Eric Bledsoe's Season-Ending Injury Spells Doom For Phoenix Suns And Head Coach Jeff Hornacek

On Monday, Phoenix Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek placed Eric Bledsoe‘s recovery time from knee surgery at six weeks. It was unfortunate news for a team to lose their best player, but it’s something they were sure they could recover from. Today the news out of Phoenix turned horrific as it was announced Bledsoe would be out for the remainder of the season.

It’s just the latest in a long list of devastating setbacks for the Suns franchise that looked to be returning to its former glory just two seasons ago when they narrowly missed the playoffs, winning 48 games. Now Goran Dragic, the star of that 48 win team, is gone after forcing a trade, and the Suns are spiraling out of control. They attempted an unorthodox three point guard system and it failed miserably, with Bledsoe being the only one left. Markieff Morris appears to be the next one out the door after his two-game suspension for throwing a towel at Hornacek.

In less than two seasons, Hornacek has gone from coach of the year to the hot seat. Phoenix fired veteran assistant coaches Mike Longabardi and Jerry Sichting in hopes to shake things up on the bench. They were replaced by former NBA guard Earl Watson and former D-League head coach Nate Bjorkgren. Longabardi was in charge of the Phoenix defense that is last in opponent’s field goal percentage, effective field goal percentage and 27th in points per game.

The Suns have already lost five in a row and eight of their last 10, pushing their record down to 12-21 and the No. 12 seed in the Western Conference. Now with the loss of Bledsoe things will likely get worse, as sudden and unexpected responsibilities will be dropped right into the lap of rookie Devin Booker, who has only averaged 14.9 minutes per game up to this point. The loss of their best player makes Phoenix’s chances of making the playoffs even slimmer and Hornacek’s job status even more uncertain.

Phoenix didn’t look great with Bledsoe — despite the fact that he was having the best season of his career — so losing him is just the icing on the cake of this nightmare season.

Chipper Murphy is a Beat Writer for the New York Knicks on www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChipperMurphy or Google. “Like” him on Facebook.