Byron Scott among other lottery coaches on the hot seat

Two  lottery head coaches should be under pressure to turn things around for their respective teams.

Jeff Hornacek

Harsh? Maybe, but this Suns franchise has a lot of expectations on them having a top three backcourt in the NBA with Brandon Knight and Eric Bledsoe. Players like Markieff Morris and TJ Warren just appear to be roaming free at both ends of the court and there are no real elements of any kind of basketball system for this Suns team. The former Jazz sharpshooter was great in his first year when their were little expectations on the team.

The offense can run itself for now, but the Suns’ defensive system is absolutely terrible. They rank 24^th in defensive efficiency and have trouble stopping teams that run up tempo offenses (which is most of the NBA in 2015). The most striking statistic emerges from the play of Tyson Chandler, who is allowing opponents to shoot over 50 percent at the rim. There is some deeper context to this however, if the back court collapses it means he is more often than not dragged out of position to try and cover other guys and it is hugely problematic for the Suns.

Hornacek does have some decent defensive personnel on his roster but as of now there doesn’t appear to be setting up any kind of system and the numbers are very worrying. The Suns GM Ryan McDonough might choose to act at some point because their playoff rivals such as Utah, the Rockets and the Mavericks are all playing much better defence than the Suns. It has been shown in recent playoff runs that defense will prevail in close runs.

Byron Scott

Scott is truly the most clueless coach in the NBA at the moment, the stuff he says in his press conferences have nearly every basketball fan sitting in utter disbelief at his pure stupidity. He runs the worst offence in the NBA as it is based on jump shooting when the team doesn’t have any good shooters outside of Nick Young and Jordan Clarkson, and the defense is currently good for 28^th in the NBA.

The whole point of a rebuilding job is to oversee player development and try to get even your worst players to turn into serviceable role players, but this hasn’t happened under Scott. Players like rookie DeAngelo Russell aren’t showing anything, and he gives many of Larry Nance’s minutes to Ryan Kelly. The NBA has changed and players don’t just want to play for the famous ‘Purple and Gold’ anymore because of their history. Instead, they go to stable organizations. He doesn’t have an offensive system and he is so uninspiring that young guys won’t have the right attitude when they are around him, he simply has to be under pressure at this point.