Jay Triano not returning could be bad

It was reported on Sunday that the Phoenix Suns have made Jay Triano aware that he will not be returning as Head Coach next season. This means something pretty big for the franchise.

In the history of the franchise, the Phoenix Suns have historically hired their head coaches internally. Rarely has any Suns general manager reached outside the bounds of the internal and seeked the leadership of someone with an entirely outsider’s perspective, someone who was not promoted from within, and who was sought after by multiple teams around the league.

The last time the Suns went that route was with Terry Porter in 2008. Part of a four-week search by then General manager Steve Kerr, Porter, who was friends with Kerr from their days in San Antonio was finally hired, with former head coaching experience in Milwaukee, and as the lead assistant with the Detroit Pistons the year prior.

Porter lasted 51 games.

The time before that, you’d have to go all the way back to the 1972 hiring of Butch Van Breda Kolff, and the Cotton Fitzsmmons in 1970 as the only hires outside of the franchise in he team’s 50-year history. Butch lasted a franchise record-low seven games, whereas Cotton remained on for two full seasons.

Phoenix Suns

(Technically Cotton was also an outsider when re-hired in 1988, having most recently been with the San Antonio Spurs. Although with his earlier time in Phoenix, that should negate the outsider title somewhat.)

Thus, of the 18 head coaches in franchise history (and the 21 individual coaching periods with both Jerry Colangelo and Cotton both serving as head coach on multiple occasions), and the Suns have only reached outside the franchise on three occasions.

Now that we know that Jay Triano will not be returning, it opens up the possibility for the franchise to hire someone from the outside for the fourth time in 50-years. The problem with that is, that of the names that most seemed as the ultimate best fit for the team, Dan Majerle and Mike Budenholzer, they have each already publicly turned the position down, leaving Phoenix to find the best possible talent among the scraps of the non-elite.

Do not get me wrong, each of the head coaches (of which there have been at least a dozen) have qualities that might make them a good head coach in Phoenix, or at the very least, a successful one for a couple of years before they are forced into the discarded pile and no longer serve the purpose of building a championship program with the Suns. (Many fans have speculated that this next head coach will only serve the role of setting the table for the next  head coach, who will be the one expected of bringing a title to the Suns.)

Therein lies my issue with telling Triano that he no longer has a place among the short list of candidates for the job: is he THAT MUCH WORSE  than who Ryan McDonough might hire? In fact, if he is just as qualified as say, Vinny Del Negro or David Fizdale, did the franchise need  to hire from outside of the franchise this one time rather than keep the guy who knows the players best, has the respect of the team’s lone star, the respect of arguably the franchise’s best player of all-time (Steve Nash, in case you were wondering), and that of an entire basketball-loving country as well (Canada)?

Over the years the Phoenix Suns have developed a persona that they don’t like to hire head coaches from outside the franchise, mainly because they know and are comfortable with the candidate, and coaches from the outside tend to also come at a higher price because they are more likely to have competing offers from other teams and therefore cost ownership and management more for someone who won’t be around for more than just a few years.

So if on any  level Robert Sarver is attempting to fight that persona off a little bit, at least putting a band-aid on his generally poor standing in the Valley of the Suns community, then he and McDonough had better  know that they are hiring the best available candidate for the job, and not simply seeking a relative head coach to Triano, at a relatively low cost, and offering him the position over Triano just because he is an outsider.

No Suns fan was demanding  that Triano be re-hired over all others, and most fans have been very happy that McDonough has followed through with his word that he would not only use an extensive search process to bring in the next head coach, but that Triano would have a fair shot at retaining the post.

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But if they are now going to hire somebody just because they aren’t  Jay Triano or haven’t served on the staff in the recent past, then they have gone about this process entirely wrong from the beginning.

If there truly is somebody that is a much  better head coach and much better fit for the organization, then Suns fans will be just fine with the hire. But that coach had best have an obvious pedigree about them that will excite fans immediately. Otherwise, already with no Majerle or Budenholzer, fans will be skeptical from the get go, something the franchise cannot afford as McDonough seek’s a path back to the playoffs for the first time in (what will be) nine years.