Your weekly Inside the Suns analysis straight from the BSotS community who live and breathe the team.
Welcome to Inside the Suns, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.
Each week the Fantable – a round table of Bright Siders – give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.
Fantable Questions of the Week
Q1 – Out of the top 4 HC candidates (according to Gambo), which one of Chris Quinn, Sean Sweeney, Micah Nori, and Jordon Ott would you prefer to take over the Suns head coach position?
Ashton: The one that is set up to fail? In which case, I think Fizdale is the long shot as the Suns have shown a tendency to hire internally. To truly answer this question, the Sun’s vision statement needs to be answered as to which of the four can handle or adequately develop the roster.
There are basically a few reasons why the Sun’s coaching search has taken this turn and who they pick will give an insight into the direction of the team.
- They just want a coach with drive and ambition to lead the team.
- They intend to go younger with players through trades.
- They intend to keep the roster mostly intact.
- Okay. Bonus. The Suns are getting cheap as they are tired of paying out coaching salaries over a five standard year contract for one year of service from a veteran coach.
Chris Quinn seems to be getting the most positive responses on the board. He knows how to work with veterans and was the semi-architect of the “Heat Culture”. But you have to ask yourself, if the culture was that vibrant, then why did Jimmy or even LeBron leave? Quinn is the best solution to a veteran-laden team.
But for my money, I am betting Sean Sweeny on this list for his defense-first priorities. This seems to fall more under younger players’ development.
The second interview usually means the candidate pool is what it is, but I would still take a look at Michael Malone as a veteran coach. Brian Gregory will be a pushover as a GM so the Nugget issues should not apply.
GuarGuar: I’m glad to hear that our final four is all people that would be first time head coaches. That’s a good start. I don’t have anything against any of these guys but my top 2 if I had to choose would be Sweeney and Ott. As someone who lives in South Florida and has watched Chris Quinn over the past decade he’s good but it’s hard to say how big of an impact he’s had given he’s under Spo’s watch and culture. He’s interviewed for many years and nobody has chosen him despite the Heat having larger than expected success. Just a little alarm that goes off in my head. David Fizdale was the head assistant for many years under Spo before Quinn and he did not turn out into a quality coach at all.
Nori I honestly would be cool with given he seems like a key part of what Minnesota does day in and day out and he’s been solid when Finch gets ejected/ when he was hurt last postseason. Only thing is he’s a little bit older than the others where I think the premise of this coaching search is finding a young fresh coaching hire.
That leaves Ott and Sweeney. Both have been coaches on top defenses in the league recently. That’s a big plus for me. I hope we end up choosing one of these two but honestly all 4 are solid candidates.
Rod: This isn’t an easy choice but Quinn gets the highest ‘thumbs up’ from me simply because I believe the Suns need someone who can build a strong team culture first. Perhaps some of the others could also do this but Quinn come from a franchise that has long valued team culture and I want to see that in Phoenix too. He may not be the coach that can eventually take the team all the way back to the Finals but at the moment I think it’s more important to find a coach that can at least get them pointed in the right direction again.
Sweeney’s defensive background is also appealing though and Ott and Nori are both from successful teams. I honestly won’t be disappointed (yet) whichever of these four is ultimately hired. I’ll have to wait until I see the results on the court next season to decide on that.
Q2 – Do you believe Ryan Dunn could/would have made one of the All-Rookie teams if he had gotten more consistent minutes this season?
Ashton: Perhaps. But if you look at the All-Rookie team players, something stands out. The majority of them were lottery picks and those that weren’t, went before Ryan Dunn in the draft. Including sophomores and first-year rookies.
So, let’s trot out some conspiracy. Is the voting lazy or is it because the players had the most impact due to respective minutes played. And let’s add one more, how much is defense actually accounted for in the voting?
Dunn was a revelation for the Suns and it sure was not due to his three-point shooting. Even if he had received more minutes, I doubt he would have made the second team. He is still a keeper, though. Better luck next year, and see you in Summer League. Prove them wrong.
GuarGuar: Ryan Dunn 100% would’ve at least made All-Rookie 2nd team if Bud didn’t bench him for almost half the season. He was such a breath of fresh air for that team and we will never know why he was in such a doghouse for half the season while our hopes crumbled day after day.
Rod: I believe he could have made it but I won’t go as far as saying he definitely would have made it. Sure, more playing time might have helped him improve enough to make it but then again it might not have. A lot of that would have depended on whether his shooting improved during the season. He had his good nights but also some forgettable ones on his way to some pretty sub-par field goal (43.0%), free throw (48.7%) and three-point (31.1%) averages.
Even if he had gotten more consistent playing time, I’m not at all certain that Budenholzer’s offensive “system” (see Q3 below for more on this) would have been helpful to him in making improvements.
