{"id":10748,"date":"2017-10-22T20:10:45","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T00:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=10748"},"modified":"2017-10-22T22:10:01","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T02:10:01","slug":"suns-fire-head-coach-earl-watson-0-3-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2017\/10\/22\/suns-fire-head-coach-earl-watson-0-3-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Earl Watson Fired as Phoenix Suns Head Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the aftermath of an 0-3 start to the season &#8212; including a pair of dismal 40-plus point losses &#8212; the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/phoenix-suns\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Phoenix Suns<\/a> have wasted no time making their first change. Head Coach <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/watsoea01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Earl Watson<\/a><\/strong> has been fired by the club after amassing a 33-85 record in 118 games at the helm. The news was first broken by ESPN&#8217;s Adrian Wojnarowski on Twitter:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Phoenix coach Earl Watson has been fired, league sources tell ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/922219248574980096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 22, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Report: Earl Watson Fired as Phoenix Suns Head Coach <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Three games into the season is usually considered too early to make a coaching change. Considering the fashion with which Phoenix lost those games, though, something needed to be done. The Suns were embarrassed by the <a style=\"font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/portland-trail-blazers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Portland Trail Blazers<\/a><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; color: #222222;\"> on opening night with a franchise-worst 48-point margin of defeat. They then fell to the <\/span><a style=\"font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/los-angeles-clippers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Clippers<\/a><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; color: #222222;\"> by 42 on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Suns upper management has been fully invested in the team&#8217;s rebuilding process.\u00a0 They showed patience the past couple of seasons as their young core players have developed. But the lack of progress shown in those two contests was evidently more than the front office was willing to accept.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Watson&#8217;s Time with the Suns\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Watson took over the reigns as Head Coach on an interim basis in February of the 2015-16 season. Phoenix removed the interim tag from Watson last season, leading the Suns to a 24-58 record. As the second-youngest Head Coach in the NBA, Watson developed a strong reputation for prioritizing the development of a young Suns group that includes <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=bookede01,bookede02&amp;search=Devin+Booker&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Booker<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chrisma01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marquese Chriss<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bendedr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dragan Bender<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/u\/ulisty01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyler Ulis<\/a><\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jacksjo02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Jackson<\/a><\/strong>. Patience with Watson was contingent on the team being competitive; however, the pair of embarrassing performances were Watson&#8217;s final straw.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Search for a New Coach<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Phoenix will now be tasked with beginning the search process for a new Head Coach in advance of their next game on Monday versus the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/sacramento-kings\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sacramento Kings<\/a>. It is likely Associate Head Coach <strong>Jay Triano<\/strong> will take on an interim Head Coaching role in the meantime. As of now, that has not been confirmed by the club.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/846238230\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/846238230?et=YWq6kn69RUNepWzG5cOTAg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=XDxyIr2-5oO0A1oRCx15lQFtZCz9m1TjMs2bVwxrdSQ=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An 0-3 start to the season including two defeats by more than 40 points has seen Earl Watson fired as the Phoenix Suns head coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1842,"featured_media":10759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2,62,3],"tags":[65,535,96,479,280],"class_list":["post-10748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suns","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","tag-basketball","tag-earl-watson","tag-nba","tag-pacific-divison","tag-phoenix-suns"],"modified_by":"Lior Kozai (Managing Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1842"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}