Suns Name Earl Watson as Head Coach

[Nodack]

Totally down with this move. The Suns aren't ready for a prime time coach yet. I wanted to dislike Watson after the way they ran off Honecek but, I thought he was a good interim coach. Pop/Riley/Jackson wouldn't have done much better with what we had to work with. I noticed improvements in various areas, focus, passing, chemistry, competitiveness and attitude. I don't know how long his contract is but, two years sounds about right before we get "The Guy" and run Watson out of town. By then we should have a team that can compete.

[JCSunsfan]

We're actually optimistic about an interim coach who went 9-15.

Well, at least we're not the Lakers!

Um. We were tanking.

[carey]

Um. We were tanking.

I disagree. We played our vets way too many minutes down the stretch to actually be tanking.

[Indy]

Um. We were tanking.

I disagree. We played our vets way too many minutes down the stretch to actually be tanking.

Exactly.

[Mori Chu]

Their lack of doing their job shouldn't reflect on him. I'm wondering what he has done that makes you not like him.

He just seems like one of many coaches in the league who is just "there." I don't think he employs much strategy on either end of the floor. I haven't seen a lot of interesting plays or defensive schemes or general complexity to convince me that he is doing much more than rolling the ball out and cheerleading out there. I'm not saying he is uniquely bad in that way; many coaches suffer the same flaws. But those others are also bad. I asked previously, what tangible coaching thing does he do well? I think being unable to answer that question is a good sign that he is an unimpressive coach.

OK, I'll bite. It's amazing to me that you have no clue yet you have such strong opinions on the matter.

He is a leader of men.
He is inspiring.
He made Markieff Morris palatable so that he could be traded for a first rounder.
He gets his players to play hard and to believe in themselves.
He took over an impossible situation and did better than most anybody could have considering the circumstances.
He had to work with a string of D-Leaguers.
He has not had his own training camp.
He is adaptable based on his available personnel. (Len and Chandler twin towers.)
He is good at nuturing talent (Booker and Len; Even though Len struggled in the post, he got valuable experience).
He showed a late season ability to draw up plays on the fly.

OK, I'll stop there.

Bone, usually even when we disagree it's quite civil. I'm surprised at the degree to which you are accusing me of not watching the Suns or knowing what I'm talking about. I have watched about half of the Suns games this year. I haven't taken the time to write a long detailed analysis of everything I dislike about Watson, but there have been other posts over the season where I have complained about various things. Here are a few specific things I don't like about his coaching based on games I have watched:

- I haven't seen much evidence of organization to our offense and defense since he took over.

- He plays vets like Tucker, Price, and Chandler big minutes, which can come at the expense of our young guys. It can also lead to unwanted wins when we are literally trying to maximize our draft pick above all else.

- He lets Knight run wild with heavy minutes and lets him chuck up shots. Wish he'd call a timeout and yank him if he acts like an idiot and hogs the ball.

- He plays that ridiculous Len-at-the-4, Chandler-at-the-5 lineup that I'm convinced is doomed to fail.

- He tries to have them throw the ball into the post, when we don't seem to possess a single player who is good at posting up.

There's more and I could go on, but those are some main examples. I will acknowledge that the players like him and that he seems to be a good "motivator." I am not saying he's a horrendous coach. ("Lindsey Hunter 2.0" is too harsh on my part.) I just think he's mediocre and unproven, and that we ought to have at least done a real search and seen all of the options on the table. If he was truly the best guy available, we would have seen that after interviews and searches. That's all I'm saying.

I don't think my opinion means that I didn't watch any games or don't know what I am talking about. I acknowledge that I didn't see 100% of games, and that when I do watch games, I watch them with the eye of a mostly casual fan. I may miss nuances of good coaching. I'm not truly the person to judge this kind of thing.

I respect that you like Watson. I just wish the process had been more thorough and had looked at all options, so that we could be sure he was the right guy. This FO has done the easy, cheap, shortsighted, nepotistic thing too many times, and when they do it here, it's hard to believe their claims that they did it because he was the best guy for the job.

[OE32]

Their lack of doing their job shouldn't reflect on him. I'm wondering what he has done that makes you not like him.

He just seems like one of many coaches in the league who is just "there." I don't think he employs much strategy on either end of the floor. I haven't seen a lot of interesting plays or defensive schemes or general complexity to convince me that he is doing much more than rolling the ball out and cheerleading out there. I'm not saying he is uniquely bad in that way; many coaches suffer the same flaws. But those others are also bad. I asked previously, what tangible coaching thing does he do well? I think being unable to answer that question is a good sign that he is an unimpressive coach.

OK, I'll bite. It's amazing to me that you have no clue yet you have such strong opinions on the matter.

He is a leader of men.
He is inspiring.
He made Markieff Morris palatable so that he could be traded for a first rounder.
He gets his players to play hard and to believe in themselves.
He took over an impossible situation and did better than most anybody could have considering the circumstances.
He had to work with a string of D-Leaguers.
He has not had his own training camp.
He is adaptable based on his available personnel. (Len and Chandler twin towers.)
He is good at nuturing talent (Booker and Len; Even though Len struggled in the post, he got valuable experience).
He showed a late season ability to draw up plays on the fly.

