Please tell me about Hornacek

[GMATCallahan]

Well...I truly appreciate all of the feedback. Not pleased hearing his rotations suck. Fisher/Rambis were horrible with them this year. Truly nauseating. Not pleased hearing he's soft either. That won't win him any fans in NY.

FINGERS CROSSED. Thanks all of you.

... not sure that Hornacek is "soft." When Markieff Morris failed to "play," or play effectively, this season, Hornacek removed the former starter from the playing rotation entirely. When Morris threw a towel that hit Hornacek on the bench, the coach suspended the player. When Gerald Green failed to perform effectively last season, Hornacek removed him from the playing rotation, too.

Now, Hornacek is soft-spoken with the media. He is not going to make a public display or shred his press in the media or something like that. But from what I can see, he will put his foot down when necessary.

Regardless, here is what one needs to know about the Suns' situation: they have featured four head coaches over the last four seasons and six head coaches over the last nine seasons. Anyone who believes that Phoenix's fundamental flaws in recent years have rested with coaching is quite gullible.

[GMATCallahan]

Strong character.

... I guess that you mean that he is not authoritarian enough in his stances or demeanor. That may or may not be true, but nowadays, when coaches try hard to get tough with players, the players often seem to pout and quit.

[bwgood77]

Regardless, here is what one needs to know about the Suns' situation: they have featured four head coaches over the last four seasons and six head coaches over the last nine seasons. Anyone who believes that Phoenix's fundamental flaws in recent years have rested with coaching is quite gullible.

TRUTH!!

[GMATCallahan]

Then of course management trades one of the Morris twins, and Markieff showed up not wanting to contribute. So suddenly we lost our starting PF, had to start Jon Leuer. Tyson Chandler gets injured. But the Markieff situation cast a dark shadow over the team. Then Bledsoe went down for the season.

This season was awful, but what happened in the year he coached and the team looked bad (from trade deadline last year to about January this year) was largely due to so much roster reshuffling, teammates unhappy with management decisions, and injuries. Zero continuity.

... which was so predictable, really.

At least the Suns received a low lottery pick in the end, but who knows what they will get out of it. Mk. Morris' trade value had to have been much higher last summer.

[AtheJ415]

Regardless, here is what one needs to know about the Suns' situation: they have featured four head coaches over the last four seasons and six head coaches over the last nine seasons. Anyone who believes that Phoenix's fundamental flaws in recent years have rested with coaching is quite gullible.

TRUTH!!

The fundamental flaw has easily been Blanks and Sarver. Personnel and lack of talent were all them. I, unlike some on here, am quite happy with the young personnel we've accumulated given our draft spots and initial assets under McDonough.

All of that said, I'd say that anybody who looks at Phoenix over the past 1.5 seasons under Jeff and thinks he wasn't one of the flaws is quite gullible. Jeff had his hands involved in Phoenix's downfall plenty. I don't think he was soft like some mention here, but I think he lacks the ability to adjust his leadership or treatment to get through to players who don't think like him. He expects everyone to be ultra responsible and to do whatever the coach says and be happy with that, probably due to his long tenure in Utah, which has a culture that Jerry Sloan developed and which he walked into. He doesn't know how to actually develop that culture or adjust to his personnel, and it's exactly why things didn't work out here. Our talent had its flaws, and the Morrii are simply horrible human beings, but he didn't maximize the team's overall skillset. Year 1 was it, and that's because chemistry was unusually perfect because everyone was happy in their roles.

[AtheJ415]

Then of course management trades one of the Morris twins, and Markieff showed up not wanting to contribute. So suddenly we lost our starting PF, had to start Jon Leuer. Tyson Chandler gets injured. But the Markieff situation cast a dark shadow over the team. Then Bledsoe went down for the season.

This season was awful, but what happened in the year he coached and the team looked bad (from trade deadline last year to about January this year) was largely due to so much roster reshuffling, teammates unhappy with management decisions, and injuries. Zero continuity.

... which was so predictable, really.

At least the Suns received a low lottery pick in the end, but who knows what they will get out of it. Mk. Morris' trade value had to have been much higher last summer.

Didn't McDonoough come out and say it wasn't? That the reason he hadn't been traded was because nobody was offering something like this?

I mean, I would argue the more likely thing here, particularly given our GM has no problem trading even "stars" for picks, is that nobody was giving that for Markieff and he wasn't willing to dump him for so little.

[AtheJ415]

Strong character.

... I guess that you mean that he is not authoritarian enough in his stances or demeanor. That may or may not be true, but nowadays, when coaches try hard to get tough with players, the players often seem to pout and quit.

Players are different. Call it what you want, but Jeff simply couldn't get through to the players, and that's the coach's top priority, even moreso than setting rotations and X's and O's. He managed to lose the locker room in the process. That blame has to fall at least partly on him.

