Category: Phoenix Suns Blog

The Phoenix Suns today announced a series of moves within the team’s basketball operations department.  Pat Connelly has been named to the role of Assistant General Manager and Trevor Bukstein has been promoted to Assistant General Manager.  Ronnie Lester has been named a scout and Emilio Kovacic has been named International Scouting Consultant.  John Treloar will remain the team’s Director of Player Personnel; John Shumate and Bubba Burrage remain scouts.

Connelly joins the Suns following seven seasons in the Washington Wizards organization, most recently as the Director of Player Personnel where he was one of the team’s top scouting sources of collegiate and international talent.

Similar to Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough, Connelly has worked his way through the ranks.  Before joining the Wizards, Connelly was a graduate assistant at Baylor University while earning a Master’s degree in speech communication (2004-06).  That followed a stint as an assistant coach of the Bright Bears in England during the 2003-04 season when he helped lead the club to a league title.

Also like McDonough, Connelly comes from a successful sports family; his brother, Tim, is the assistant general manager of the New Orleans Pelicans.  A native of Baltimore, Connelly earned an undergraduate degree in business from Mount St. Mary’s in 2002.

Bukstein, 31, has spent the last three seasons as the Suns’ Director of Basketball Administration, aiding Suns President of Basketball Operations Lon Babby with interpretation and application of the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, salary cap management, and trade and contract negotiations.

Bukstein joined the Suns after six years as an athlete representation specialist at Williams and Connolly, LLP, where he assisted the sports law practice with its NBA, WNBA and MLB clients.  Bukstein earned his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center and did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan.

The Suns’ scouting staff will be buoyed by the addition of Lester, a standout college player whose NBA career led to a 24-year run in the front office of the Los Angeles Lakers.  A seven-time NBA Champion (one as a player, 1985; six as an executive, 1988, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2010), Lester was a top talent scout for the Lakers from 1987-2001 before being named the team’s assistant general manager, a role in which he served for 10 seasons (2001-11).

A two-time All-American at the University of Iowa who finished his career as the program’s all-time leader in both points and assists, Lester was selected 10th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1980 NBA Draft before a draft-day trade sent him to the Chicago Bulls.  Lester, 54, played the final two seasons of his injury-shortened career with the Lakers, winning the NBA title in 1985.

For six years, Kovacic has been the European General Manager of Synergy Sports Technology, a scouting service used by all NBA teams.  After stints as a player development coach in Europe, Kovacic joined the scouting ranks using an expertise established over a 20-year playing career, including 12 years as a professional in Europe.

A member of the international basketball community for more than 30 years overall, the 45-year-old Kovacic is a native of Zadar, Croatia.  As a freshman in college, Kovacic attended Grand Canyon University in Phoenix and under then-head coach and Suns Ring of Honor member Paul Westphal, won the 1988 NAIA Championship.  After transferring and graduating from Biola University in 1992, Kovacic was a member of the 1992 Phoenix Suns summer league squad.

The Phoenix Suns appear close to hiring Jeff Hornacek as their head coach.

A person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Sunday that the Suns are in contract negotiations with Hornacek, although no deal has been finalized. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no public announcement had been made.

The comments came after azcentralsports, which includes the Arizona Republic, reported Sunday that Hornacek reached agreement on a three-year contract.

If all goes as anticipated, Hornacek would be introduced at a news conference Tuesday.

Reported by the Associated Press

In a Suns season that went very much wrong, Goran Dragic did a lot right.

He led the team in scoring (14.7), assists (7.4) and steals (1.6), setting career highs in each category. He also averaged a career-high 3.1 rebounds.

“I thought the first half of the season he probably was from about 15-20 in the rankings among point guards. I think he jumped probably close to top 10 in the last 41 games,” interim head coach Lindsey Hunter said following the season. “Hopefully that will catapult him to possibly being an All-Star.”

If Dragic can duplicate his second half numbers (16.1 points, 9.5 assists in 36 minutes per game) into the first half of next season, then yes, an NBA All-Star Game appearance may be in his future.

“Every player has his goals, including me,” said Dragic, who had 15 of his 20 double-digit assist games post All-Star break. “My goal is to someday hopefully play in an All-Star game. That’s my goal, so every season I try to get better and better.

