Bless the Phoenix Suns for allowing Earl Watson to shed his interim cocoon and blossom into the majestic full-time coaching butterfly he is inside.
According to a report by Jude LaCava of FOX10Phoenix.com on Tuesday, the Suns are set to remove the interim tag from Watson and name him their permanent head coach.
Sources inside the Suns inform me that the interim tag will be removed and Earl Watson will be the next head coach of the Suns #nba
— Jude LaCava (@judefox10) April 19, 2016
Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical adds that a multi-year deal has indeed been finalized.
The Phoenix Suns have finalized a multi-year deal to make Earl Watson the franchise's head coach, league source tells @TheVertical.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) April 19, 2016
Watson, 36, ascended to the position after Jeff Hornacek was fired at the beginning of February. The Suns went 9-24 the rest of the way under Watson’s guidance, but a bubonic plague of injuries and enormous internal turmoil were largely to blame for that result.
The last two months of a dreadful outlier of a season weren’t quite enough to provide a substantive gauge of Watson’s ability as a head coach. But as a trusted in-house option that appears to have the support and respect of the locker room, he is as good of a place to start as any (despite the other accomplished candidates who may have been interested in the job).
Image Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
H/T theScore
