Suns fire Watson after 0-3 start

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns fired coach Earl Watson just three games into the NBA season.

The Suns announced the firing Sunday night after hours of meetings at the team’s headquarters.

Assistant coach Jay Triano, a former coach of the Toronto Raptors, was named interim coach. Triano was an assistant at Portland before coming to Phoenix last year.

Watson was promoted from assistant to interim coach of the Suns after Jeff Hornacek was fired Feb. 1, 2016. The interim tag was removed April 19 of that year.

With an extremely young team, the Suns struggled under Watson. He compiled a 33-85 record. Watson’s only full season was 2016-17, when the team went 24-58.

Watson, 38, emphasized togetherness and a family atmosphere to nurture the young squad, but wins were hard to come by.

And owner Robert Sarver apparently didn’t like what he saw. Phoenix is 0-3, and two of the losses were especially ugly. The Suns were blown out 124-76 by Portland in their season opener Wednesday night, the most one-sided loss in franchise history and the most one-sided season opener for any NBA team.

Phoenix also was routed by the Clippers in Los Angeles 130-88 on Saturday night.

“I Don’t wanna be here,” point guard Eric Bledsoe tweeted Sunday, just as the news of Watson’s firing surfaced in an ESPN report.

The Suns have not made the playoffs in seven years, the longest drought in the franchise’s 49-year history.

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