AtheJ415 wrote:Reality is it's both Hornacek and the roster's fault. I can find a bunch of articles saying the Suns are playing below their talent, just as there are a ton of articles that will say Jeff is a good coach. Like Dantley above said, the roster doesn't have cohesion, although I disagree with you here that it doesn't have talent or is just bad. Our individual guys have talent They have shown that over the course of a long time. The problem is they don't play together as a team and the team IQ is awful. There are some captains of the low IQ team but even the supposed high IQ guys don't improve in that area. We're the only team that has no real improvement across the board at our weaknesses, and the main way to assess a coach may not be playoffs, it may not be wins and losses, because those are all impacted by roster talent, but it damn sure can be improvement. My problem with Jeff is there has been no improvement. Not really. 3 point shooting is better, but that is literally it, and a lot of that is simply bringing in Leuer and Tele.
I do think Jeff has his faults. For anyone thinking I don't, that isn't the case, and I've mentioned since December I am neutral on him now. I think most young first time coaches are going to work through issues, figure out what works, what gets players to tick, how to manage different people etc.
I've managed a lot of people and sometimes you just have to learn how each individual best respond to management, e.g., the Warren benching.
I can't really say I disagree with the fact that our team hasn't improved, but in year one, we lost Bledsoe, in year two, we completely flipped over the team and then our Dragic/IT replacement was gone for the season. In year 3 we lose Bledsoe again.
I think we were teetering on turning the corner and the new team (with guys like Leuer starting for the first time in their career) coming together during that six game road trip, against mostly tough teams (Memphis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto) and played pretty much every game close, could have easily gone 4-2 on that trip (but still beat Chicago and Toronto on the road which are very good wins) if Knight didn't have two huge costly miscues at the end of the Detroit game (that one was in the bag if not the turnover to Marcus...we were winning at the time) and Memphis....this was either a win or OT, until the TO and buzzer beater alley-oop.
We get home with that Chicago win, beat a feisty Orlando team, then go 2-3 in our next five including a blowout loss to GS, but then, coming after a win against the Pelicans, we blow a game we should have won to Milwaukee. I think that game crushed Hornacek and he alluded to the mistake on one of the final plays that frustrated him in his press conference.
I think with the combination of lame duck status, not getting through to Knight (I'm guessing Kidd felt the same way), the Markieff situation hanging over his head, injuries to Len and Chandler, and all this basically took the life out of him. I think he probably expected to be fired then. I expected it.
But the team as a whole looked a bit deflated and then Bledsoe went down, so, by default, we are not going to be very good.
But to get back to a question another poster mentioned, about what Hornacek does well (I'd rather answer here because I prefer not to engage with trolls)..
I think many players flourish under Hornacek....many of played the best ball of their careers under him (Dragic, Frye, Plumlee, Green, Bledsoe) and I think he has done a good job with the development of Warren and Booker. Now people can argue all day that those guys should have played from day one and they would have developed faster/better, but that isn't always necessarily the case, and likely not usually the case.
People also mention he has an iso system, but that really isn't the case....he has been given low iq and iso players...guys that have played most of their basketball lives as iso guys....like Markieff and Knight. Thomas is a score first pg, who gets assists if he can't find his own shot he will give it to someone else with 2 seconds on the shot clock. People mention that we should have more assists because of playing more point guards, but when these guys are each more concerned with getting their own, it will not lead to assists.
Could another coach get through to the squad he was given this year, with the Markieff situation, starting Leuer for the first time, Len/Chandler injuries, etc? I don't know. I really don't think many or maybe any would have done as well as he did in year one with that squad or possibly even the first half of year two, when they were 28-20 even though Dragic was disgruntled.
But I think there are valid reasons the team declined in the second half of each year, due to the two Bledsoe injuries and the Dragic, IT, Ennis trades to bring back Knight who goes down for the season. How could you EXPECT improvement?
I am not totally sold on Simmons. Please get a top two pick. We will be 2-5