Reported by Craig Grialou of Arizona Sports

Damon Stoudamire was one of most popular players in Arizona history — an electrifying, high-scoring guard with a cool nickname.

Now, Mighty Mouse is headed back to the desert.

The former Portland Trail Blazers point guard and Wilson High School graduate was hired as an assistant coach under Sean Miller on Friday, a move that’s sure to be a big hit with one of college basketball’s most fervid fan bases.

“We are thrilled to welcome back Damon Stoudamire to the University of Arizona to become a part of our coaching staff,” Miller said in a statement. “Damon is an immensely talented recruiter, and is also very comfortable teaching and coaching the game. More importantly, his credibility in all aspects of our game is unmatched — he simply has ‘been there and done that’ at the highest level. I believe strongly that he will be invaluable in helping many of our current and future student-athletes do the same.”

— Reported by the Associated Press

For a season and a half, Brown’s eyes widened when his play intensified for Phoenix. The topic of going from starter to bench fixture for two months also widens his eyes.

“I did what I needed to do as a starter and handled my business,” Brown said. “For some reason, they want to cut my legs from under me. I know I’m built for it. I did a great job of holding my composure and not letting it get to me to where I did something detrimental to my career. I showed a lot of character by sitting back while I was taken advantage of in a lot of ways. I’ve done everything asked of me in practice and made sure to show these people what time it is. It definitely hurts to sit on the bench, watching us lose night in and night out knowing I can help and being lied to. It’s been a crazy year. I’m just glad I made it through.”

Shortly after Lindsey Hunter became interim head coach, Brown moved to the end of the bench to create playing time for Wes Johnson, who is averaging 13.5 points as a starter. Brown made spot appearances in five of the past 27 games when Hunter was displeased with the team’s effort. Out of respect, Hunter said he would not use Brown in mop-up duty but also did not play him Saturday night when only nine other players were available at Minnesota.

“I was told that it would change,” Brown said. “It’s one thing hoping. It’s another thing being told that and it doesn’t happen. I could see if we were winning, but we just won our first game in 11 games.”

— Reported by Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic

“We can’t just play the game and pick out the good parts of the game and say we play well for a quarter or two or three. If you don’t play well for 48 minutes, you don’t play well,” Luis Scola said following the team’s most recent loss Sunday against New Orleans.

He was just getting started.

“We just don’t know how to play well,” he continued. “We don’t know how to play basketball and that’s why we lose. Until we learn how to play 48 minutes of basketball, we’re not going to win games. I’m surprised we won (23) games playing this way. Many of the games we won, we did the same thing. We just overcame it somehow. I’m also surprised we didn’t fix it. We saw the problem pretty much the first week and we couldn’t fix it. It’s very frustrating. It’s a bad year.”

— Reported by Craig Grialou of Arizona Sports

The Suns marketers have stretched the usual Fan Appreciation Night into a Fan Appreciation Month.

The Suns players are unable to stretch a quarter or half that their fans appreciate into an entire game.

The Suns played their season’s best first quarter for a 37-23 lead Friday night. It was their highest-scoring quarter of the season. With a 64-55 halftime lead, the Suns had matched their best scoring half. Trying to stretch that effort for an entire game was like stretching gum too thin. The bubble popped.

The Suns rallied late but could not clean up the wreckage of a 10-turnover third quarter and lost 111-107 to Golden State at US Airways Center. The Suns are on a season-worst eight-game losing streak, their first one since the last Steve Nash-less team, and have matched the franchise record for consecutive home losses of six. By losing for the 12th time in the past 13 games, the Suns now have the NBA’s third-worst record (23-53)…

Beasley finished with 25 points, his second best total of the season, and his fourth consecutive double-digit scoring game, matching his season’s best streak.

“I just stopped listening to people,” Beasley said. “I’m doing what I know how to do. That’s really it. The more I listen to people, the more I got to think about. So, at times, it messes me up when I’m trying to think about a thousand things at once. I just stopped listening to people and just started trusting my instincts again.”

What people?

“Everybody,” Beasley said. “My friends, my family, my teammates, the coaches.”

— Reported by Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic