LOS ANGELES — Igor Kokoskov, the first-year coach of the Phoenix Suns, seems to have a habit of answering questions about his team in the form of lists.
Ask him about the development of Deandre Ayton, the rookie center and top overall draft pick, and Kokoskov will praise Ayton for his poise amid so much pressure before rattling off the lessons he still has ahead of him: “We want him to keep learning about everything — learning about personalities, learning about coverages and adjustments, learning about referees.”
Ask him how he has tried to maintain the morale of his young players during such a trying start to their season, and Kokoskov will talk about the importance of individual roles: “They have to understand their roles, accept their roles and embrace their roles.”
Ask him whether he has a coaching philosophy, and Kokoskov will politely explain that he would not use that word quite yet — “Philosophy,” he says, “comes from somebody who’s been in this business much longer than I have” — before insisting instead that he has “thoughts and ideas” about his team at this early stage that include the following: starting lineups, rotations, substitutions patterns and offensive sets. The general impression one gets from being around Kokoskov is that he could go on and on.
“We’re looking for an identity,” he said, “and someday, hopefully, it’s going to be a philosophy.”
His penchant for lists is understandable. The Suns are a project with holes to plug and flaws to fix and problems to overcome as they bring up the rear in the Western Conference, which is otherwise flush with parity this season. Consider that the Houston Rockets, who were 9-11 after losing to the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday and thought to be a championship contender coming into the season, have the second-worst record in the conference — but are just a winning streak away (maybe) from vaulting back up the ladder.
And then there are the Suns, who dropped to 4-17 after losing to the Clippers, 115-99, at Staples Center on Wednesday. Devin Booker, the fourth-year shooting guard who signed a five-year, $158-million extension in July, finished with 23 points after starting out of position, at point guard, because the Suns had waived their starting point guard that morning.
“We want to be one of those teams competing for a playoff spot,” Booker said. “I feel like it’s wide open right now with a lot of people sitting around the 8, 9, 10 range in wins. And we let a couple close ones slip away. But recently, we’ve been fighting very, very hard compared to the beginning of the season.”
The Suns have not benefited from much stability in recent years — or even recent weeks — and despite Booker’s optimism, it is hard to see the team vying for much of anything anytime soon, other than another lottery pick. But even a prime spot in the next year’s draft is no guarantee of a brighter future. Ryan McDonough, before he was fired as the team’s general manager in October, used top-5 picks on players like Alex Len (2013), Dragan Bender (2016) and Josh Jackson (2017), who still has a chance to be a productive player.
Of more immediate concern, the Suns had big problems at point guard even before they waived Isaiah Canaan on Wednesday morning. Canaan had started 15 games for Phoenix this season, averaging 7.5 points and 3.3 assists while shooting 39.5 percent from the field.
“It’s just a pure business decision,” Kokoskov said before Wednesday’s game, “and we wish him nothing but the best.”
Losing is clearly hard on Kokoskov, a longtime assistant, most recently with the Utah Jazz. After Wednesday’s loss, he looked as if he had walked miles through a desert. He wants to keep the big picture in mind — the long-term development of players like Booker and Ayton, for example — but he is not merely trying to win every game, he said. He wants to win every quarter, which is completely unreasonable given his roster but also admirable in a masochistic, no-pain, no-gain sort of way.
“That’s how we coach the team,” Kokoskov said. “We can talk about Ayton, and we can talk about Booker — the young guys who are 20, 21 years old, and where they’re going to be in three years, five years. But it’s one game at a time, one quarter at a time, and we’re trying to win every single game.”
If there was a bright spot for the Suns against the Clippers, it was the play of Elie Okobo, a 21-year-old point guard who came off the bench to score 19 points while shooting 8 of 12 from the field. It was his first appearance since Nov. 12, and he took advantage of Canaan’s absence. The question, of course, is whether Okobo, an untested rookie from France, can sustain a high enough level of play that would allow Booker to operate at shooting guard, his more natural position.
“We’re looking for any answer we can get right now,” Booker said.
Kokoskov, meanwhile, who is the Suns’ fourth coach in four seasons, does not seem to be the most patient man by nature. He wants to win, and he does not want to wait for it happen. But some things cannot be helped. The odds are stacked against him, everyone knows that, but he has his lists and he has his pride, and he appears determined to keep moving forward.
“Searching for a lot of things,” he said. “A lot of things. Nothing happens overnight.”
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