Words by Jason Cordner
The first coaching casualty of the 2018 NBA season comes after just three games.
The Phoenix Suns announced they fired head coach Earl Watson on Sunday following a 0-3 start to the 2017-18 season. Watson, a 38-year-old promising coaching talent was just starting his third season as the Suns’ head coach. When he took over the squad in 2016, he finished with a 9-24 record in the last 33 games of the season. Last season wasn’t much better. With a nucleus of young, inexperienced players and lacking the talent to compete with the loaded Western Conference squads, Watson posted a 24–58 record.
Watson was the league’s second-youngest active coach behind the Lakers’ Luke Walton, and the Suns were tied with the Chicago Bulls as having the youngest opening-night roster in the NBA this season.
Associate head coach Jay Triano will be the interim coach. Triano was 87-142 with Toronto from 2008 to 2011. In the meantime, the mystery remains as to whether point guard Eric Bledsoe’s tweet that was made an hour before Watson was fired, influenced the coach’s termination or was it just a social cry of frustration and dissatisfaction with the coach being fired or the team being so miserable.
I Dont wanna be here
— Eric Bledsoe (@EBled2) October 22, 2017
Bledsoe could have went to management and told them he didn’t want to be there anymore. No need to go to social media to voice his frustration, unless he believes the organization is a hot mess.
The fact that Watson was fired is not a big deal. The fact that he was replaced by a white coach with a bogus track record is a bit typical and irritating. But we know that no coach, not even Phil Jackson, will win many games coaching this version of the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference.
