A year ago today we were in the midst of free agency. LeBron James had just made a really bad decision and Amare Stoudemire failed to come to terms with the Phoenix Suns and took his considerable talents to the New York Knicks. This year we have NBA lockout instead and with that comes very little news.
↵The one newsworthy event was going to be the Suns announcement of a new assistant coach to fill the role of "defensive coordinator". In early June the plan was to try and get someone on board before the end of the month so they could have some time before the lockout to work with the players. Then at the draft on June 23 it was said that hire was just a week or two away.
↵Turns out, the Suns' target Jim Boylan was resigned with the Milwaukee Bucks for another year according to a report by Gary Woefel of The Journal Times.
↵↵↵Boylan, who played a prominent role in the Bucks being one of the best defensive teams in the league last season, had been in discussions with Suns officials for several weeks.
↵The scuttlebutt is that after negotiations dragged on and the parties couldn't come to an agreement, Boylan decided to sign a new one-year contract with the Bucks.
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No word yet on what sank the negotiations.
↵The Suns will continue their search for a defensive coordinator, a role that assistants Dan Majerle, Bill Cartwright or Igor Kokoskov apparently can't fill.