Tag Archives: fired

Phoenix Suns Fire Coach Alvin Gentry

 

alvin gentry

The Phoenix Suns have started the 2012-2013 season 13-28 after losing MVP point guard Steve Nash to the Los Angeles Lakers in the off season. The Suns were hoping the additions of Michael Beasley and Goran Dragic would at least help them stay around the .500 mark.

With the Suns in the midst of losing 13 out of their last 15 games at home and holding the worst record in the Western Conference, the team made the move to fire their head coach Alvin Gentry.

Gentry took over the team in 2009 at the All Star game when Terry Porter was relieved of his duties. Gentry in his first full season as coach guided the team to the Western Conference finals. However after that, the team couldn’t reach that same level of success, and was never able to find another player to team along side Steve Nash.

Alvin Gentry released a statement.

“After nine years with the Suns, the organization and I came to a mutual agreement to go in different directions, I have the utmost respect for Robert and what he’s done with the organization. It’s unfortunate that I was unable to accomplish what I set out to do here.

Suns VP of basketball operations Lon Babby complimented his former coach as being a good coach and good person.

“Alvin Gentry is a good coach and a good person, he was the perfect coach for our previous group. But with the current group, all of us, including Alvin himself, realized that it just wasn’t working, the pieces just weren’t fitting.”

The truth about the Suns right now is, they don’t have the talent to compete with the best of the best in the Western Conference, they have some nice complimentary pieces, but they are lacking that one player who can put the team on their back. While this method of building a team in the NBA is painful, it’s the way it is, you have to be real bad, and hope you get that game changing player in the draft, or that a player is willing to take less to play on your squad. Also ownership has to be willing to spend the money when the time comes, if not, your team if fighting an uphill battle.

Source ESPN

 

Dallas Cowboys Hire Monte Kiffin to Replace Rob Ryan as Defensive Coordinator

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Three days after Jerry Jones and the Cowboys fired defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, they’ve found his successor.

Monte Kiffin will now serve as the teams defensive coordinator after resigning from the same position from the University of Southern California.

Kiffin had his most success with the Tampa Bay Bucaneers with his ‘Tampa 2’ defense where he won a Super Bowl in 2002.

He will have to make the decision whether to switch the Cowboys from a 3-4 to 4-3 front.

The Cowboys defense ranked 19th overall, however they had to deal with a lot of injuries which weakened their secondary. They gave up the most yards in franchise history 5,687 and forced a franchise low 16 turnovers.

Source ESPN

Browns Website Still Shows Mike Holmgren, Fired Coach and Gm as Apart of Organization

Browns website 1

While the Cleveland Browns fired head coach Pat Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert Monday, and Mike Holmgren resigned weeks ago, on the teams website it still shows them as having jobs.

Browns website 2

Now it’s common that once you get fired you are paid the remainder of your salary, however most teams once they fire someone immediately remove anything referring to them on team websites, Facebook, etc.

Nonetheless, Browns fan shouldn’t feel bad, their not the only team to forget that they fired their coach Monday as well. The Bears still have Lovie Smith listed as their head coach as well.

Bears webstie 1

In my estimation, the only team to handle this right is the Buffalo Bills. According to their site, they don’t have a coach for any position, its all ‘to be determined’.

Bills website 1

Most successful people are great when it comes to handling the minor details. Updating the team website would be one of those things I consider a minor, but important detail. It’s a place any one in the world can go to get information on your team. Hopefully the Browns and Bears will handle the coaching hires with more attention to detail than they did with their teams website.

Raven Fire Offensive Coordinator Cam Cameron

Some will say its desperate, one thing is for sure, John Harbaugh is not waiting for things to get worse to realize he should’ve made a change months before.

The Baltimore Ravens fired their offensive coordinator Monday morning and promoted Jim Caldwell who was the teams’ quarterbacks coach. The firing comes after the Ravens loss in overtime to the Washington Redskins.

Harbaugh spoke on how the move wasn’t about fairness, or right or wrong, but the responsibility that he had to his team.

“It’s not about fair or unfair, right or wrong. My responsibility is to the whole team and what’s best for them right now. We need a change. Our plan and our goals are to win games, win our division and get to the playoffs. With our coaches and players, the solution is in the building. We are going to make the most of our opportunities going forward, and this change gives us a better possibility to achieve our goals.”

The Ravens currently sit at 9-4 atop the AFC North as division champs, so their playoff lives are secure, and they can finish no worse than 4th. So making this move now of all times may not be the worse idea. They still have a shot at home field advantage and if they happen to falter they can use this time to work out the kinks they may have with Caldwell before they get to the postseason.

Harbaugh has repeatedly had his team ready to play, and finds a way to press the right buttons to get his team going, lets see if he called this right too. I would say figuring out whats wrong with that defense is more the issue, because on offense my solution would be very simple. How many times has Ray Rice touched the ball, whatever number that is, it isn’t enough and you need to target him again. Joe Flacco is good, but when you have an all-pro caliber running back, ride that horse until he proves he can’t carry the load.

H/T SI.com

 

Magic Johnson Denies Involvement in Mike Brown Firing

Magic Johnson is the most recognizable LA Laker, he’s on tv and now owns the Dodgers, so anytime anything happens with the Lakers conventional thinking is Magic had something to do with it.

This probably stems from last year when Magic was constantly hammering Mike Brown about the way the Lakers were playing and walking the ball up the court every possession.

Now, there’s nothing to say that Magic had anything to do with it, and the fact that he put his name on having a hand in getting rid of Paul Westhead, there’s nothing to suggest that he wouldn’t put his name on this one too.

Too often people are looking for someone to blame, and since Magic is always out there in the public eye he’s an easy target to blame for someone losing their job.