[bwgood77]

Regardless, here is what one needs to know about the Suns' situation: they have featured four head coaches over the last four seasons and six head coaches over the last nine seasons. Anyone who believes that Phoenix's fundamental flaws in recent years have rested with coaching is quite gullible.

TRUTH!!

The fundamental flaw has easily been Blanks and Sarver. Personnel and lack of talent were all them. I, unlike some on here, am quite happy with the young personnel we've accumulated given our draft spots and initial assets under McDonough.

All of that said, I'd say that anybody who looks at Phoenix over the past 1.5 seasons under Jeff and thinks he wasn't one of the flaws is quite gullible. Jeff had his hands involved in Phoenix's downfall plenty. I don't think he was soft like some mention here, but I think he lacks the ability to adjust his leadership or treatment to get through to players who don't think like him. He expects everyone to be ultra responsible and to do whatever the coach says and be happy with that, probably due to his long tenure in Utah, which has a culture that Jerry Sloan developed and which he walked into. He doesn't know how to actually develop that culture or adjust to his personnel, and it's exactly why things didn't work out here. Our talent had its flaws, and the Morrii are simply horrible human beings, but he didn't maximize the team's overall skillset. Year 1 was it, and that's because chemistry was unusually perfect because everyone was happy in their roles.

We didn't really even have a team the past 1.5 seasons. After the trade deadline last year 4 guys were gone and the guy brought in couldn't adapt quickly and then got injured and then all our bigs got injured.

This year the Morris situation brought everything down, as well as all the injuries throughout the season. Mgmt does a good job drafting but creating chemistry problems doesn't help the coach.

[thamadkant]

Knicks have terrible depth.. So poor rotation is not an issue... Hornacek has 7 to 8 NBA level players to rotate around.



Smart guy... Not ideal coach on a team without a proper leader and alpha player who can lead by example... But on the knicks.. With Melo... I think Hornacek will be fine.

[garrick]

Strong character.

... I guess that you mean that he is not authoritarian enough in his stances or demeanor. That may or may not be true, but nowadays, when coaches try hard to get tough with players, the players often seem to pout and quit.

Players are different. Call it what you want, but Jeff simply couldn't get through to the players, and that's the coach's top priority, even moreso than setting rotations and X's and O's. He managed to lose the locker room in the process. That blame has to fall at least partly on him.

I don't know how anyone can get through to knuckle head players like Morris who seemed like he was doing his best to play out of the rotation at times.

[saintEscaton]

This is a head scratching hire but I guess the Zen Master isn't forcing Horney to run the triangle which athetical to his offensive philosophy. So expect a faster pace and shorter possesions ,less shot clock expiring long 2s and read n react movement and more high screen/ pick n pop action to free up the perimeter, KP will be used to his strengths. Vogel made the most sense, but Orlando has a roster tailor made to his liking so I get why he passed up the job

[Krush32]

Horne's offense was really bad. He didnt put players in the correct spots to succeed. Booker and TJ Warren mins were very inconsistent under Horne. Last year putting Dragic off the ball in the corner was the biggest mistake I could see which eventually led to a trade demand. He seemed to get frustrated and he would be pretty honest about it in interviews. He did not get along very well with management it seemed. Very boring dude.

[garrick]

Horne's offense was really bad. He didnt put players in the correct spots to succeed. Booker and TJ Warren mins were very inconsistent under Horne. Last year putting Dragic off the ball in the corner was the biggest mistake I could see which eventually led to a trade demand. He seemed to get frustrated and he would be pretty honest about it in interviews. He did not get along very well with management it seemed. Very boring dude.

In the 48 win season our offense was decent.

We simply did not have the players to execute any sort of fancy offensive scheme especially when you have ball stoppers like Knight jacking up contested 3's and failing to even throw a basic lob to Chandler down low.

[AtheJ415]

Horne's offense was really bad. He didnt put players in the correct spots to succeed. Booker and TJ Warren mins were very inconsistent under Horne. Last year putting Dragic off the ball in the corner was the biggest mistake I could see which eventually led to a trade demand. He seemed to get frustrated and he would be pretty honest about it in interviews. He did not get along very well with management it seemed. Very boring dude.

In the 48 win season our offense was decent.

We simply did not have the players to execute any sort of fancy offensive scheme especially when you have ball stoppers like Knight jacking up contested 3's and failing to even throw a basic lob to Chandler down low.

bull. He ran out lineups that were hideous as far as spacing goes. For instance, Price, Knight, Tucker, Leuer, Chandler.

When 3 of the 5 guys on the court can't shoot, it makes the lives miserable for the 2 on the court who can. NBA people on twitter would lambast his rotations live during games.

He didn't even play Booker when he was perfectly healthy until Bledsoe got hurt, and Warren sat behind Tucker and Len behind Chandler too. Hornacek's rotations last year were at best nonsensical, and he had the personnel to do better. Balanced lineups were possible with our groups. Jeff just didn't believe in that.