OK, I'll stop there.

Bone, usually even when we disagree it's quite civil. I'm surprised at the degree to which you are accusing me of not watching the Suns or knowing what I'm talking about. I have watched about half of the Suns games this year. I haven't taken the time to write a long detailed analysis of everything I dislike about Watson, but there have been other posts over the season where I have complained about various things. Here are a few specific things I don't like about his coaching based on games I have watched:

- I haven't seen much evidence of organization to our offense and defense since he took over.

- He plays vets like Tucker, Price, and Chandler big minutes, which can come at the expense of our young guys. It can also lead to unwanted wins when we are literally trying to maximize our draft pick above all else.

- He lets Knight run wild with heavy minutes and lets him chuck up shots. Wish he'd call a timeout and yank him if he acts like an idiot and hogs the ball.

- He plays that ridiculous Len-at-the-4, Chandler-at-the-5 lineup that I'm convinced is doomed to fail.

- He tries to have them throw the ball into the post, when we don't seem to possess a single player who is good at posting up.

There's more and I could go on, but those are some main examples. I will acknowledge that the players like him and that he seems to be a good "motivator." I am not saying he's a horrendous coach. ("Lindsey Hunter 2.0" is too harsh on my part.) I just think he's mediocre and unproven, and that we ought to have at least done a real search and seen all of the options on the table. If he was truly the best guy available, we would have seen that after interviews and searches. That's all I'm saying.

I don't think my opinion means that I didn't watch any games or don't know what I am talking about. I acknowledge that I didn't see 100% of games, and that when I do watch games, I watch them with the eye of a mostly casual fan. I may miss nuances of good coaching. I'm not truly the person to judge this kind of thing.

I respect that you like Watson. I just wish the process had been more thorough and had looked at all options, so that we could be sure he was the right guy. This FO has done the easy, cheap, shortsighted, nepotistic thing too many times, and when they do it here, it's hard to believe their claims that they did it because he was the best guy for the job.

You say that playing the vets came at the expense of our young guys, yet you complain that we gave Len too many touches in the post (after all, who else was getting post touches?) and that we played him at the 4. Tucker played over... Budinger? Price played over Archie. Presumably, he wouldn't have gotten the respect he did had he not played the vets, who had clearly earned the time. Based on your post, you wanted to see an Archie-Booker-Budinger-Leuer-Len starting lineup. I think that would have pissed our vets off something fierce.

You say there wasn't much organization to our offense. What I saw was him putting guys in a position to show and develop their skills, even though they weren't ready for it. This occasionally led to losses, occasionally to wins. He also, I thought, increased the trade value of Tyson and Tucker. To what end we can't really be sure. I also thought the plays he drew up out of timeouts were far better than what we got under Hornacek (the biggest failing of Horny's tenure - these plays failed something like 80% of the time, which is ridiculous).

I can see why we made the hire. Looking at the options available, I do think Watson was the safest bet, because he already had the respect of the locker room, and he and his staff have shown their chops in terms of X's and O's. Might we have done better? Maybe, but I don't think there was any choice that was clearly better for this group. So I'm in wait-and-see mode. Had we gotten Brooks, I would have been unhappy. Wright would have been deemed the flavor of the month and an overpay I'm sure. D'Antoni has a system that doesn't adapt to personnel, though I would have been open to his hire. Who's left? Jeff Van Gundy? George Karl? Either one would have me more worried than the guy we just hired.

I also don't think we failed to do our diligence in this case. I think we pretty clearly started the process long ago and looked at lots of guys. I think the FO liked Watson primarily because he seems to be able to simultaneously work with the front office on their prerogatives (in the Keef affair) and gain the respect of the locker room. Not an easy bridge to gap; usually one or the other is unhappy with the coach.

It's okay to disagree on this one. I've been impressed by Watson, but so much remains to be seen.

[Superbone]

Sorry, Mori. I didn't mean to come off as uncivil. It just felt like your takes on Watson were hit and runs with no substance. Thanks for laying out your views on him. I can't fault Watson for trying to win unless the FO asked him to play the young guys exclusively and he balked (which obviously wasn't the case). I don't think he played the vets at the expense of the young guys. Many were complaining the Booker was getting too many minutes and would be burned out.

[The Bobster]

Waton may very well be the best option.

But the whole process leaves me with the feeling that they had made up their mind early and decided that exploring other options was unnecessary. I don't put much credence in his being popular with the current players - as mentioned by several other people here there's really only a handful (Booker, Len, Warren and perhaps Bledsoe) who can count on being here for the long-term.

I have the feeling that Watson will be about as successful as Hornacek, perhaps last about as long, and suffer from the same problem - an ownership that has no idea what direction they're going in and no viable plan for making this team better.

[Cap]

I'd say we should hire Trump to coach, but we'd probably get tired of all the winning.

[ShelC]

Can we all at least agree that Watson was not the best option out there? Just the most convenient?

