The Phoenix Suns might want to make a coaching change, but firing Jeff Hornacek isn’t going to solve the problem.
We live in a society where we celebrate a level of competitiveness that borders on lunacy. NBA luminaries like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are cut from an unhealthy cloth — one that pushes them to care too much about basketball — and fans have learned to expect the same from their teams. Phoenix Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek is on the verge of being a casualty of that thinking, but firing him won’t solve the team’s woes.
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At 12-19, the Suns have plenty of time to right the ship, but recent losses to the 8-21 Brooklyn Nets, the 12-18 Milwaukee Bucks, the 11-20 Portland Trail Blazers and the 9-19 New Orleans Pelicans has many wondering if Phoenix is anything more than 15 guys punching a time clock, collecting checks and calling it a day.
Perhaps the worst loss of the Suns recent slide came Wednesday night against the Denver Nuggets, who were on the second-half of a back-to-back and were playing without five rotation players (two starters). The Suns fell behind by 22 points early and fought back to take a lead, but ultimately succumbed to a Randy Foye, Kenneth Faried and Will Barton-led squad.
EMBARRASSING LOSS MET WITH APATHY
One would expect the Suns locker room to go one of two ways — either it would be a powder keg of emotion, with players going after each other or it would be very quiet and down, with players reflecting on what was the worst loss in years for the organization.
Instead, it was a largely apathetic group of men, which really hammered home a point made by coach Hornacek in the post-game presser:
"“We ask guys in interviews, do you love to win or do you hate to lose? We want guys who hate to lose.”"
It’s ludicrous to expect players to throw chairs, cuss at each other and have a players-only meeting after every loss — but the stoic “it’s just a job” mentality goes completely to the other end of the scale, and has been a trend over the span of the last few seasons in Phoenix.
When Markieff Morris throwing a towel at coach Hornacek is the second-largest show of emotion of the entire game from the Suns standpoint, you know there’s a major issue.
Part of the reason general manager Ryan McDonough brought in veterans Tyson Chandler and Ronnie Price was to provide a level of knowledge that the current roster hasn’t been privy to. Chandler is an NBA champion, who has played with Jason Kidd, Carmelo Anthony and Dirk Nowitzki — three very different stars that imparted their wisdom upon Tyson. Price is a journeyman who can tell stories of clawing and scraping his way onto rosters, doing all the little things in order to keep a job.
If one didn’t know the situation, you’d have no clue the Suns were mired in a funk based on Eric Bledsoe‘s post-game interview. It sounds more like an explanation for a team having one bad game, which certainly hasn’t been the case:
"“I’m doing great. I just gotta pick it up, man. It happens. It’s basketball. It flips. Just have to stay positive. Everybody for the team, go out there and play hard. If we don’t play hard, play like we did in Utah, we’ll be getting beat by 20 every night. I thought we played great…not great, but we gave ourselves a chance.”"
HORNACEK CAN’T PLAY FOR THE PLAYERS
When the hammer falls — and it will fall at some point — the unfortunate target will more likely than not be coach Hornacek. Bringing in a new coach can have a positive impact when the coach has lost the player’s attention or when the scheme needs changing — neither of which is the case in Phoenix.
The reason the Suns are underperforming lies squarely on the performance of the players. Coach Hornacek can’t make open shots for the Suns — of which Bledsoe (1-for-6) and Brandon Knight (4-for-11) did not against the Nuggets. The team managed 45 uncontested (no defender within 3.5 feet) shots, but made just 18. For some contrast, the Nuggets shot two fewer and made three more of those attempts.
Coach Hornacek also can’t change how the players defend. Some put their heart and soul into being a good defender and will put their own body through the ringer in order to do so — like P.J. Tucker — but that energy and hustle simply hasn’t been infectious. Allowing Foye to get 12 uncontested shots, especially knowing he’s one of the only capable offensive playmakers on the team, is unforgivable. Having Darrell Arthur drop 8-of-11 uncontested looks reads more like a typo…but it isn’t.
Bringing in a new locker room voice to say the same things isn’t going to be effective. Instead, the players need to step up and better police themselves. That’s Price, that’s Tucker and that’s Chandler — guys who each bring their own brand of hustle and focus that the rest of the team doesn’t currently share.
GET THROUGH THE YEAR, REASSESS
Hornacek isn’t innocent here — his rotations have been suspect and the fact that he hasn’t led the charge to get his team fired up in games is something I’ve openly questioned in recent weeks. What would San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich do if his team wasn’t giving what he perceived to be full effort? Would he remain calm, cool and collected? No way. He’d go nuclear, and ideally the team’s energy level would rise.
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Unfortunately, coach Hornacek doesn’t subscribe to that theory, as he specifically mentioned that he doesn’t want to “get a technical for the sake of getting a technical.”
That’s not the point, though — the point is that a team will emulate and assume the personality of their leader. Hornacek is a stoic person on the sidelines. Bledsoe and Knight are as quiet as NBA stars can be. Then again, Lindsey Hunter was pretty demonstrative on the sidelines and we remember how that turned out.
The best course of action is none at all. Hornacek can be replaced at the end of the season if that’s what management is interested in. The organization is somewhat married to Bledsoe/Chandler/Knight as the core, for better or for worse, and if they want to bring in an intense, tough coach (Tom Thibodeau, anyone), giving them a full offseason together is better than making that kind of a change in the middle of the season.