The Alvin Gentry Death Watch Thread

[Mr. Sun]

How long you guys think Gentry has? I say loses to DET and SAC and he is gone.

[MaryvalesFinest]

They extended him until 2013 and probably still paying Porter so realisticly I think it will be halfway through next season if they are doing really bad or at the end of next season. If they miss the playoffs two years in a row, I think they probably fire him.

[DirtyDez]

Never been a huge fan but he's not going anywhere.

[ma_falaa_50]

I would keep him. He got handed a Raw deal when they let go of Amare and got Hedo in return. Hedo affected Nash's play and Goran's play. Nash has since gotten better and goran seems to not got it clicked yet. He is a good coach and prolly the best coach available right now. He did help this team to a western Conference finals. Amare not being here and Lou especially is deeply missed.

[JasonDaPsycho]

Most of his coaching style changes came from the FO and Robert low-balling everyone. He played Steve 36+ minutes a night to maintain certain stability in the group, which is somewhat understandable, but also due to the conservative nature of such a decision, he isn't the great players' coach we've seen last year.
I'll give him one more season.

Btw, I believe everyone knew the FO done messed up as well. The acts of Lon Babby bringing in former clients are more than questionable.
If anyone's gotta go, it has to be the management, and Robert.

[BurningHeart]

I'm a critic of Gentry a lot of the time, but it's really tough to work things out when the roster is in constant turnover.

We already changed management, lol. We were on the trail of Turkoglu with the plan to have him AND Amare. And I have no idea why anyone would criticize Babby for bringing Childress in. Childress does very well when he's in. Gentry just has to find his spot.

Gentry is who he is. He's mediocre. He's a stopgap until Majerle is ready to coach. For all the bashing D'Antoni got about perceived "lack of defense".....the perception is real when it comes to this team now

[NiGhtWiSh]

team playing bad in offence = in 90% players faults
team playing bad in D = 100 % coach's fault
Amen

[ma_falaa_50]

Um not its not! at the end of the day, The players execute. I would be mad if Gentry was outfoxed but fact is the suns as a team were missing rotations, defensive assignments, Box outs, turnovers. Those happen during the game when coaches are on the sidelines.

[RaisingArizona]

I don't think he's on the hot seat at all.

[NiGhtWiSh]

I don't think he's on the hot seat at all.

it's not about hot seat. It's about a job Gentry has to do. i bball, you win by defence, not by 3-pointers or crazy dunks. You can stop opponent - you can win. You don't stop - you loose. True. True. So i think Suns better starts work on D. 30+ points by any player will NOT save the team. Do You guys think Gentry knows how to teach team defence?

[Calvin Klein]

the FO is the one screwing things up for Gentry.

It would be unfair to fire him after all the excellent work he did last year, and the mess he has to deal with this year.

[NiGhtWiSh]

Fair, unfair. Who cares. This is NBA. Millions of $$$$. Don't be sentimental. OK, fans, we can be. Not coach or FO.
Things are going really bad? They are in charge to change them. First, coach. Select players from roster, set plays, set D, teach, use players, be PRESENT at the game - read the flow of the game, make changes and subs well in time. If any of that is blown, ball goes to FO. In Suns case, we must just wait a couple of weeks. New guys, maybe a new trade coming, new chemistry building. If Suns will go down in a month, letting opponents score 100+ ppg, it will be right time to fire Mr. Gentry. Now, we have to let him act.

I know very well and from very close the european pro-basketball, with Euroleague and best European teams. And I tell you one: when you don't see a coach's hand on team defence, you can be 100% sure, that this guy will not coach any good team, any more. Playing D, players can make indyvidual mistakes and faults, but you allways have to see well prepared team defence. And you see that D. Today, I bet, any of best 20-30 european teams will beat Suns by 10-20 pts, killing them in D and well-prepared offence. With clear shots, easy layups, dunks in transition...

Sorry for long post and a lot of bad thinking, but that's the way I see Suns today...

[Dr Pepper]

Gortat's comments about how the Suns are basically a joke of a team defensively tells you all you need to know really. This is because Gortat is going through a huge culture shock since he's been coached by SVG and the Magic staff who are about as anal as they get in the league when it comes to criticizing players mistakes and weaknesses, watching tape, and getting their defense right. Must be a huge culture shock to go from a contending team proud of its defense to one that has a good shot of missing the playoffs entirely largely because of their arguably horrible defense, coaching, and management.

