The NBA’s Phoenix Suns fired coach Jeff Hornacek this week. The Suns have not come close to meeting expectations for this year and that is the justification for the firing. However, perhaps those expectations may have been just a tad unrealistic.
Last year, the Suns were not expected to be a playoff team; as I recall, the expected win total for the Suns in the 2014/15 was in the low-to-mid 30s; the team was coming off a 39-win season and had not made any significant upgrades. What happened in 2014/15 was that the Suns won 48 games and Jeff Hornacek finished second in the balloting for NBA Coach of the Year. Then, over the summer, the team signed Tyson Chandler from the Dallas Mavericks and – despite the presence of really good teams atop the Western Conference, the folks in charge of the Suns began to think of the team as – hat tip to Marlon Brando here – “uh contenda”.
To say that has not worked out is to say that the Hindenburg had a minor problem with docking. Chandler is playing only 23.5 minutes per game; his field goal percentage looks good at 49.5% but that is the lowest his shooting percentage has been since his rookie season in 2001/02; he is only getting 8.4 rebounds per game which is significantly below his 11.5 average in 2013/14. The rest of the team has not played all that well either and as of this morning the Suns’ record stands at 14-35; they have the same record as the Timberwolves and have only 5 more wins than the Lakers.
The team should not be this “bad”; the team also should not be aiming 55 wins and a possible #3 seed in the Western Conference Playoffs either. Jeff Hornacek happened to be in the wrong beach chair when this tsunami of losing washed ashore. Isn’t amazing how the guy who was nominally the second best coach in the NBA as of May 2015 became expendable in January 2016…?
Over the weekend, I saw on ESPN – I think – some highlights of a Suns/Knicks game. Basketball highlights tend to be repetitious; lots of dunks or long three-point shots and not much else. However, there was something strange in the highlights here; the Suns were wearing black uniforms. No, it is not strange for NBA teams to wear black; lots of teams use them as “alternate uniforms” creating different lines of merchandise to sell. Nonetheless, this is what went through my head and was jotted down on my notepad by the TV set:
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When the Suns wear black uniforms, shouldn’t the TV graphics refer to them as the Eclipses?
Recent reports seem to confirm prior stories that Calvin Johnson will retire from the NFL; the latest story is that he told Lions’ coaches last year that he intended to do so. When the earlier reports surfaced, I wrote that Lions’ fans must be having flashbacks to Barry Sanders and the flashbacks cannot be “happy times”. Sanders was clearly the best running back in Lions’ history and he retired abruptly at age 31; Johnson is clearly the best WR in Lions’ history and he is retiring at age 30.
The Detroit Lions franchise is hardly a model organization in terms of positive results. In fact, it may be – over the long haul – the bottom rung of the NFL ladder. Consider:
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The Lions won the NFL Championship in 1957. Since then, they have won not much of anything. In 2008, they won nothing; their season record was 0-16.
Since 1957, the Lions have participated in a total of 12 playoff games; they lost 11 of them.
Since the NFL went to a 16-game season in 1978, the Lions have had winning records 10 times.
Since the NFL realigned in 2002 to create the NFC North, the Lions cumulative record is 76-148. That is a winning percentage of .339.
To be sure, there are some other NFL franchises that you can hang a “sad-sack tag” onto.
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Since 2003 – the year after the Raiders lost in the Super Bowl to the Bucs – the Raiders have been downright bad. They have not had a winning season over that stretch and have had 9 head coaches in that 13 -year span. However, over the history of the Raiders’ franchise, it has been far more successful than have been the Lions.
Since 1999 – the year the Cleveland Browns were reincarnated into the NFL – they have been awful. They did make one playoff appearance in 2002; other than that… Like the Raiders, they have had 9 head coaches over the span in question. They have had 2 winning seasons but the overall record since 1999 is 87-185. That is a winning percentage of .320.
The Bills have not been to the playoffs in 16 years.
The Dolphins have been in one playoff game in 14 years.
The Rams have not had a winning season in the last 12 seasons.
The NFL system is skewed to assist teams that do poorly with the idea of creating “parity” throughout the league. Poor teams get the top draft picks in every round of the draft; the salary cap prevents good teams from generating huge disparities in revenues and then spend their way into contender status – as a few teams did in the early days of NFL free agency. The salary cap also allows so-called “small market teams” such as Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, New Orleans and Indy to compete toe-to-toe with the “big market teams” in places like NY, Chicago, Houston, Philly and – once again – Los Angeles.
The Lions have defied all of the “advantages” that present themselves to losing teams for just about all of the last 58 years. Maybe that is part of the reason behind the decision of their best RB ever to call it quits earlier in his career than one might have expected and part of the reason Calvin Johnson is thinking along a similar track.
Finally, I mentioned above that Jeff Hornacek finished second in the voting for NBA Coach of the Year last year. He lost that vote to Greg Popovich of the Spurs. Here is an item from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times regarding “Pop”:
“There’s a move afoot in San Antonio to name a high school there in honor of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
“Students attending there, it goes without saying, will be strongly urged to pass.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………