Is Alvin Gentry to Blame?

an excellent starting point for a discussion.

i, personally, really like coach Gentry as a person. His major downfall, however, is his being a “players coach” in my opinion. He needs to hold players more accountable for their mistakes, and I wish he would no longer cater to the veterans who are not performing. If the starters aren’t playing hard, let ’em sit.

Look what happened in the Golden State game….he let the bench stay in late in the game and we actually won. lately, in end game situations he puts all of the starters back in and it is to our detriment. it’s time for Gentry to start making the hard decisions, and to start pissing some starters off by limiting their minutes if they aren’t putting forth effort.

The starters feel entirely too entitled on this team and it’s time to go Popovich on them. I think Gentry can do it, i just hope he has the confidence in himself to do so.

No coach for the Suns will ever be a hard nosed coach because Nash has a key to the city. This can be successful (as Duncan has complete free reign in the Popovich system) but when you have a guy that is the leader to the team in Steve Nash with a lack of defensive tenacity it leaks all over the court.

The offensive mindset of the coaching staff where all of the pressure is on Nash to create on every possession is just to much for any player. Since Nash does most of the play calling and creating offensively AND we are this bad on the defensive end what is Gentry actually doing??? We’ve seen this lately with Nash’s end of game performances, where teams double Nash in close games to get the ball out of his hands and the other players get scared Amare and Richardson and frantically try to create something. There needs to be some play calling by the coach if Nash is unable to create off the dribble.

The same goes for D-Antoni I think is was Nash that made him great not the other way around. I know its NY but he has way too much talent in NY to be this bad especially in the East he should be a 5 seed right now!!!

The thing that makes San Antonio so successful is their versatility in their offensive game plan multiple times per game. A team cant just walk in there and come up with a defensive strategy for the Spurs because they can throw you a ton of different looks, teams have to adjust to that on the fly. They can run a lineup with a lot of shooters and smalls to spread the floor to shoot and run the court, and they can also buckle down and play inside out basketball with Duncan, they can overload the wing players and let Ginoboli run the point.

 In the past years the Suns could only produce with Nash running things which is why SA beat the piss out of the D’Antoni system. It is way too easy for Popovich to only have to shut down one player, and in a 7 game series you should have things pretty well figured out.

Focus, effort, desire and motivation. These are all up to the players; not the coach. He can say all he wants, but only the players can do it. You can’t make a player play with heart; only he can.

The problem as I stated above is that our guys lack the confidence. They know they can’t get the stops and that they can’t create for themselves in the moments they need too. We’ve seen them try and fail or we’ve seen them back down because of that lack of confidence in those areas. There are probably about 5-8 games we could have won in these past two months if we just could have gotten the defensive stops when needed. Having another play-maker late in those games could have helped as well. We have no option, but to make a trade.

Gentry is the right coach at the right time for this team. The Terry Porter drill sergeant experiment didn’t work.

I have no opinion about this…it’s impossible to be sure without being an insider.

I think after the Shaq and Porter experiment, Gentry is still searching for the right combo and chemistry with the 1st and 2nd teams. The good news is we have a deep bench…the bad news is we have a deep bench. I agree with points above that point to maybe leaning on the bench for a little too long or at the wrong time in games. And depending on who’s starting, it has to be a challenge to find minutes for the other guys who can contribute…Amundson, Frye, LB, Dudley, Goran. D’Antoni figured out over time what combo could work on the court and that’s part of the reason he had a short bench. I know we’re stuck between trying to not wear Nash and Hill out early in the season so they can go in the playoffs…assuming we hang in there and make it.

Regarding losing big leads, I’ve said this before that the problem is when we get ahead, we continue to jack up quick 3’s, which leads to misses, long rebounds and layups for the other team. When we get a lead, we have to be a little more deliberate on offense…do more pick and rolls, post up JRich, make the extra pass to get a higher % shot and/or get to the foul line. The by product to doing this would be we’d turn the ball over less because we’d slow things down just a tad. Maybe when we get big leads we need to go with a more defensive line up for a stretch, that can at least try to shut the other team down AND be able to rebound misses. That said, we can’t have a line up on the floor that can’t score. But if we’re up by 20, I don’t think we need Nash, LB, Frye on the floor together in that situation because: all 3 are defensive liabilities, LB has a tendency to get himself caught in the air on passes and/or he’s taking ill advised 3’s, and Frye is basically a 3 pt shooter as well. And neither can rebound. I think getting Dudley and Amundson on the floor in those situations gives us more energy on defense, and Nash and Stat can still run the pick and roll. We just get to stagnant and depend too much on the 3 or on Nash bailing us out with a long 3 with the shot clock running down.

