bwgood77 wrote:I agree he is a terrible owner but I liked that he finally embraced a rebuild after being in no mans land from 11-13. He just hired the wrong GM. But in hindsight it didn't seem like a bad hire given that he was under Ainge in Boston and seemed like a well spoken smart guy. Even the first coaching hire looked great as he overachieved with minimal talent, but then the GM made a bunch of odd changes in the offseason pissing off players, and he pissed off players ever year, whether it be the PGs, Morris twins, then sitting Bledsoe down the stretch, and Chandler....then bad trades (the Knight trade and the Chriss trade were both beyond awful) and horrible top 5 picks for the most part. Then hiring Watson and instead of firing him in offseason doing in 3 games into season.
The SSOL era he was made some bad choices too and overturned the GM and coaches too much then and then made terrible signings and then GM and FO hiring with Babby and Blanks.
I somewhat respect what Sarver tried to do by embracing a rebuild and giving a gm time, but I put most of the last 5 years on McD.
What he said to that fan wasn't ideal, but fans heckling him probably gets old and of course it wasn't a real offer but it was a dumb offer.
If fans could do anything it would be signing a petition to Silver for gross mismanagement of franchise. Now this is extremely unlikely to work, but if he really made a bad turn or big mistake in this day and age that was grossly inappropriate, perhaps the league would step in. But with our arena being in the bottom 3 of ticket sales and no expansion until 2025, there would be a very good chance we would move unless some Phx native had over a billion to spare.
I put the last 5 years on both of them. Sarver's constant involvement in basketball operations is one of the worst kept secrets in the league. Sarver may have allowed the team to rebuild, but we've still seen reports of him ripping coaches, shouting in the background of trade discussions, and overall micromanaging the basketball operations team. Just this offseason he overruled acquiring SGA, who is currently starting point guard for the Clippers with best record in the West, and pushed for Mikal Bridges, our 3rd SF that never even worked out for us.
You're not going to get much defense of McDonough from me. McDonough may not have been a bad hire at the time, but you can guarantee there were more successful and experienced (i.e. more expensive) options that Sarver let pass. He struggled heavily with player relations, he was happy being the silver medalist in free agency, his draft history is shaky, and his trade record is pretty much garbage. He put together that surprise team on accident, but I'd also bet my left nut that Sarver wanted him to continue building on that flukey team instead of following through with a real rebuild.
There's a very easy path to not getting heckled for Robert Sarver, and it doesn't have to be selling the team.
Show the fan base that this team isn't just his money printer. Spend some money on experienced, proven personnel at all levels instead of hiring the cheapest "up-and-coming" coaches, GM, PBOps, etcetera possible in hopes of striking gold. Keep his grimy mitts away from basketball operations unless he's handing players a contract, and stay
far away from the practice court and locker room. Hell, maybe spend even some non-taxpayer money on a practice facility considering we're one of the few NBA teams left that still crams practices onto a single court like a small high school team.
It's his team, and he can run it how he likes, but there is going to be heckling, billboards, T-shirts, posters, Twitter rants, petitions, and everything in between until he gives the fan base a reason to have hope. Is it going to do anything meaningful? Probably not, but there's a chance that it makes him as pissed off and miserable as the fans that are paying to see the product he puts on the floor, and that's enough for some people.
