from Craig Morgan of ArizonaSports,

Anthony LeBlanc wouldn’t divulge the gory details, but he provided all the necessary talking points for the franchise’s decision to fire general manager Don Maloney on Monday.

“It’s fair to say that there has been a difference in philosophy in regards to the overall philosophy of how the ownership group would like to manage the operation,” LeBlanc said at a press conference at Gila River Arena. “This is about a few key points moving forward: collaboration, communication and the modernization of our entire process.”

Maloney’s firing wasn’t a sudden reversal of course. This move has been at least two seasons in the making, and all of the aforementioned points played a role.

The feeling was that Maloney, who had two years remaining on his contract, had increasingly insulated himself from parts of the organization, cutting himself off from that collaborative and communicative process LeBlanc mentioned.

It was apparent in his hiring of old-school confidante Darcy Regier as the team’s assistant general manager less than two years ago — a man ownership fired in February in a telling statement about its confidence in its GM.

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