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Suns Fire Head Coach Jeff Hornacek, Promote Earl Watson to Interim Head Coach

With a WojBomb dropped in the middle of the night, plenty of people will wake up on Monday morning and find out about Jeff Hornacek losing his job as they themselves get ready for their own.

Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports the Phoenix Suns fired their head coach late Sunday night, with the team making the move official Monday morning. Yahoo’s Marc Spears reports that assistant coach Earl Watson will take over as interim head coach, and Woj says former NBA head coach Bob Hill will join the staff.

Despite lacking the constant headlines regarding his job status as seen with other coaches (including one still employed in the same division), it’s not a shock to see Hornacek’s tenure come to an end. After a feel-good 48-win season in Hornacek’s first at the helm in 2013-14 that landed him second in Coach of the Year balloting, it’s been downhill ever since as the franchise chased the success of that surprising campaign. Adding Isaiah Thomas to the backcourt mix didn’t pan out, leading to deadline deals last season that shipped out both Thomas and Goran Dragic (and a prized Lakers draft pick) in favor of Brandon Knight and future picks from the Miami Heat.

This past summer, the team nearly made a huge splash in using newly-signed Tyson Chandler to lure LaMarcus Aldridge to the desert. When Aldridge chose San Antonio, it left Phoenix with a very upset Markieff Morris, who had already seen the team deal his twin brother, Marcus, followed by a courtship of a player in Aldridge who would have taken Markieff’s position.

With a disgruntled and ineffective Morris, as well as a flood of injuries to the team’s top players (most notably a season-ending knee injury to Eric Bledsoe), a promising start quickly soured. A double-digit-point loss on Sunday night in Dallas put the Suns at a dreadful 7-30 after starting 7-5, with their 14-35 record tied for second-worst in the Western Conference.

Warning shots were fired in late December when two of Hornacek’s assistants, Mike Longabardi and Jerry Sichting, were dismissed. Given the circumstances of his roster, both injured and inexperienced, there was likely nothing Hornacek could have done to salvage the situation.

Hornacek, who spent the first six years of his accomplished playing career with Phoenix before being dealt as part of a package for Charles Barkley, finishes his Suns tenure with a 101-112 (.474) record.

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