For the first time in 46 years, the National Basketball Association went through an offseason without seeing a head coach headed out the door. In large measure, it’s because the franchises’ management — or, to be more precise, ownership — understand the stakes involved. With the Warriors expected to be dominant in the medium term and the Cavaliers similarly entrenched in the so-called Leastern Conference, they feel it imprudent, not to mention uneconomical, to give the pink slip to seeming underachievers. After all, why eat up the cost of a firing and a new hire when the result isn’t likely to change the bottom line, anyway?
That said, not a few quarters figured the status quo to be threatened by the need for teams to put up respectable numbers off the bat. Even for those who understand their place in the grand scheme of things, there’s a difference between losing and losing big. If the Sixers’ Brett Brown, for example, hasn’t been considered a candidate for replacement despite all the failures “The Process” has engendered, it’s because he gives nothing less than his best while pacing the sidelines, and because his players spare no effort on the court as a result. Meanwhile, speculation has dogged Dwane Casey even though the Raptors are deemed among the elite in their conference; for all their supposed strengths, unrest has seeped in due to their inability to produce better outcomes.
Parenthetically, few eyebrows were raised when the Suns finally got to break the industrial peace by giving bench tactician Earl Watson the boot yesterday. To recall, he took over from Jeff Hornacek midway through their 2015-2016 campaign and finished with a less-than-stellar slate. Still, he was rewarded with a fresh three-year contract; despite his lack of experience in the hot seat, he was viewed as a project who could grow with his charges. It was in this context that his employers digested his shaky performance; they looked to him to improve with time. Unfortunately, he showed three games into the 2017-2018 season that he would not.
For the Suns, it’s bad enough that they have zero Ws to their name to date. Worse, they have looked utterly lost in each of their outings. In their opener, they set a dubious record by logging a mere 76 points, a whopping 48 behind the triumphant, if short-handed, Blazers. Over the extended weekend, they bowed to the rookie-led Lakers, who drove at will en route to putting up 132, and then to the new-look Clippers by 42. And so poor did their outlook become that Eric Bledsoe, arguably their biggest trade asset, could not help but take to social media to vent his frustrations.
An hour after Bledsoe’s “I don’t wanna be here” tweet, Watson was gone, replaced by erstwhile associate Jay Triano. Apparently, owner Robert Sarver had seen enough to forget about penny-pinching and absorb the expense; he felt he had to do something — anything — before things really got out of hand. Make no mistake, though. The Suns will still qualify for the lottery when the battlesmoke clears. They just don’t want to look, well, incompetent along the way.
Which, in a nutshell, is why Watson won’t be the last mentor to join the ranks of the unemployed. Fans rightly demand bang for their buck, and, once unsatisfied, expect appropriate action, with coaches as the logical scapegoats. The watch continues.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is the Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Basic Energy Corp.
