Confession: I didn’t come up with this idea first.
My friend Scott G. pointed this out to me. I asked “If D’Antoni is going to Chicago and Mark Jackson is going to New York and Rick Carlisle is going to Dallas, who is going to be the next Phoenix coach? They already had Paul Westphaul.”
His answer? They probably want a “players coach” given their personnel but they want somebody with experience since they think they have a chance to contend now. Del Harris.
Oh my. Unfortunately, I think that is a great guess.
DallasBasketball.com has mentioned several times the Del wants back into a more active role in coaching next season, that there appears to be at least one opportunity that Del expects to be available as a head coach and that Del is almost certainly not coming back to the Mavericks bench as an assistant to Carlisle.
So, Del is going somewhere. Obviously, his buddy Don Nelson could use him in Golden State and Del Harris has been around long enough that he could probably join just about any franchise he wants by calling one of his many contacts.
But Del in Phoenix might make a LOT of sense.
He has coached and worked closely with Nash and Shaq. He has a lot of experience, a really good relationship with players and quite a bit of respect in the league. What better way to return to the head coaching position than to take over Phoenix’s high powered offense?
After getting dumped in LA for Phil Jackson just as Kobe was coming of age, Del deserves an opportunity like that.
I would be really happy for Del Harris if he landed a nice gig like Phoenix. The fans are great, the expectations are high but not as stressful as NY or LA.
But I would be sad to see such a powerful resource leave Mavsland for the Suns. You know Cuban would pay just about anything to keep Del in Dallas rather than join a Western Conference rival. But I also believe Cuban would let him go if he knew that was what Del really wanted to do because Mark respects him that much.
