Steve Kerr Suns GM’s road to success
Steve Kerr Phoenix Suns General Manager has spent restless nights thinking of his days back as NBA Analyst in TNT. “There were lots of days when I thought that I was better off as the NBA analyst holding a microphone in the hand instead of being GM” said Kerr. Kerr in his start made lots of irrational decisions due to which the fans went against him and the franchise went into a loss. The trade of Kurt Thomas to the Seattle’s was a mistake.
According to an interview by Steve, Kurt’s trade was made necessary because of payroll problems, which went out of hand, and we were facing complications that need to be solved. The Phoenix owner Robert Sarver hired Steve who had no previous managing experience in June 2007.
Kerr’s faced problems with Coach D'Antoni who was hired before him. The Suns were facing defeats even though they had an exhilarating team including a mid-season change of Shaquille O'Neal. Still then they were running low of points and games. Phoenix fans were wondering where it all went wrong, such a talented team but still no stunning results. Kerr was of the opinion that defense should be given preference and coach should devote more time towards defense. Kerr was also of the opinion that young players should be given a chance to play.
D'Antoni said no to all this and left the team for New York Knicks and left the General Manager to appoint a coach of his own will. Terry Porter was handed with team and Alvin Gentry was kept as an assistant. Later after discussing with Alvin it became cleared that an outside voice should be taken into view. To turn out to be better defensively cultural shift was compulsory, said Kerr.
It was not long before Kerr realized his mistake and so Porter was fired in 2009 and Alvin was appointed as coach on interim bases. The team won 46 Games under Gentry’s coaching but couldn’t make out for the Playoffs. Alvin for his work was stripped of from interim mark and assigned to be permanent.
“I always had an idea that he had good basketball IQ” the coach said. “Everybody misjudged what we did before giving it a chance to work out. At least now I am happy that we were successful since he really worked hard for it”.
The Suns trade of their two players for Boris Diaw and Raja Bell to Charlotte turned out to be a great deal though for sometimes it was looking as if it was a mistake, which could result in a catastrophe.
Kerr later handpicked Slovenian rookie Goran Dragic and a Stanford Kid Robin Lopez. Lopez played centre and Goran came as the guard. Both of them seemed lost but soon made their place on the team. Kerr said “Everybody wants a quick fix in the society they live in, except it is looked realistically by the people”.
The three years contract made between Phoenix and Kerr runs out in June and Suns owner Sarver said he "utterly" wants him back on the side. The two will sit down and discuss about it as soon as the season is off.
Tags: