Offseason Review : Is Jeff Hornacek a Bad Influence / Coach?

[Indy]

I stand corrected.

I really hope you stood up before you hit "SUBMIT" on that post.

[OE32]

I stand corrected.

I really hope you stood up before you hit "SUBMIT" on that post.

I stand corrected. I sat corrected.

[sunshoopjunky]

LOL funny stuff

[Robot]

Good responses and thoughts here.

I'm still not convinced Horny will ever be more than a average journeyman coach but I guess we will see. The team and organization is in such terrible shape right now it's ridiculous.

- R

[Sunsfan4life]

Good responses and thoughts here.

I'm still not convinced Horny will ever be more than a average journeyman coach but I guess we will see. The team and organization is in such terrible shape right now it's ridiculous.

- R

Thats a bit of an exaggeration. We have a bunch of future picks, cap flexibility and I would make the argument we don't have a "bad" contract on the books. I don't think we have that "guy" to build around yet, but if we really wanted to it wouldn't be hard to jettison Bledosoe and Knight because they are on reasonable deals.

On top of that we have a really good trade chip in Markieff Morris, we took a step back last yr no doubt, but "terrible" shape would be what we were in the year we had Beasley,Scola,that whole team.

[The Bobster]

"Great" coaches have great players.

Auerbach, Jackson, Riley, etc. all built their success on great players.

Paul Westphal looked like a great coach when he had Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson. Not as great when his best player was DeMarcus Cousins.

Hornacek hasn't had great personnel, so it's still difficult to gauge his ability. We've already seen that he's been saddled with some bad citizens (the Morri and arguable some others) and hasn't always handled that well. How he handles it if/when it happens again will be a good indication of whether he can adapt as a coach.

[Mori Chu]

The team and organization is in such terrible shape right now it's ridiculous.

I think the *present* of the team is pretty mediocre, but the future is not too bad. We have a lot of cap flexibility, generally speaking. We don't have a bunch of old vets on the team who are making more than they should. We haven't traded away our draft picks; in fact, we have some extra ones due to us. And while we don't really have a talent base for building a contender, we might get lucky and either steal some team's superstar, or draft a blue chipper in a coming year.

When I think about depressing teams, I think of ones like the Nets, where they mortgaged everything to try to win now, and then didn't win, and now they have huge contracts on the books and no future draft picks. Or I think of the Lakers, with a contract albatross on an aging vet, a moron head coach, not many draft picks, and really very little going for them other than the mystique of the city/franchise.

[Sunsfan4life]

It's all about turning what we have into a star or better are position to get a star. One thing is for sure, LaMarcus Aldridge was very close to coming here this off-season and considered us over a bunch of other teams so players may have a better view of this franchise then alot of the fanbase does. The reality I think alot t of people were soured on the idea of a guy like Bledsoe getting handed the keys over a guy like Dragic. I'm not saying thats exactly how it happened and the circumstances were the same but thats the lasting impression from this time last yr to now and I can see why that would make people bitter, heck I like Dragic alot better then Bled as a player and how his situation was handled.

But I think this notion that the world is falling because how last year played out is wrong. The Markieff situation happens alot, a player turns sour and wants out, I really think the best strategy is not to overreact and trade him for spare parts. Who cares what he posts on twitter? We know he's being immature, but the suns hold all the cards in a situation like this

[The Bobster]

I'm still not convinced Horny will ever be more than a average journeyman coach but I guess we will see. The team and organization is in such terrible shape right now it's ridiculous.

- R

They aren't in great shape, but they have some talent. They're clearly in better shape than quite a few teams, including the Lakers, Knicks, 76ers and Nets, all big-market teams which have been terribly mismanaged.

[Sunsfan4life]

I would say the suns are in the top half of the NBA in terms of Present Talent, Future Talent,Cap Flexibility,Draft picks, and Ability to land a FA.

[Superbone]

In no way is the team in "terrible" shape right now. They're already much improved over last year's personality deficient team. The only drama we have left is how the Keef situation plays out.

Just like in the old Wendy's ad campaign, "Where's the Keef?"

[Mori Chu]

Every team will face adversity and make mistakes. A lot of it is in how you respond to it, how you handle it. We had a bad last season mostly due to a bunch of knuckleheads. We have gotten rid of almost all of the knuckleheads, and brought in some steady veterans. I don't think we are a contender now, and we might not even make the playoffs. But we have WAY fewer idiots and knuckleheads than we had last year, so that shows me the FO at least understood what was wrong and tried to fix it.

