GAMBO

Lindsey Hunter’s fate could be sealed

Apr 10, 2013, 9:51 PM | Updated: Apr 11, 2013, 4:35 pm

The decision should come down in the next 10 days, maybe sooner. Will Lindsey Hunter be back as coach of the Phoenix Suns next season?

If this week is any indication, that answer will be ‘no.’

I believe this week has sealed Hunter’s fate and it has nothing to do with the recent 10-game losing streak, the franchise-record home losing streak or the fact they hadn’t won a game since March 18 before beating the Mavericks Wednesday night.

It has everything to do with what players are saying. Michael Beasley started it off by saying he doesn’t listen to anyone anymore, including his coaches. Now anything Beasley says, you take with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, when your $18 million project says he is tuning out the coaching, it’s not good.

But more importantly, it’s what Luis Scola said that makes it perfectly clear that change is needed.

“We just don’t know how to play well,” Scola said. “We don’t know how to play basketball and that’s why we lose. We saw the problem pretty much the first week and we couldn’t fix it.”

Now Beasley is one thing, but Scola is one of the most respected players in the game. And if he is saying the Suns don’t know how to play basketball then they don’t know how to play basketball.

Hunter is 10-27 for a .270 winning percentage as the Suns coach. That’s not bad, it’s downright awful, embarrassing and pathetic. He doesn’t have a lot to work with as Lance Blanks hasn’t exactly built a team worth the price of admission.

But Hunter and his message are clearly not working. The Suns haven’t gotten better under him, they’ve gotten worse! So it’s time for a new voice, a coach who can teach this team how to play basketball.

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Lindsey Hunter’s fate could be sealed