Phoenix Suns: Jeff Hornacek Dodging the Sword He Sharpened

Phoenix Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek came to the NBA wielding a razor-sharp blade of coaching knowledge, which was procured by two of the greatest coaching minds of our era — Cotton Fitzsimmons and Jerry Sloan. They helped Hornacek sharpen his skillset, refining the gritty, composed nature that made him a perfect fit for an NBA team searching for a more disciplined identity. It’s too bad that the sword Hornacek used to nearly win the 2014 NBA Coach of the Year award is the one he must avoid falling upon for the franchise that gave him his first playing and head coaching opportunity.

Expectations for the 2015-16 Suns were to compete for a playoff spot, with a win total in the low 40’s. Based solely on that, Hornacek and the Suns shouldn’t be considered a disappointment. They aren’t out of playoff contention at 9-13, as they trail the 10-12 Houston Rockets by just one game, for what would be the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference as of games ended Dec. 8.

The problem with expectations are how relative they are. Contending for a playoff berth during the 2012-13 season would have been a dream scenario for Suns owner Robert Sarver, but things have changed in the desert — as a direct result of Hornacek, the Slash Brothers and the free-wheeling 2013-14 season.

2013-14: A Season of No Expectations

When Hornacek arrived on the scene, the Suns were coming off of the worst season (25 wins) they’d experienced since their 1968-69 introduction to the NBA, when they won just 16 games. Inheriting a post-Steve Nash era roster that boasted not-yet-blossomed Goran Dragic as the star meant coach Hornacek was expected to have some bumps along the road to rebuilding. He’d been given a butter knife with which to cut a two-dollar steak.

One of the first moves of the Ryan McDonough/Hornacek era was the drafting of center Alex Len, taken fifth overall in the 2013 NBA Draft out of the University of Maryland. Len was expected to be the center of the future, as his 7-foot-1 frame paired with what Draft Express noted was “excellent agility and dexterity for a player his size.”

The new-look front office would continue the makeover by trading for Eric Bledsoe, Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee, Ishmael Smith, Emeka Okafor and future draft picks in three different trades. At the time, Bledsoe was the piece that would decide the fate of the new regime, as he hadn’t yet experienced a full-time starting job, due to point god Chris Paul‘s presence. It was reasonable to worry that his part-time success wouldn’t translate into starter’s minutes, especially with his bruising, full-throttle style.

On paper, the Suns acquired an unproven-but-explosive talent in Bledsoe along with no-name players with which to acquire future assets — not exactly the way to pierce the dark veil hanging over the Suns organization at the time.

What followed was the year of Dragic — as Goran averaged 20.3 points per game to go with 3.2 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.4 steals. Combined with Gerald Green’s re-emergence into the must-see dunker he’d been early in his career and the unlikely frontcourt production of P.J. Tucker and Miles Plumlee, the Suns burst onto the scene with a 48-34 record, narrowly missing the playoffs.

One major difference under the Hornacek regime was the Suns play in the clutch (defined as a game in the last five minutes, with the score within five) — the Suns went from a horrific 18-27 in said situations in 2012-13 up to 26-24 in Hornacek’s first year. Although Bledsoe only appeared in 25 of those 50 contests, he ended up tied at No. 17 in the NBA, with 26 made field goals when it mattered most. His plus-27 during that time was better than Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry.

Injuries to Len and Bledsoe cost the Suns the playoffs, but gave Phoenix fans reasons for serious hope, as Bledsoe flashed moments of greatness in his 43 games — averaging 17.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.6 steals and a scintillating offensive chemistry with Dragic that created a slashing, two-headed monster in the open court.

Hornacek would finish second in the NBA’s Coach of the Year award to Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, and the Suns felt awfully good about the direction of the franchise.

2014-15: The Pressure Begins

A 23-game improvement does wonders for confidence, but it also adjusts the level of expectation. Phoenix wasn’t a perfect team the previous season — they did miss the playoffs — but they had a built-in upgrade pending, with the healthy returns of Bledsoe and Len. In an effort to add more wing depth, the Suns snatched up 6-foot-8 mid-range scorer extraordinaire T.J. Warren out of NC State with the 14th pick in the 2014 NBA Draft.

Warren was coming off of a sophomore season in which he averaged 24.9 points per game on 52.5 percent shooting from the field. McDonough and Hornacek loved that Warren wasn’t the kind of player that needed plays run for him to produce — as he showed with his great cutting instincts and ability to score on putbacks.

