The Suns fired head coach Earl Watson 3 games into 2017-18 NBA season

Earl Watson is out as the Suns head coach after just three games this season, according to a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The Suns kicked their season off with three straight losses, including the worst opening night loss in NBA history. This marks the first head coach firing in the NBA since 2016.

Watson will finish with a 33-85 record in 118 games with the Suns. Wojnarowski reports that Jay Triano will likely serve as interim head coach while Suns owner Robert Sarver and General Manager Ryan McDonough conduct interviews in search of a new head coach.

Watson was hired as the interim coach after the Suns after they fired Jeff Hornacek in 2016.

Watson only coached the Suns for three games before being fired. The shortest season by a head coach is Mike Brown who was fired by the Los Angeles Lakers just five games into the 2012-13 NBA season.

The team not only underperformed, but they’d already suffered two 40+ point losses three games into the season. They loss to the Trail Blazers on opening night by 48 points and lost to the Clippers by 42 points on Saturday night.

The Suns are tanking, but they weren’t anywhere even close to competitive. And though their goal is mainly to develop, it’s hard to argue that players can develop in an atmosphere where 40 point losses seem to be the norm.

Watson attributed the Suns’ 0-3 start to a “lack of unity,” and said, despite their youth, the team needed to play more selfless. “Our margin of error is so small,” he said. Now, it’ll be up to someone else to figure out how to unite the team.

The Suns seemed to be behind Watson and the development of their young roster, naming it ‘The Timeline’ prior to the start of the season, but their brutal loss on opening night and subsequent losses after may be factors in Watson’s firing.

The firing comes after Eric Bledsoe tweeted this on Sunday afternoon.

It’s unclear if the tweet was related to Watson’s firing, but Bledsoe fired it off just about an hour before Wojnarowski reported Watson was out in Phoenix.