Suns’ Lindsey Hunter denies undermining Alvin Gentry
Jan 23, 2013, 9:46 PM | Updated: 9:57 pm
Since the Phoenix Suns fired head coach Alvin Gentry last Friday, there have been rumblings that Lindsey Hunter, a player development coordinator who landed the interim head coaching job, had been undermining Gentry’s coaching for a good portion of the season.
More specifically, the point that Hunter would bark out instructions during games even though he wasn’t on the official coaching staff.
Hunter, who makes his NBA coaching debut Wednesday night in Sacramento against the Kings, joined Arizona Sports 620’s Burns and Gambo to discuss those allegations.
“That’s absolutely false,” he said. “I was hired here as a player development coach, and that’s what I did. I worked closely with the players and I worked strictly on skill work, so I don’t know what skill work wouldn’t be effective in a basketball game.
“If I’m working with a guy’s shooting, and he’s shooting his shot flat and looks at me and says ‘what am I doing wrong’ and I say ‘get the shot up’, that’s instructional. That has nothing to do with anything but helping him as a player.”
Hunter also addressed his coaching staff, which will not include former assistant Dan Majerle, who parted ways with the team earlier this week. Elston Turner’s status is still up in the air.
“When I got the information that I was hired, I went to both of those guys and expressed myself to them and understood either way how they felt,” he said. “I could live with them either staying or going elsewhere.”