Then, Phoenix stole Isaiah Thomas from the Sacramento Kings for Alex Oriakhi and a trade exception. With Thomas, Dragic and Bledsoe, the Suns no longer had to worry about point guard depth. Plumlee and Len gave the Suns a 1-2 punch of athleticism and bulk in the middle. Green, Tucker, Markieff Morris and Marcus Morris rounded out a roster that could handle any foe on a given night…on paper.

Hornacek strutted out to the US Airways Center court, his proverbial sword as shiny and sharp as ever, with nothing but swagger gushing from his (and the team’s collective) pores. With a chance to make a statement against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, the Suns opened the season with a 20-point drubbing of their hated rivals — with every starter shooting 50 percent or better and scoring in double figures. Thomas led the team with 23 points (on 9-for-11 shooting) and the playoff run began.

When things are going well (as in the Lakers game), nobody cares that the new guy led the team in scoring. Nobody minds that Marcus Morris led the team in shots with 14. Nobody notices that the disjointed Lakers were on a back-to-back with a roster that could have been mistaken for Kobe and the D-League All-Stars. The Suns took their serrated beast sword and obliterated five dudes with putty knives.

To this point in his coaching tenure, Hornacek hadn’t dealt with a lot of adversity. Despite injuries, the 2013-14 squad overachieved to such an extent that issues such as poor ball movement (29th in NBA in assists), substandard defensive rebounding (22nd) and no locker room leader were largely overlooked. That group of misfits seemed to get along and aside from a Tucker DUI, things had gone as easily as they could have.

That changed in December, with the Suns mired in the worst kind of slump — they couldn’t make their own shots and they couldn’t stop others from going in. A five-game losing streak came about, with the Suns scoring just 100.6 points per game on 42.4 percent shooting, allowing 108.2 points on 47.3 percent.

Flash forward to Dec. 15 and a matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks — a team that had no business winning a game against a potential Western Conference playoff team, especially on the road. The losing streak had the Suns under .500 for the first time all season (at 12-13), but an Eastern Conference patsy was just what the doctor ordered.

After jumping out to a 12-point first quarter lead, the Suns would go through a stretch that would become quite familiar in the future — turnovers combined with cold jump shooting. Over the first four minutes of the quarter, the Suns would turn the ball over twice and would make just one of seven shots — none taken from inside 10 feet. By contrast, the Bucks would make four free throws and would attempt three shots inside five feet, making two.

With just over eight minutes left to go in the game, the Suns held a 10-point lead, when that same trend came calling. Three turnovers and three missed jumpers for the Suns, no turnovers and four made buckets by the Bucks brought the score to within a single point.

The game would go back-and-forth from there, with the final play looking like this:

That was far from the only buzzer-beater the Suns would succumb to (nor the first, with a Blake Griffin doozy just days earlier), but it was telling — the Suns didn’t have a player to take over games when jumpers wouldn’t fall. They had an unconscious chucker in Green, who happened to go 3-of-18 (2-of-15 from three) that game and three very good guards in Bledsoe, Dragic and Thomas, but no player who possessed a true killer instinct to push them over the hump.

The 12-14 Suns would go on to win 10 of their next 12 games, regaining some of the swagger they showed on opening night — but nobody saw what was coming just five weeks later.

Rumors had been circulating about the Suns making a trade, with Thomas seemingly deserving starters minutes and Dragic in a contract year. A common sentiment was that the Suns would have to choose one or the other — instead, McDonough shocked everyone by trading both. In three separate deadline day deals, Phoenix moved Dragic and Thomas, bringing back Brandon Knight, Danny Granger, Kendall Marshall, Marcus Thornton and four first-round picks.

Perhaps the most shocking part of the deal was what the always reserved, team-first Dragic had to say about the organization and why he wanted out:

The Suns were 29-25 at the time of the trades, and would sputter down the stretch, losing 10 of their last 11, to finish 39-43. A major ankle injury to Knight was a large catalyst, with the late-game decision making rearing its ugly head again.

Before the trades, the Suns were a plus-0.6 per game in clutch time, shooting a league-best 52.1 percent from the field. After the trades, the Suns dropped to a minus-2.3, with a league-worst field goal percentage of 32.6. The only bright spots were the clutch shooting of Markieff Morris and Bledsoe, who finished sixth (32 field goals) and ninth (27) respectively in clutch field goal makes.

Suns management did their best to paint the trade and the changes in a positive light, with McDonough taking a shot at some former Suns (via Gary Washburn, Boston Globe):

At the end of the year, the Suns were one of the league’s biggest disappointments, but much of that fell on the front office for giving up on the point guard trio experiment and on the team in general for being too undisciplined, too raw and without a vocal leader.

