Yahoo Sports is reporting that the Phoenix Suns spent Sunday afternoon finalizing a deal with Alvin Gentry to replace Terry Porter. The Suns are currently 28-23 but Porter’s leadership abilities have failed to resonate with team leaders such as Steve Nash and Grant Hill.

Alvin Gentry is a hold-over from the D’Antoni era. Rumors earlier in the season that the players overwhelmingly supported Gentry to replace D’Antoni, but Steve Kerr and Robert Sarver wanted to hire an external “defensively minded” coach.

Terry Porter has been quietly criticized frequently for being too authoritative with his players this year. The difficulty with that is that the Suns having many veteran players who are not used to that type of treatment. It may seem if the Suns players are being “babies” however, the Suns flourished in more light hearted scenario under D’Antoni.

The question truly is will Steve Kerr keep this team together and allow them to get back on track? Amare Stoudemire and Shaquille O’Neal have been rumored on the trade block and the Suns are looking to avoid the luxury tax and obtain young players in return.

Regardless of what happens the rest of the season, I firmly believe firing Terry Porter is the right decison. His offensive strategy was to dump it into Shaq and watch everyone else stand around. Defensively, he likely did not have the tools to apply the system he wanted to employ.