Blogsmith

With the recent news that Mike D'Antoni has accepted the offer from the New York Knicks to be their head coach, you would think the pressure would be on the man that chased him out of town to look for a replacement. If there is any pressure, Steve Kerr isn't feeling it yet, as he's stated there's "no huge rush" to get someone in place.

"We're going to make sure we cover our bases," he said. "There's not a huge rush because we're not one of five or six teams out there looking for someone, so we don't feel like we're competing with other people."

Kerr went on to say that he thinks the team's personnel is geared towards an uptempo style, but that he wants a coach who will emphasize defense and make sure the team improves at that end of the floor.

I hate to break it to Kerr, but D'Antoni wasn't the reason the Suns were knocked out of the first round of the playoffs in five games: he was. You can't expect to blow up a team's core that has essentially been together for more than three and a half seasons, and leave the coach just 28 games to figure out how to play with his new players. Especially with someone like Shaq, whose game (for better or worse) can't help but alter a team's style.

Whoever the Suns get to be their next coach, the fact that he has a defense-first mindset won't be enough. Unless Kerr makes some roster moves to get some perimeter defenders, the team is likely to end up finishing worse than they did this season.