[OE32]

Can we all at least agree that Watson was not the best option out there? Just the most convenient?

And the better options were...???

[Indy]

Waton may very well be the best option.

But the whole process leaves me with the feeling that they had made up their mind early and decided that exploring other options was unnecessary. I don't put much credence in his being popular with the current players - as mentioned by several other people here there's really only a handful (Booker, Len, Warren and perhaps Bledsoe) who can count on being here for the long-term.

I have the feeling that Watson will be about as successful as Hornacek, perhaps last about as long, and suffer from the same problem - an ownership that has no idea what direction they're going in and no viable plan for making this team better.

I think this most fairly sums up the issue. Great post.

[Indy]

Can we all at least agree that Watson was not the best option out there? Just the most convenient?

And the better options were...???

You don't think there are any assistants in the league that have proven more coaching chops than Watson? Or are you saying they weren't interested?

[OE32]

Can we all at least agree that Watson was not the best option out there? Just the most convenient?

And the better options were...???

You don't think there are any assistants in the league that have proven more coaching chops than Watson? Or are you saying they weren't interested?

I think all the league's assistants were likely interested. I just don't think it's clear that there were better options, for the reasons I've stated.

[ShelC]

Scott Brooks would've been at the top of my list. Lionel Hollins if we really wanted to try and jumpstart things. Jay Larranaga is a top assistant and extremely well regarded around the league.

Luke Walton with the AZ connection...

[Indy]

Can we all at least agree that Watson was not the best option out there? Just the most convenient?

And the better options were...???

You don't think there are any assistants in the league that have proven more coaching chops than Watson? Or are you saying they weren't interested?

I think all the league's assistants were likely interested. I just don't think it's clear that there were better options, for the reasons I've stated.

Of course it isn't clear, because they didn't interview a-n-y-o-n-e. Not a single person. If you were a CEO and decided to hire a key person (COO) in your organization, and didn't bother to interview anyone, then hired a rookie COO for the job, who had only been a junior COO for a year, your shareholders would have your head.

[Nodack]

Excellent post OE.

Mori, If you watched half the games, they were most likely the first half of the season mostly and less and less towards the end when Watson was coaching and more and more of GSW because they are good and fun to watch. That means you are judging Watson by the box score alone. They lost a lot, which means he's a bad coach, but not enough because we were tanking which means he was a bad coach.

I haven't seen much evidence of organization to our offense and defense since he took over

.
I thought the offense improved. Better passing, better ball movement.

- He plays that ridiculous Len-at-the-4, Chandler-at-the-5 lineup that I'm convinced is doomed to fail.

I liked it. The Suns were getting torched for 30 points in the first quarter of every game. After the twin towers teams scored much less on them and they owned the boards IMO. It stopped the bleeding. A permanent solution? Maybe not but, I thought of it as using the parts you are given the most effective way. We were weak at some positions. At Center we have 2 good trees that can intimidate offenses. I thought it was smart and effective. I didn't make up the "Twin Towers" name, that came from a different team that used a ridiculous lineup of two centers pretty effectively.

- He tries to have them throw the ball into the post, when we don't seem to possess a single player who is good at posting up.

I don't get that. We were in a tank season with a young team. We have a young developing center. We are trying to work on getting him the ball in the post because that's what centers do. The team showed that they weren't very good at getting the ball to him and he wasn't that good at receiving it and finishing with it all the time. To you that means stop trying. To me that means try harder. What are they afraid of, losing the game? If you stop doing the things you aren't good at you will NEVER get good at it. No player in the NBA would ever get better because none of them are experts at anything unless they work on it. It's a tank season, I would keep doing it over and over even if it failed if you were serious about making it happen. We spent a lot of time and effort trying to turn Len into a legit Center. Not throwing the ball into the post because we aren't good at it seems ridiculous to me unless you really have no faith in him ever getting it. Len posted some 30 point games himself and showed promise I between his stinker games where he couldn't hit the ocean. Booker ended up being very good at throwing the ball into the post consistently IMO.

He plays vets at the expense of the young guys?

At different points we were playing three ten day contract guys at the same time. Everybody who could play got lots of minutes. Goodwin got shut out of minutes sometimes. Only the coach really knows why but, Goodwin was on a short leash from the time he was drafted and showed hints of an attitude and was a total turnover machine at times. You play the young guys but, when they are totally F'ing up you don't reward them with more minutes.

I thought Watson did fine under the conditions.

[Cap]

When you want the young guys to learn to run an offense, you put them out there with a point guard who can get them into the offense. Not a Goodwin who will turn the ball over or blow off a designed play to take the shot himself.

[Indy]

When you want the young guys to learn to run an offense, you put them out there with a point guard who can get them into the offense. Not a Goodwin who will turn the ball over or blow off a designed play to take the shot himself.

That is fair. But 90% of this site was complaining when we were running Price at PG. He is a true PG, albeit a back up. But we complained that he was taking minutes away from other guys.

[Cap]

Yeah, it almost creates the impression he doesn't care what we think here at Phx-Suns.net.