Phoenix Suns GM McDonough: Leadership is one of team’s challenges
Apr 8, 2015, 11:12 PM | Updated: 11:12 pm
To say it has been a trying season for the Phoenix Suns would be a bit of an understatement.
The Morris twins, Markieff and Marcus, seem to emblemize it all, though general manager Ryan McDonough said they are not the only members of the organization who could have handled things better.
“I speak for all of us — front office, coaching staff, players,” the GM told Burns and Gambo on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Wednesday. “I don’t think we’ve responded to adversity as well as we could have. I haven’t been real happy with our on-court behavior a lot of the time with the technicals and the confrontations with other players and things like that.
“That’s something that we’ve addressed and will continue to address it.”
The second-year GM went on to point out how young the team is and that many of them are facing situations for the first time, but added that does not give the players a pass for for responding poorly.
“We keep stressing to our guys that things aren’t always going to go your way, and we need to do a better job of handling that and recovering from it and playing through it,” he said.
A perfect example may have come in Tuesday night’s blowout loss to the Atlanta Hawks, when guard Eric Bledsoe was ejected after complaining about a call that went in his favor.
McDonough said there is no excuse for Bledsoe’s emotional overreaction, adding that, unfortunately, there has been too many of those this season.
When asked if the way to improve from this year is to change over the roster or change the mentality of players currently on it, McDonough said a mixture of both. He pointed out how the team has some impending free agents, draft picks and cap space.
“There will absolutely be some changes, but at the same time, we’re not going to quit on players — especially young players — if they don’t handle every situation perfectly,” he said. “That’s part of the maturation process, that’s part of going from either not playing to being in the rotation or from going in the rotation to being a starter.”
With increased roles comes increased pressure and responsibility, the GM said, and the only way to prepare for that is to experience it.
And in a way, that may be one of the team’s biggest problems. Most of the key players have not been in the NBA long enough to have been through every situation. Over the weekend, guard Archie Goodwin called out the team’s lack of veteran leadership. McDonough said there is probably some truth to what Goodwin said, though the timing wasn’t great and Goodwin isn’t really at a place in his career where he should be calling out his teammates like that. But McDonough, when asked who he thinks the leader on the team is, said it is an area the team is lacking.
“But I do see some potential in the guys on our roster, especially the younger players,” he said. “I think Brandon Knight has leadership characteristics about him and leadership qualities in him. I think Alex Len has that in him, despite the fact that he’s very young. I think the guys pretty much universally respect his work ethic and toughness and what a good teammate he is.
“But those guys are 23 and 21 years old, and leadership usually comes from your older, more established players. That’s one of the challenges we have right now.”
