GetYourPHX wrote:bwgood77 wrote:A month ago I didn't think he was the right move, but the more I hear stories about him and what the players say about him, and how he is respected around the league, I began to think perhaps he would be a good guy to hire, and was kind of on the fence.
But I have gradually come to think he is the right hire right now. I think he will be good for the young players we have and the young ones coming in. Less important is that OUR vets like him, but what IS important about that, is that if we want to go after some veteran free agent in the future to complete the team, or whoever it may be, it just shows he is widely respected regardless of age of player.
One post someone made in another thread, I thought was really informative:
EJlover wrote:Just a quick note as I've only just found out that my favorite player is the head coach for the Suns. I've followed Earl since he was a freshman at UCLA and have always admired his tenacity, his passion, and his toughness. I've also seen how he's grown from that homesick kid who wasn't ever supposed to get off the bench (yet he was the first ever to start every game in a 4-year career at UCLA), to a guy who became a coach on the floor during his last few years in the league, and now to getting a chance to serve as head coach for an NBA team.
When watching him in Utah it literally seemed like the game slowed down a bit as he would direct the younger guys on the second unit into position, point out where they needed to be, and helped them excel. Not that he slowed down the game to waste time, but he was able to help the young guys develop in the games while he was playing the point. He's been a true student of the game most of his life, has fostered relationships with some of the greatest minds in the game, and has known many of the players in the league for years and years. He understands the game, he understands egos, and he understands that it's about the team, becoming solid men and citizens, not just basketball stars.
For those of you wondering why he would have been given the opportunity to coach at this point, this is the background, and there are a large number of people within the pro-basketball community that have felt for years that he would become a head coach in the future. If not a head coach I know he wanted to become Mayor of his hometown - maybe that will happen for him down the road after a nice long coaching career.
Well you've certainly found the biggest puff-piece on the internet in favor of the guy. Suns fans can throw superlatives around as much as they want to justify the hire, but it doesn't mask the stench of desperation that emanates from everything this front office touches. "Slowed down the game," "student of the game," "greatest minds in the game," "understands the game." Come on. Just another fan post on RealGM.
Who has Earl Watson been learning all of these finer aspects of the game from? It's not like he's played on any relevant teams. The best coach he ever had was a half season of old and tired Jerry Sloan.
Look. I want the Suns to do well. I'm a fan for life - but we don't need to sugarcoat the **** around here. Earl Watson isn't some great basketball mind that's going to save the Suns. This is not our Brad Stevens hire. This guy hasn't ever ran or been part of a successful professional basketball program and his only experience is being a NBA journeyman. I'm glad he's a "nice guy" and the players like him but that doesn't make him a great coach.
So if someone wants to drop the superlatives and explain to me how this guy, the innovator of the Chandler/Len frontcourt, is anything more than a patsy until we have the talent to be relevant...
I'm all ears.
That's just one of the posts I remember. He was obviously a guy people thought could coach, and two assistants were fired to put him in a position to move into the interim role once Hornacek got the axe. I don't personally know enough about him to judge how good he is at certain things, but the Spurs also hired him for a reason to coach their D league team right after his nba career ended. We snagged him soon after.
I was all about getting a young guy, either a Brad Stevens type that had overachieved in some level at college with a squad that didn't get premier talent. I wouldn't have minded Jay Wright, though a bit older, but another guy that overachieved, but he likely wasn't going anywhere and also didn't have the nba connections.
I certainly didn't want Thibs, JVG, and despite being a D'Antoni fan, I didn't really want him either. But the former two would have never come here anyway, and maybe not even D'Antoni. There were some other assistants I would have looked at (mainly Larranaga in Boston), but I think he has a good basketball mind, having played under all sorts of coaches, with a lot of players across the league, having a long career, and from all accounts I've heard, is not only a student of the game, but is positive, motivational, direct, etc. I wanted a coach that could grow with the team. I'm also a big fan of Wooden and read some of his books, and he has talked about how he had inspirational meetings with Wooden.
I'm just unsure who people thought we COULD hire, who would have been the best for THIS team, a young developing team, and I think he has as good of a chance as being a diamond in the rough as anyone else. There really isn't any reason for me to doubt it. With THIS team, a big name proven coach wasn't likely to come, and Sarver wouldn't have paid him anyway, and it probably wouldn't have made sense regardless. We've seen how many coaches don't like to play young guys, and now we have one guy who has shown that he will.
My biggest fear is if he overachieves, Sarver gets impatient with rebuild again and tries to sign mid tier vets, and if the record isn't great (and it probably shouldn't be that great), he will also get impatient. But of course half the fan base is impatient with getting back to playoffs and the other half hopes we can be bad and develop young guys, so you're always going to have this division among the fans.
I think, given time, he has a good chance of growing into a great coach.
As for your comment "the best coach he has had is an old Sloan", well, for the most part, Hubie Brown, George Karl and Sloan know quite a bit about the game and each has had quite a bit of success...whether it be coaching multiple teams deep into the playoffs, Conference finals, NBA finals or winning a championship. And although Kerr was coached under Pop and Phil, both who largely won championships due to having superstars, the coach's concepts he uses most with his current team is D'Antoni anyway.
I'm not sure who you were hoping for. A guy like Thibs wasn't coming here, but if he did happen to be your guy, he hasn't really achieved anything as a coach. Certainly not as much as any of the guys Watson played under, and he certainly didn't play under any big name coaches, or at all for that matter at the pro level. Not saying he was your guy, but many of your arguments could probably be applied to just about any candidate.