Q3 – Mike Budenholzer’s offensive ‘system’, which Chris Haynes described as “a random offense” with “no roles defined, particularly for the Big Three,” was obviously a failure. How much of a difference do you believe a more structured offense could have made for last season’s roster?
Ashton: This report is so egregious that I wonder if HC, GM, and FO’s positions should just be dissolved. What is the point of having any of these positions if it ultimately comes down to the Player’s NBA? The players can make the play calls, call the timeouts, make the substitutions, and get ejected for arguing with refs.
In other words, if Coach Bud’s coaching philosophy was to simply tell the Big 3 to go do their own thing, then this is a monumental failure of leadership. And that extends to the highest level of leadership for hiring him and not vetting him afterwards. Surely, the players could have chimed in as well.
There has to be respect and trust within a hierarchy. Most importantly communication. If the locker room was lost due to players getting their way or if it was the HC’s fault for not enforcing some tough love discipline, then I think we all have our answer to the Sun’s season-long decline.
GuarGuar: Bud tried to make Book and KD players that they aren’t meant to be. You have to let them be who they are for the most part and build around that. We needed to shoot more 3s as a team, which we did. But the overall flow of the offense got completely lost, and for such an offensively talented team, we had so many droughts throughout games this year where we literally couldn’t score the ball. A clearly defined offense definitely seems like the better option going forward.
Rod: This approach to coaching makes me wonder whether the Suns hired Mike Budenholzer or Morris Buttermaker last season… the main difference being that Buttermaker at least seemed to take his job a little more seriously as the season went on. At least Bud refrained from openly sipping on a brew during the games.
Maybe he took his inspiration from the Captain Jack Sparrow approach to… everything. It always seemed to work out for Jack.
Or perhaps he just relied on the coaching method Jackie Moon perfected?
If so, he should have at least altered it to EGAC! Everybody Give A Crap!
Whatever inspired it, it’s no way to coach a professional team of any kind. Roles need to be well defined, especially for the… role players. Back in the days of the first Dream Team, that approach worked for them in the Olympics but never in the NBA and not anywhere today. I have few doubts that the Suns could have made to the play-in stage and maybe even the 1st round of the playoffs if there had been more structure in their offense. Many will doubt that because of the team’s lack of defense but I’m all but certain that more structure on offense would have at least lessened their turnovers which likely would have added a few more regular season wins to their final total. I won’t say that they would have made it past that point but Bud’s kind of “system” reminds me of how we went about playing pick up games back when I was a teenager and it doesn’t belong in the NBA.
As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!
Suns Trivia/History
On May 28, 1974, the Phoenix Suns drafted future 9-time NBA All-Star and eventual Basketball Hall of Fame member George Gervin with the 40th pick in the 3rd round of the NBA Draft. Unfortunately for Phoenix, Gervin was already playing in the old ABA and elected to stay there with the San Antonio Spurs instead of jumping to the NBA to play for the Suns. Gervin was originally signed to play in the ABA for the Virginia Squires in 1973 by Johnny “Red” Kerr, the former head coach of the Suns for their first two seasons in the NBA (1968-69 & 1969-70).
On May 30, 1976, after getting down 0-2 against the Boston Celtics in the 1976 NBA Finals, rookie center Alvan Adams scored 33 points and grabbed 14 rebounds along with 2 steals and a block to lead the Suns to a 105-98 Game 3 victory in Phoenix. The Suns took control from the start, building a 52-38 lead at the half and held on for the win despite a late run by the Celtics in the 4th quarter. A total of six Suns players had 2 steals in this game for a total of 12 vs just 5 for the Celtics. Paul Westphal added 22 points and 6 assists.
May 30, 1976: Boston’s Kevin Stacom and Ricky Sobers of Phoenix are ejected for fighting in the second quarter during Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
The Suns won the game, 105-98, and narrowed the Celtics’ series lead to 2-1.
https://t.co/17kZmYeDuc pic.twitter.com/T5L66tfNB9— NBA Cobwebs (@NBACobwebs) May 30, 2022
Last Week’s Poll Results
Last week’s question was, “Is concentrating on accumulating tough defensive players (as Chris Haynes indicated) the best path for the Suns this offseason?”
85% – Yes.
15% – No.
A total of 165 votes were cast.
Important Future Dates
June 15 – Final day to withdraw from the NBA Draft (5 p.m. ET)
June 16, 19 or 22 (following the end of the NBA Finals) – Teams can begin negotiating with their own free agents
June 25-26 – NBA Draft
June 30 – Teams may begin negotiating with all other upcoming free agents (beginning at 6 p.m. ET)
July 6 – Teams may begin signing free agents to contracts (12:01 p.m. ET)
July 10-20 – Las Vegas Summer League
This week’s poll is…
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