Suns' Hornacek explains Markieff's tantrum: 'He's mad about not playing'
The Phoenix Suns literally threw in the towel in their embarrassing 104-96 loss to the Denver Nuggets.
After a hot start, the Suns are just 5-14 over the past calendar month, and Wednesday's loss at home to a rebuilding team might have taken the cake in what's been an extremely disappointing season in Phoenix.
No one's more disappointed, or frustrated, than power forward Markieff Morris, who threw a towel at head coach Jeff Hornacek after being pulled in the fourth.
Hornacek promptly tossed the towel right back, had words for his disgruntled player, and dropped some cold hard truth in the postgame scrum.
"He's mad about not playing," Hornacek said, according to Paul Coro of AZ Central. "I look at the stat sheet. He's a minus-13 in 12 minutes. So there, I took him out. … He thinks he's better than that. Show me."
Morris - who started all 82 games for Hornacek last year - has received nine DNP-CDs this season, and hasn't played over 30 minutes in more than a month.
Related: Suns in no-win situation after fallout with Markieff Morris
And as Hornacek pointed out, there's a good reason for not seeing the floor: Morris has been absolutely dreadful in his limited minutes. He's shooting 37.9 percent from the field, and the offense has been 3.6 points worse per 100 possessions when he takes the court, despite sharing power forward duties with some decidedly below-average players.
Morris' struggles - combined with his notorious temper (he picked up 15 techs last year which ranked second in the league) - his ongoing legal troubles, and his repeated public demands for a trade, have helped create a toxic atmosphere in Phoenix.
To his credit, Morris kept his frustrations in house after Wednesday's game.
"That's between me and 'H' (Hornaceck)," Markieff said of the towel incident. "It's not for media. It's something between me and him that happened. We'll talk about it."
But the team's staff will still discuss possible discipline for Morris, Coro reports, and whether that means holding Morris out of more games, or perhaps trading him, it's almost a guarantee that more ugliness will spill out.