coaches make use of their players, they do not force the system; if they want to change the way the players play, you change the players (or the coach...).

2) The Suns were very clearly geared towards the kind of offense that Gentry has them playing, ergo his attempts to totally and completely revamp the offense was not wise, because it diminished Steve Nash's ability to impact the game.

3) Defense can be good even without phenomenal players, yes (see the Skiles-led Bulls and Bucks), but if you've got clear flaws in two of your starters (Amare and Nash) and are lacking significantly in other areas (Hill's old and frail, they didn't have a legit 4 who could defend, etc), then you're not going to be a good defensive team.

4) Telling the team that it can run only off of stops is stupid; NBA teams put up 70+ shots a game, varying by pace, if you choose to run only off of the stops, you're dramatically limiting the number of opportunities you get to exploit the MOST EFFECTIVE OFFENSE IN THE GAME...

Porter is clearly an idiot and a mediocre coach.

[TASTIC]

I don't see him getting too much work other than Assistant positions any time soon...Think guys like he and Sam Mitchell were better players than they were/are coaches...

[TXSun]

more like Porter didn't embrace his players. He's the reason why we are in this hole.

[JohnVancouver]

full invu -


http://www.portlandtribune.com/sports/s ... 6131294700

[dunleavyjr]

The old fashion "Run and Gun", huh?

Yeah, it does work...consecutive 140-points against the paper clips, and the deadwolves.
Hm... did you folks forget about something? These are ass teams in the league.

Now, compare your record against the winning teams, teams who are .500.
Tell me what you find out.

Coach Porter is right about you folks.

[garrick]

Yeah but Porter's team would have struggled to win versus the clips and wolves, with Porter the only team we really blew out was the Kings and that was a rarity.
Porter also did not have a good rapport with the team unlike Gentry and if you ever seen the clips of Gentry talking to the players you'd understand.

[dunleavyjr]

As a "bad coach" as many of you folks think Porter is, he produced .500 record for you folks.
I really doubt Alvin Gentry will be able to achieve .500 under his system.

[-SDU-]

if alvin had amare he would produce far greater than .500

honestly, i believe this with every inch of my soul - I COULD COACH the suns to a better record than .500

just let nash make the decisions on the court and stop trying to force round pegs into square holes and this team wins 50% every season

[b-ball forever]

As a "bad coach" as many of you folks think Porter is, he produced .500 record for you folks.
I really doubt Alvin Gentry will be able to achieve .500 under his system.

If Gentry had Amare, Diaw, and Bell like Porter did, he'd EASILY produce a .600 + record, so learn how to talk outta elsewhere besides your ass.

[rsavaj]

As a "bad coach" as many of you folks think Porter is, he produced .500 record for you folks.
I really doubt Alvin Gentry will be able to achieve .500 under his system.

You're a lot more fun when you're pretending to be 18-19 on the off topic board.

[JohnVancouver]

As I mentioned in a post on another thread, Hill said yesterday the team did "buy in" and worked hard to adapt to Porter's system and do what was asked of them. The problem came when it was clearly not working, killing what they *did* do well - witness the fall-off in effectiveness for Amar'e and Nash - and Porter would not budge. In the invu Porter talks about the Showtime Lakers. What he doesn't appear to get is that Pat Riley didn't ask Kareem to move out of position or hamstring Magic at the point.
Porter also didn't have Michael Cooper ... bringing us back to the point made so astutely above: you coach the players you have.
Porter came in with a plan that might have worked perfectly well with another team. When it was unsuccessful with this one, it was only in desperation that he loosened the reins on Nash. He didn't have any ability to fit the plan to the personnel. He got fired, rightly. It should have happened sooner.
Recall also that there stories around AS break about 10 am game day full-dress practices, which is not a great idea when dealing with a veteran, aging squad of all-stars and MVPs.
in the other thread I referenced Ahab and Col. Kurtz - I was wrong. Porter was Captain Queeg.

[eastsidecrossover]

He never should have been hired in the first place. I think that goes on Kerr and shows his true colors as a GM. I feel for the guy because he was the wrong guy at the wrong time and wrong team. He really never got the shot he should have got. Also, the FO failed this team and their vets. Might as well hire Zeek to be the GM and coach of this team. Might as well.

[BurningHeart]

Hey Terry Porter, embrace my nutsack. It's because of you that this team is out of the playoffs. 28-23 when you were fired, when this team could have and should have EASILY been 35-16 at that time.

Shut your trap.