With the first substantial move of a hopefully busy and fruitful off-season, The Suns top brass has decided to drop the interim tag and retain Alvin Gentry as their head coach moving forward. Gentry inked a 3-year deal. The first two years will be wortha total of $3.7 million to Gentry with a team option for a 3rd season. Gentry was 18-13 as the Suns coach last season after taken over for the much maligned Terry Porter. However, maybe the most important thing to Suns fans was Gentry returned the Suns to a Run and Gun style offense. The Suns averaged an incredible 117.7 points per game in the final 31 games.

This is great news for Suns fans. This indicates to me the team is once again committed to an up-tempo playing stlye going forward. This also basically guarantees the team will exercise its option on fan-favorite and future hall of famer Steve Nash. In addition, this basically guarantees the departure of a rejuvenated Shaquille O’Neal. Despite Shaq’s resurgence statistically this season, he still slows the entire pace of the game and would be better suited to go to a team that likes a slow-down grind it out tempo. If the Dallas Mavericks were swept by the Nuggets last night, I would have bet with almost absolute certainty that Shaq would be headed for Dallas. However, Dirk  Nowitzki prolonged the series with an epic 44 point effort.

I personally love this move by the Suns. Alvin Gentry is basically Mike D’Antoni, without having to pay him a monostrous salary. The players clearly identify well with Gentry and will play their hearts out for him. The same definitely could not be said under the coaching of Terry Porter. The Suns next big endeavor this summer is the NBA Draft. Hopefully, they can acquire either a 3-pt shooter such as Stephen Curry or a athletic big-man such as Earl Clark from Louisville or James Johnson from Wake Forest . However, it seems the Suns are enamored by young Syracuse point-guard Jonny Flynn as well.