Jay Triano eyes NBA Draft, free agency before Suns coaching interview

Lining up interviews to fill their the head coaching vacancy, the Phoenix Suns have impressive resumes to read over and dissect.

Mike Budenholzer, Steve Clifford and David Fizdale are among Phoenix’s targets, but so is its interim coach, Jay Triano.

He has yet to schedule an interview with general manager Ryan McDonough and vice president of basketball operations James Jones, who have given Triano time to prepare for what the candidate told Doug & Wolf is his first head coaching interview — ever.

“Even in Toronto, I took over on an interim basis and Bryan Colangelo was the general manager then,” Triano said Tuesday on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station. “I went in with a year-end meeting and I had a little bit of a plan of what I wanted to do in the future and he was just like, ‘OK, that’s it.’ They, to my knowledge, didn’t interview anybody else.”

Triano coached two full seasons in Toronto after taking the job full-time in 2009; he led the Raptors to 40-42 and 22-60 seasons before being fired. It was the 59-year-old’s only NBA head coaching experience before joining the Suns.

Triano spent the next five years with the Portland Trail Blazers as an assistant before joining the Phoenix staff led by head coach Earl Watson in 2016.

While Triano’s familiarity with the Suns gives him a leg up on the other candidates due to his inside information about the roster and has allowed him a head-start on developing a relationship with the front office, he is playing catch-up in mapping out a future.

“I took notes here and there, and I put them down — things I liked, things I didn’t like within a game, within a practice, with how we traveled and different things,” Triano said of how he’s preparing for an interview. “I’ve called a couple of people who have been close to me in my career and who have been with me along the way and just got a little bit of advice, just to see if they have anything from the outside looking in.

“I think the one thing that I did here and tried to do is have open lines of communication with the staff — the coaching staff and management. I kind of understand where we’re going as far as an organization. This year was about developing the players and it’s time to expedite that.”

Triano is “all-in” on joining that expedited process.

McDonough has said the team will focus this offseason on adding talent to the roster. Part of patching the plan together is adding the right pieces through the draft, where the Suns will have a top-four pick barring a blockbuster trade.

The Suns are also expected to act aggressively in free agency.

“I get so caught up in the season. I have to do a lot of research right now of who is in the draft,” Triano said. “I think that’s one of my projects right now is to dive in to who fits this team, who fits the structure, who fits our core values … which player fits those and how can they add to what we already have here.

“I respect the fact that Ryan and James have allowed me a bit of time to prepare for this,” he added. “It means a lot to me.”

Follow @kzimmermanaz