B. Patrick
For the basketball fans curious about a former NBA Sharpshooter’s early days in a head coaching role, this article may be of interest to you.
For any deviants who are trolling the web for some erotic fiction, we thank you for your hits to this article (due to the title, admittedly probably a big letdown for you), and hope you join us when you aren’t being naughty.
After attending the bulk of the Phoenix Suns 2012-13 season, I was targeted by their marketing team to be brought in the loop for 2013-14 season tickets.
At first, I thought I would piece together the bulk of the season at discount rates, as I had done this past season. I didn’t mind going to the nosebleeds when I was getting a pair of seats for $7 total. It would be nice to get closer but I could manage.
The Suns, looking for a crowd, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and I find myself with lower-level season tickets for the upcoming season.
As I have detailed in a previous season recap article, the Suns are coming off their second worst season ever. The only year they did worse was their inaugural year. For some reason, probably the inexpensive tickets more so than some yet-to-be-identified twisted pleasure in my head, I feel compelled to watch this team.
While I still believe the spending habits and attitude of the Suns owner, Robert Sarver, leave this team several years away from being relevant again, I have been pleasantly surprised with the offseason personnel moves made by the franchise.
I never could identify a good reason why Lance Blanks and Lindsey Hunter had been in leadership roles with this franchise, but now they would be replaced. First up was the new whiz-kid GM in Ryan McDonough. A 33-year old assistant to Danny Ainge in Boston, he still has a lot to prove but has seemingly said the right things since he arrived in early May of this year.
McDonough’s first task was figuring out the head coach situation, as he quickly made indications that the system less Hunter was not in the plans.
In what felt like a great move, former Phoenix Sun sharpshooter Jeff Hornacek was hired as the franchise’s sixteenth head coach.
When buying my season tickets, I was offered several perks and last week I received an e-mail. On June 18th, I would be invited to go to a local movie theater to see a screening of Man of Steel with Coach Hornacek.
After work that day, I arrived at the Studio Movie Grill in Scottsdale, Arizona to see a decent gathering of Suns fans. The Suns had all of their sales reps prowling the floor, which was strange in an event where everyone there already had made the purchase.
After getting our theater assignment, we got in line where we were accosted by a sales rep that had no clue what he was talking about. He was telling us about the excitement of the upcoming season but not even in the delusional super-fan way. It was more of a spiel by a clueless salesman. He talked about how many people are buying season tickets to see the fifth pick: a pick that will change the franchise. In a line that I am guessing was fed to him by his supervisor, he started name dropping Walter Davis as the last Suns draft pick this high. I wanted to channel Rick Pitino and tell this guy that, “Walter Davis wasn’t walking through those doors.” Not in this draft class.
Once I started to talk, sales geek lost interest and took off. Fine by me.
Then another sales rep came up but we actually had a good conversation about basketball. While talking about the Finals and the Suns, this guy mentioned that he had played in college for a Top 25 program and started talking about his experiences in the pre-draft workouts and playing in Europe. We asked him who he was and he told us his name was Kevin Green. He was the nephew of AC Green, which was super interesting. His career was cut short due to an injury but as we were getting into this conversation, we got shuffled into our theater.
As we sat, I had thought about my questions for Hornacek. We got in place and, as this was one of the movie theaters with food service, we gave our drink orders.
Within a few minutes, Jeff Hornacek walked in and stood about 20 feet in front of me.
I would be disappointed to find out the advertised Q&A session wasn’t up for open questions. An emcee had been put in place with about four pre-written questions with him. I had wanted to ask Hornacek, fresh out of his gig with the Utah Jazz, how he would feel about pursuing one of the Jazz’s free agents, Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap, during the offseason.
Thinking about it as the night went on, it was probably better this way. No guarantee I would’ve been given the chance to ask, he may not have been able to say anything if I did and odds were, the questions from the rest of the audience probably would’ve been awful.
Hornacek did give us a few interesting stories and gave me more confidence he is the right guy for this team.
He was asked about rejoining the Suns family and he told us about how much he loved his days playing in the original Suns arena, The Madhouse on McDowell. Hornacek mentioned the Suns bringing him in the league in 1986 and being a big part of the development of the Suns into a top Western Conference franchise in the 1990s.
He gave us a funny tidbit about being in Seattle for a playoff series in 1992. He was working out in the gym when the infamous interview with Charles Barkley aired, where Sir Charles stated on national television that he wanted out of Philadelphia. Hornacek told us he turned to the trainer and said that was the guy they needed to get over the hump and make the Finals. As most remember, the Suns did just that. However, coming off of his lone All-Star appearance, Hornacek was one of the key pieces traded. He stated that he felt the Suns made the right deal.
He talked about his playing days some, mentioning how despite being on some Utah Jazz NBA Finals teams, his favorite career moment he looks back on was as a Sun playing against the Lakers in the playoffs. Hornacek mentioned a pivotal game where in the final minutes he drew a double team from Hall of Famers Magic Johnson and James Worthy and he threw a pass inside for a Mark West dunk for the win. This led to Phoenix winning the series and having their first success following a season with less than thirty wins. At the time, the people of Phoenix swarmed the airport for their return and Hornacek cites it as still one of his favorite career memories.
The new Suns coach gave his feelings on some of the Suns teams he was on and he mentioned that he felt the Suns really could’ve been champions in 1990. He felt that they blew the lead in a couple games they should’ve won in the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. Had they passed Clyde Drexler’s Blazers team, Hornacek was confident they could’ve defeated the Detroit Pistons. He remembered the Suns beating the Pistons during both meetings that season but Portland would go to the Finals and the Bad Boy Pistons would win the NBA Championship.
When asked about getting into coaching, Hornacek discussed his father being a coach and admitted that he always assumed he would have to start at the collegiate level. He got into citing that he played for great coaches during his NBA career and name dropped John MacLeod, Cotton Fitzsimmons, and Jerry Sloan. No mention of his coach in Philadelphia, Fred Carter.
At this point, it seemed like there wasn’t much he could say about the roster for the upcoming season. He mentioned that McDonough has approached him with some very interesting ideas and mentioned there are certain guys they are looking into that he would be very excited to coach.
He mentioned working out with a lot of the draft prospects. He said that he thought he caused some trouble by wanting to teach when everyone else evaluating wanted to see what the players figured out and did on their own.
Hornacek talked about wanting to emphasize defense. When asked about his offense, he kept a straight face and mentioned that he knows everyone loves walking the ball down the court. As the crowd sat puzzled, Jeff cracked a smile and said, “Who am I kidding? I was on those Cotton Fitzsimmons teams that would score 120 a night. We will run and make sure the fans supporting us have a good time.”
While not getting any real interaction, it was good to hear from the coach. The Suns still have a long way to go, but bringing class acts like Jeff Hornacek back in the fold will certainly help.