However I don't see Gentry getting fired unless Nash gets traded or destroys him within the organization ala Terry Porter. If Gentry gets fired with Nash still on the team then I think its just a matter of weeks before Steve follows suit.

[hunterxaz]

I think we've proven that we can win without being stellar defensively. We've been so close. We've had refs fixing games against us, injuries, lost players, people making ridiculous buzzer beaters, etc, go against us. If Artest missed that layup last year in game 6 and we win, we come home 3-3 with a chance to win and go to the finals against a weak Celtics team...

[Dr Pepper]

I think we've proven that we can win without being stellar defensively. We've been so close. We've had refs fixing games against us, injuries, lost players, people making ridiculous buzzer beaters, etc, go against us. If Artest missed that layup last year in game 6 and we win, we come home 3-3 with a chance to win and go to the finals against a weak Celtics team...

"Without being stellar defensively" is much too kind.

The Suns are more or less tied with the worst defensive rating the NBA has ever seen, no team can make up for that and here's an excerpt from ESPN about the Suns horrible d:

Because the Suns have a long and storied history as a defenseless team, I'm not sure people truly understand just how awful they've been this season. According to Basketball-Reference, the 2010-11 Phoenix Suns are currently the sixth-worst team of all time in terms of Defensive Rating (which, again, is 114.1).

For perspective, the 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks have an all-time worst D-Rating of 114.7. In other words, this year's Suns team is a mere seven-tenths of one point per 100 possessions away from being the worst defensive team ever.

Here's another ugly fact: The five teams that rank behind the Suns in Defensive Rating averaged 20 wins.

Look, the Suns have shown over the past several seasons that a team can compete without being an elite defensive squad. But no amount of scoring is going to overcome a potentially worst-ever defense. If the Suns are going to turn their season around, they need to start getting their hands in some faces. And fast.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... -you-think

[RocPHX]

After seeing that, I can't blame anyone but the coach. Theres no excuse for having a team be thisb ad defensively. We actually have a some good individual defenders on this team too.

[hunterxaz]

I think we've proven that we can win without being stellar defensively. We've been so close. We've had refs fixing games against us, injuries, lost players, people making ridiculous buzzer beaters, etc, go against us. If Artest missed that layup last year in game 6 and we win, we come home 3-3 with a chance to win and go to the finals against a weak Celtics team...

"Without being stellar defensively" is much too kind.

The Suns are more or less tied with the worst defensive rating the NBA has ever seen, no team can make up for that and here's an excerpt from ESPN about the Suns horrible d:

Because the Suns have a long and storied history as a defenseless team, I'm not sure people truly understand just how awful they've been this season. According to Basketball-Reference, the 2010-11 Phoenix Suns are currently the sixth-worst team of all time in terms of Defensive Rating (which, again, is 114.1).

For perspective, the 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks have an all-time worst D-Rating of 114.7. In other words, this year's Suns team is a mere seven-tenths of one point per 100 possessions away from being the worst defensive team ever.

Here's another ugly fact: The five teams that rank behind the Suns in Defensive Rating averaged 20 wins.

Look, the Suns have shown over the past several seasons that a team can compete without being an elite defensive squad. But no amount of scoring is going to overcome a potentially worst-ever defense. If the Suns are going to turn their season around, they need to start getting their hands in some faces. And fast.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... -you-think

Not this season, bud. I am well aware we're the worst we've ever been in the Nash era, right now.

[Miklo]

Sorry but I don't think Gentry should go anywhere. Who exactly should be the coach of our team that would be better? Good, available coaches don't come a dime a dozen and Thunder Dan is not ready yet, if ever. Gentry generally has Nash's trust, which is numero uno as long as he's on our roster. He knows how to get a rapport with the players and right now is just tricky because the first 10 games after a trade the players don't even know each other yet.

You're looking past Gentry's accomplishments and positives, to try and crucify him for our performance with a constantly changing, slightly nonsensical at times roster.

[Reverse_Angle]

Awww. He is such a nice guy, I don't like seeing this type of threads about him (Death watch? Really?).

However, what I saw last night was terrifying. It looked like Gentry wanted somebody else for Pietrus, but Nash wanted Dudley and Gentry listened to Nash?

[SUN]

Anyone want to get on the Dan man fan bandwagon?