Hire Igor
Last offseason was so strange when it came to the hiring of a head coach for the 2018-19 season.
Everyone thought that Phoenix was going to land Mike Budenholzer, they even got a second interview with him, but after meeting with Robert Sarver, the whole thing fell apart.
It was speculated that Mike wanted more authority than Sarver was willing to give up, which makes sense since it was further speculated that Mike wanted some power that McDonough currently had and the now former general manager was willing to give it up.
In the end, the hiring process fell apart, and it seemed at the time that Igor Kokoskov was a good enough replacement to Budenholzer considering his long-term assistant coach pedigree (including Phoenix under Sarver), multiple championships in the NBA as an assistant, while also winning a EuroLeague championship as a head coach with Slovenia.
Needless to say, they certainly weren’t hiring a scrub.
Not to mention, he is still considered an offensive guru and has come from multiple defensive-heavy systems that he has learned from, most recently that of Utah.
All of that said, it appears that the hiring of Igor was their last resort, and if the speculation surrounding Sarver and Budenholzer are true, then it seems that it was all Sarver’s fault, but it’s not like his hiring came with great condemnation. It was widely accepted as a good hire all around.