The Phoenix Suns have fired coach Earl Watson just three games in to the NBA season.
The Suns announced the firing on Sunday night after hours of meetings at the team's headquarters.
Assistant coach Jay Triano, a former head coach of the Toronto Raptors, was named interim coach. Triano was an assistant at Portland before coming to Phoenix last year.
Watson was promoted from assistant to interim coach of the Suns after Jeff Hornacek was fired in February last year.
The interim tag was removed on April 19 of that year.
With an extremely young team, the Suns struggled under Watson. He compiled a 33-85 record with his only full season in 2016-17, when the team went 24-58.
The 38-year-old played collegiately at UCLA and in the NBA for 10 seasons.
He often spoke of his long talks with John Wooden, emphasised togetherness and a family atmosphere to nurture the young squad but wins were hard to come by.
And owner Robert Sarver apparently didn't like what he saw.
Phoenix is 0-3 and two of the losses were especially ugly.
The Suns were blown out 124-76 by the Portland in their season opener on Wednesday night, the most one-sided loss in franchise history and the most one-sided season opener for any NBA team.
Phoenix was then routed by the Clippers in Los Angeles 130-88 on Saturday night.
"I'd like to see the fight be a little bit more," Watson said after the blowout loss. "Or a lot more, until you know they're just fatigued."
Share