[Robot]

To clarify .. I meant the team is in terrible shape in terms of how the front office is perceived by media and presumably other players / free agents . You can argue tthst this starting with the Sarver era and continues into the most recent public squabbles with Goran and Markeif. I don't believe any of it has been handled well.

You are all so quick to condemn the players as having total burden of being "bad citizens" which may be true , especially in the case of the Morris brothers, but you cannot discount how things are handled by those in control of "the bigger picture ". . In this case, that is the future of this team and that future hinges on signing a star at some point ( unless we somehow luck into w star via the draft ) .

The terrible I speak of is how the front office is perceived. Yes we almost had lemarcus ( MAYBE . I'm not totally convinced we were not a leverage chip ) , if we did -- that was a strong move by the front office ( which I have commented on here in the past ) . However, the bad look from what happened with Goran and now Markeif, whether they can be chalked up entirely to the players not being good citizens certainly pushes the Suns down the ladder for future free agents to even consider. We already struggle to sign marquee free agents and our claim to fame pre Sarver was how great of an org we were.

Can you argue that the perception of this team is still the Suns are a great organization who will take care of its players ?

Absolutely not. You cannot make that argument imo,

That's what I meant when I spoke of the Suns being in terrible shape.

Lastly. Regarding coach. I didn't think Westphal was a good coach either for many of the same reasons, and guess what he actually was a pretty sub standard coach. I see a similar potential future for Hornacek unless he does get stars which hide a mediocre coach. That said, coaches are kinda overrated anyway.

- R

[ShelC]

I don't think we were used for leverage. Aldridge didn't need that. I think it's clear that we're turning over the roster and guys from the previous regime are going...Goran, Morris Bros, maybe PJ; so as far as how we're perceived, I think it's a non issue. This offseason helped a lot though, showing we're committing to winning and willing to spend. We're still always going to be up against it when it comes to the bigger markets and contenders. We need to grow internally, and hope a star takes notice and can fit in with what we have.

[gosuns]

Coaching is pretty important IMO. It's a part of the puzzle, the biggest part beeing the roster and maximising its output, which comes back to coaching. Having great players with great caracter helps the coach, because they are like an extention of their coach on the court and in the locker room. As to hornacek, he seems to have some limitations with a doubious roster like ours. Even last year I wasn't always happy with our play, but at least he seems to be able to motivate the players in a way, they always seemed to be involved. Watching a lot of other teams around the assosiation that isn't always a given. Players having career years under his tenure is a good sign too. I like coaches who aren't fixated on a certain system, but try to maximise the output of their team.

[Superbone]

One of Hornacek's weaknesses is being a disciplinarian. A better behaved roster will help minimize this weakness.

[Nodack]

A pack leader takes control and lets his pack know who is in charge. He just needs to watch a few more episodes of the Dog Whisperer.

[Ring_Wanted]

I don't think we were used for leverage. Aldridge didn't need that. I think it's clear that we're turning over the roster and guys from the previous regime are going...Goran, Morris Bros, maybe PJ; so as far as how we're perceived, I think it's a non issue. This offseason helped a lot though, showing we're committing to winning and willing to spend. We're still always going to be up against it when it comes to the bigger markets and contenders. We need to grow internally, and hope a star takes notice and can fit in with what we have.

It's absurd to talk about leverage when you are a lock for a max contract.

As for the moves made, I don't think it's necessarily about cleaning up the roster from the previous regime. That was already done after the first summer McD took over (Beasley, Gortat, Scola, Marshall, Shannon Brown etc).

The remaining pieces, Dragic, Frye, twins, PJ, were all interesting and worth keeping. Frye got what looked like an out of the market offer so the sensible thing was to let him go, before hindsight at least. They extended the Morrii and gave PJ a new contract, and it was obvious that they didn't want to trade Dragic.

This summer has been all about a second crack at the strategy of adding an allstar to an already capable roster plus turning knuckleheads into real pros.

Imagine how excited we'd be if the 15-16 season had a Suns team with Dragic, Aldridge, Chandler, plus Bledsoe, the kids and role players. Alas, last year was a clusterfuck.