Suns’ Porter takes another swing as NBA coach

On a good day, Terry Porter will break 80 on the golf course. So moving to Arizona to become the new coach of the Suns has an added bonus right off the bat.

Suns hire Porter as coach

SLIDESHOW: Terry Porter though the years

But while golf is his relaxation, basketball is his passion.

“He knows the game inside and out, from all angles,” said Buck Williams, his teammate in Portland for six years and a pair of trips to the NBA Finals. “He managed a game from the court as well as anyone I’ve every seen. Game clock. Shot clock. Matchups. Mismatches. He was coaching even when he was playing.”

Porter gets his second shot at an NBA head coaching job today, when he is introduced as the 13th coach of the Suns at an 11 a.m. press conference at US Airways Center. And unlike his first stop in Milwaukee, he will have the solid backing of a friend in general manager Steve Kerr, a roster with a track record of winning and a chance for his experience, fire and reputation as a tireless worker to take root.

“He’s a winner,” said Kerr, who talks about his former San Antonio Spurs teammate in a way that others in the past have spoken about him. “He’s been around winning teams his entire career, as a player and a coach. He has a good presence about him, and he’s a great communicator.

“I got to know him as a competitor and teammate. I saw how he treated the game, and he has all the qualities. I believe in him as a person, as a basketball mind and as a human being.

“I know we’ll work well together.”

That wasn’t always the case with former Suns coach Mike D’Antoni, an oil-and-water combination that finally imploded during this year’s first-round playoff loss. Now, Kerr will have the input he craved last year, when his first season as GM was as frustrating as it was frantic.

Kerr will not only have Porter’s ear, but the staff that comes aboard will be a collaborative effort. Practices will be longer, with an emphasis on younger players in and out of the rotation improving with work.

Defense will be an emphasis, although the Bucks’ inability to become better on the defensive end (bottom third of the NBA) played a role in Porter’s short stay (2003-05) with that team. Players will have the freedom to create in an up-tempo atmosphere on the offensive end, but will be more structured and not dependent on energy to create a shot.

“If I had a power forward that I could beat, I knew Terry would get me the ball, and every other player on our team was the same way,” Williams said. “He ran the show and adjusted on the fly and was very efficient. He knows what works in the NBA.”

But Williams was quick to point out that while Porter isn’t afraid to listen to opinions and suggestions, he’s his own man with a smooth way of stressing his own agenda. That will come in handy with a roster full of former foes on the court (Raja Bell, Grant Hill, Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Nash) who will come to camp with a heightened sense of urgency.

“Terry knows how to deal with people as basketball players and as men,” Williams said. “He bonded with Clyde (Drexler) one way, and with me another and Jerome (Kersey) another. He communicates, teaches and directs without coming down on you.

In a 2003 interview with hoopshype.com while the coach in Milwaukee, Porter talked about his many coaching influences, beginning with the legendary Dick Bennett at Wisconsin-Stevens Point and some of the most successful coaching names in league history — Jack Ramsay, Rick Adelman, Flip Saunders, Pat Riley and finally Gregg Popovich in San Antonio — where he ran into Kerr.

From Bennett, he learned how to push players and not settle for anything but the best. Ramsay stressed playing hard and being well-conditioned. He learned the art of being a players’ coach and the right mix of being strong but flexible from Adelman, the art of meticulous organization from Riley and the importance of a sticking with a system from Popovich.

Suns fans will be happy to know that Porter already has a built-in hatred toward the Lakers. In the same interview, he admitted: “They’ve always been the thorn in my rose. From day one, when I started playing in Portland, they’ve always been that team that I couldn’t get over the hump.”

That hump is back again — but is just one of the many hurdles he faces after the handshakes and flashbulbs today.