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from espn.com
NBA All-Stars may not be the only ones leaving Phoenix on Monday.
Multiple sources told the Arizona Republic on Sunday that first-year coach Terry Porter will be fired on Monday with assistant coach Alvin Gentry taking over as the Suns' interim head coach.
With the Suns engulfed by turmoil and mired at 28-23 after a 6-10 slide leading into the break, leaving them ninth in an eight-team playoff race in the West, one source described Porter's firing before season's end as "probable" to ESPN.com's Marc Stein on Friday.
lastname
Porter
Suns owner Robert Sarver insisted otherwise in a Friday e-mail to ESPN.com, saying: "We have not made that decision."
Sarver, though, stopped short of guaranteeing Porter's safety, adding that "obviously we need to improve and are evaluating everything."
Sarver and team president Steve Kerr could not be immediately reached by ESPN.com on Sunday for further comment.
Gentry has been a head coach three times previously (Heat, Pistons and Clippers) and ranks as a holdover from the Mike D'Antoni era well-liked by Suns players. He has an overall record of 177-226 as a head coach.
Porter, however, is in the first year of a three-year contract believed to be worth roughly $7 million. For a team looking to cut costs, firing Porter with more than two guaranteed years left on his deal might prove to be too expensive for the Suns.
With Steve Nash as D'Antoni's coach on the floor and the modern game's answer to the LosAngeles Lakers' old "Showtime" offense, Phoenix averaged 58 wins over a four-season stretch to arguably become the league's most popular team. When the run ended last spring with an emotional first-round loss to San Antonio, Porter was Kerr's hand-picked choice to take over after they had played together with the Spurs from 1999-2001.
But locker room resistance to Porter's offensive philosophies and practice methods has been tangible since training camp, even though numerous Suns players said after D'Antoni's departure that they were ready for a greater emphasis on defense. Two of the unhappier Suns were traded away in December -- Raja Bell and Boris Diaw shipped to Charlotte in a deal for Jason Richardson -- but Phoenix has continued to be wildly inconsistent despite Porter's gradual willingness to put the ball back in Nash's hands.
When the Suns make the coaching change, it would be the league's eighth since the season started, one shy of tying the league's single-season record of nine in the 2004-05 season. Memphis fired Marc Iavaroni on Jan. 22 and the first six firings were all before Dec. 25: Oklahoma City's P.J. Carlesimo on Nov. 22, Washington's Eddie Jordan on Nov. 24, Toronto's Sam Mitchell on Dec. 3, Minnesota's Randy Wittman on Dec. 8, Philadelphia's Maurice Cheeks on Dec. 13 and Sacramento's Reggie Theus on Dec. 15.
The Suns were one of eight teams -- along with Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Milwaukee and New York -- that made an offseason coaching change.
"I know for a fact that if things don't go right, there's three guys that'll get blamed: [Kerr] one, me two and Terry three," Shaquille O'Neal told reporters during Friday's media session.
"It's kind of unfair for Terry. He came in with his system, and a lot of guys here are not really used to the system. But I like Terry. He's a knowledgeable guy. He played the game. It's always the players' job to go out and get it done."