So in a nutshell:

1. Gentry is doing fine, keep him.
2. Put a shorter leash on the bench and/or find the right combo of players for given situations.
3. When we have big leads, we need to be a little more deliberate on offense and focus on a more defensive minded group for a few minutes.

In light of both the current state of things not working and Amare Stoudemire not playing particularly well, allegedly looking “disinterested,” and apparently being a player on his way out of here, I think he should be benched indefinitely and replaced by Lou Amundson. Let the players who are willing to play hard start, even if they are less skilled.

Amare has not gotten charged with sexual assault or something giving management no option but to trade him. That management did this last year, and when nothing good bit they kept him. If nothing bites this year I can guarantee that the Suns will give Amare his contract, they don’t WANT to get rid of him . They simply want to see if they can get value for him to shed cap space. And if they can’t they aren’t stupid enough to get rid of all future hope to shed salary,. As much as we all love to hate him that kid has ridiculous skills.

This team is not broken.

This team lacks a head coach which knows how to coach.

I read here among the blogs the clear and accurate analysis of who is on the court, how many minutes is played by players in funks, the execution of the team in the stretch and it goes on and on.

I am personally tee-off at putting our offense on the floor when defense is required in close games at the end of the 4th. I love Steve, but when you need a stop at the end of a game, he should NOT be on the floor. Simple.

Yet, Gentry keeps sending him out there.

I am personally tee-off at not using time outs when the momentum shifts. AKA POP! Popovich always calls a time out when sees a momentum shift, and he never waits for the score to shift 4-6 points. ( I hate it when he does this to us.)

Yet, Gentry waits until our leads are gone. ( it seems he always waits, it would be a nice stat to measure)

He is D’Antoni student, but the spacing on the floor is ugly at times, offensive execution non existent. There are very few open looks for the shooters which leads to poor shot selection and decreased shot percentages.

Yet, Gentry does nothing about it.

These observations are easy, clear and simple. Any coach which understands the game would see them. Yet Gentry hangs his head in defeat.

Gentry needs to go.

Would be for them to work this out. Look, guys are right in that the issue is not that the team doesn’t want Amar’e, it’s the fear of losing him if a deal isn’t reached. And Amar’e hasn’t said he doesn’t want to be here. But since Marion was traded, he’s been the one that the Suns can get the most value for. If you look at what both sides want:

Amar’e – max contract for team in decent/big market that is willing to invest to contend

Suns – if we believe Kerr, they want to improve the team to contend- now Sarver may have a different opinion because of the economics.

There’s not one deal out there that will bring us the value we would really deserve for Amar’e. And we would cripple this team for the next 3 years. We’d have to see if Nash and Hill would want to stay on a team that would be unlikely to contend before 2012.

And the Suns offer Amar’e the best chance to be on a team that can contend, in on a team that he’s already comfortable and in a system that can use his strneghts… IF Kerr/Sarver really want to strengthen the team. The question is how? What’s missing? But if we can get good D and reasonable scoring out of JRich/LB, and with the emergence of Goran, JDud and Lopez, we don’t have any glaring holes. It’s chemistry and the proper rotation that’s the issue.

Win-Win is finding a number that is close to what Amar’e might be looking for, make other moves to strengthen the team…whether that’s addition, or addition by subtraction (other than Amar’e) as we’ve got a lot of players with similar styles. The team needs tweaking not overhauling.

the coach is doing fine, its just the players that have been seeming to perform worse lately. Their legs are tired after a long and tough season traveling on the road. The Pick n Roll with Nash and STAT has not been working lately and their d and run and gun seems to be slipping too.