2015-16: No Excuses

The summer before the 2015-16 season was eventful, to say the least. After a year in which the team was exposed as having serious issues defensively, on the glass and in the locker room (common themes, it seemed), Suns management set out to make big changes designed to address each of their shortcomings.

Nobody considered the 2015 NBA Draft a home run for the Suns, but drafting Devin Booker and turning Andrew Harrison into Jon Leuer has been a big boon. They improved their 3-point shooting and added an athletic stretch-4 to provide depth. If those two were the spark, the real explosion was just about to begin.

The Suns made a complete (and almost successful) run at the premier free agent on the market, LaMarcus Aldridge. In order to make room for him on the roster — and make the roster more attractive to him, Phoenix was forced to make some moves. They brought in former Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler, as Aldridge expressed a desire to play next to a true 5. They cleared cap space by trading Reggie Bullock, Danny Granger and Marcus Morris, so that they’d be able to fit Aldridge’s contract under the cap.

Ultimately, Aldridge chose the San Antonio Spurs and the Suns signed Mirza Teletovic to round out their frontcourt. Whoops.

This brought about a very public and very ugly trade demand from Markieff, who felt disrespected about the way his brother was sent off. Although he never publicly said it, Markieff had to take the fact that the Suns were trying to replace him in the starting lineup very personally. Hornacek and the Suns handled the fallout as well as could be expected, remaining quiet while Markieff seethed. When the dust settled at Media Day, Morris was in uniform and bitterness was in the air.

Now 22 games into the season, we’re able to give an accurate assessment of what this team is. They are capable of putting up big numbers on offense (third in points per game at 105.5), in large part due to their league-leading pace (99.9). The combination of Bledsoe and Knight in the backcourt has produced one of the finest stat lines in the league, averaging 43.3 points, 8.5 rebounds, 11.5 assists and 3.4 blocks per game. When those two are hot, the team is nearly unstoppable.

However, this is the NBA — where jump shooters go cold and good coaches learn to prey on vanilla schemes like the ones the Suns employ. It’s not coincidence or a short-term regression that explains how the Suns could be outshot 40-14 from the foul stripe in the last minute of games within five points.

Playing The Blame Game

It doesn’t matter if it’s a professional sports team, a retail store or a restaurant — businesses don’t often fire from the top-down unless all other avenues have been exhausted. The Suns are an organization run by smart business people, which explains why Hornacek still hasn’t been awarded a contract extension. He’s lingering around the chopping block, expected to continue to give his all to the team, despite getting lukewarm support from his bosses.

This brings us back to how his early successes now hamper the way we look at the both Hornacek and the current Suns squad. Had things happened in reverse, with some chemistry issues and turmoil that then built into a solid 48-win team, Hornacek would get the kudos and likely would have already been extended. Instead, he’s being unfairly held up to standards that shot up too quickly.

We have to remember that this is his first head coaching job, and he’s barely three years in with a roster that’s been turned over. Hornacek hasn’t been fortunate enough to have a Nash, a Tim Duncan, a Kevin Garnett, or any other kind of leader to help keep the team focused. Chandler was brought in to do that, but he’s been injured and hasn’t had as big of an effect as most had hoped. Instead, Hornacek has had to deal with stuff like this:

Hornacek’s offense is largely predicated on getting out in transition, where they are fifth in the league, averaging 1.17 points per possession. When they fail to run, the halfcourt is a steady stream of the two-man game that has become so popular in today’s NBA, with two shooters spread wide and a big in the post. Having two creative, slashing guards in Bledsoe and Knight paired with quality shooters make this largely successful in raw numbers, but it’s remarkably dependent on jump shots and taking care of the ball.

At no time was this more evident than the Suns most recent six-game road trip, in which they lost four out of six contests. The four losses were by a combined 13 points, with the Suns leading late in the fourth quarter in every single game. In the clutch, they were a minus-2.3, shooting just 35.6 percent from the field, with an average of 3.8 foul shots made per game. Suns opponents shot 50.9 percent, making 4.2 foul shots — which is a recipe for disaster.

It doesn’t matter who the coach is, if the players are unable to carry out the game plan, the coach will look substandard. This works in reverse as well, with many coaches looking tremendous because of their star players. For this Suns team, the former rings true.

Is it Hornacek’s fault that the Suns turned the ball over 15 times in the clutch during the road trip? The team is on a 14-game streak without breaking the 50 percent mark on shots where no defender is within 3.5 feet — should the coaching staff be held accountable for that remarkable failure to make uncontested shots?

All too often, it’s the coach who ends up taking the blame. Hornacek isn’t at fault for the Suns woes, yet if the team can’t put together a solid stretch of basketball, he’s the one who ultimately will fall on the same sword that caused expectations to rise in the first place.