Earl Watson defends padding Devin Booker’s stats
Phoenix Suns head coach Earl Watson doesn’t seem to care what your reaction is to his tactics in helping Devin Booker score 70 points on Friday night in a loss to the Boston Celtics.
Watson was still calling timeouts with under 45 seconds left and his team down 13 points to try getting Booker to 70 points. That left some Celtics irritated during and after the game.
Booker acknowledged after the game that Watson was trying to help boost his stats and said the coach was unconcerned.
Booker understood why Cs mad: "We were trying to run up my points but to have Coach Earl do that, he doesn’t really care what they think."
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) March 25, 2017
Watson’s message is that he doesn’t care about feelings; he’s only interested in developing his team.
"It’s about letting our kids be great. You got a problem with that? Do something. Simple as that.” pic.twitter.com/j344RQVftz
— Chris Forsberg (@ESPNForsberg) March 25, 2017
“I’m not coming to any arena just happy to be there or trying to be liked,” Watson said after the game. “I don’t care about being liked. I really don’t care, to be honest with you. We’re trying to build something with this young group. People don’t like it while we build it? So what, do something about it.
“It’s about letting our kids be great. You got a problem with that? Do something — simple as that.”
Watson knows his team isn’t going anywhere, so why not try to build the confidence of his young guys when he has a chance? That’s obviously what he’s trying to do, and it’s something many people should understand whether they like it or not.
There will usually be critics of players who score a ton of points, so what happened with Booker is not surprising. We saw critics when LaMelo Ball scored 92 points in a high school game this season.
