So Steve Kerr dropped the blame for the Phoenix Suns’ season to date on Terry Porter, sacking the former two-time NBA Finals point guard. Whilst many think that Porter is an undeserving fall guy for the Suns’ woes, “a drill sergeant for a general’s job“, Kerr will only partly admit to a mistake in hiring the wrong type of coach, forced to transition a team from one extreme to another, too quickly.
Whatever the case, the Suns now have a new coach in Alvin Gentry — but what type of coach is the new interim general?
Gentry’s most recent four-plus years have been spent as assistant with the Suns, with most of that time being in the role of deputy dog to run’n’gun specialist Mike D’Antoni. The obvious idea is to bring that type of ball back to Phoenix.
“He knows this team better than anybody,” Kerr said. “He’s been here for the last 4 1/2 seasons. He knows our personnel and he knows what makes us tick.”
So that is the plan. D’Antoni, your childhood sweetheart is gone, so you go and date her little sister hoping to rekindle the memories. But what have Gentry’s last relationships been like? Is he truly like his analogical big sister?
The 20 year coaching veteran has had various stints as head coach in the league, the first of which was an interim role with the Miami Heat, which aptly started on Valentines Day in 1995. He coached 36 games, taking the Heat to a 15-21 record in that time, a slightly better winning percentage than his predecessor, Kevin Loughery (17-29). Interestingly enough, Gentry’s coaching style in this gig appeared to be the opposite of what the Suns are trying to achieve here. During November, December and January of 1994-95, the Heat scored 102.3ppg. February through April saw that rate slow down to 99.9ppg with similar reductions in opponent points per contest. In short, it appears that Gentry’s style at this point was the antithesis of run’n’gun.
However this was a long time back, in a young fling. Let’s take a look at his more recent relationships.
February is clearly “the month of Gentry” as it was on February 2, 1998 that he took over the reigns from then head, Doug Collins in Detroit. His Pistons at that point included current Sun, Grant Hill. Collins had led the team to a 21-24 record, Gentry continued on a similar trend, going 16-21 the rest of the way. In this case Gentry actually did speed up the pace of the Pistons, from 91.7ppg to 97.2ppg. The team also allowed an extra 7.5ppg.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
The following season, in the Lockout* season of 1998-99, Gentry held the reigns all the way through. He took essentially the same squad to an improved 29-21 record. He did achieve this though, through a change of pace, with the team scoring 90.4ppg (less than under Collins) and allowing only 86.9ppg.
Things didn’t go so well the next season, as Gentry continued on for 58 games, going 28-30, on a team led by scorers Hill and Jerry Stackhouse, who both went for 49.4ppg between them. The team returned to up-tempo 100+ppg basketball and the wins did not come with it. George Irvine took over the team’s last 24 games, going 14-10 which included a reduction in points and field goal attempts per game.
The trend so far for old Alvin seems to be that he has had success with a slower tempo. Coincidence or a suited coaching style?
Next came two and-a-half years as head of the Los Angeles Clippers from 2000-03. He took the team to a 89-133 (.401) including a 2001-02 season which saw the Clips’ best record since 1992-93.
The Clippers’ pace factors during those seasons:
| Season | Pace | Ranking |
| 2000-01 | 89.6 | 22nd of 29 |
| 2001-02 | 90.1 | 18th of 29 |
| 2002-03 | 91.3 | 14th of 29 |
In short, Gentry’s teams have never been top ranking up-tempo squads. This is not to say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, it just means that the faith put in him by Kerr to take this type of offence on in Phoenix is purely based upon his time as a disciple of D’Antoni.
Gentry said the team needs to revert to the game that brought out the best in Steve Nash. Nash, twice the league MVP with the Suns, called the coaching change “a difficult part of our business,” but he welcomed the decision to go back to the high-octane game.
“That’s a pretty natural thing for me and for our group, just kind of pick the pace up a little bit and open up avenues for our guys to excel,” Nash said.
Time will tell if Gentry is up to the task, to lead the Shaq-infused, Nash fun’n’stun machine back to glory. His track record does nothing to provide me with confidence that he is the same sweetheart as his big sister though.
