sunsbum wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:BurningHeart wrote:
Fantastic and awful point.
We can't even "rebuild" because we **** gave away all our **** picks.
We have to accelerate-rebuild.
Just the fact alone that James Jones passed on Haliburton, Vassell, Cole Anthony, Tyrese Maxey, Desmond Bane, etc etc, should be legitimate grounds for his firing. But then when you also consider his cumulative body of work such as letting torrey Craig walk over 5 million dollars (for a 2nd year on his contract) only to shortly after (in the same season) then traded to get him back while not only still paying the amount he balked over, but also giving up a draft asset and a promising young prospect (J Smith) in the trade, just to undo his recent blunder. Then giving up our 21st pick to trade for infamous suns bust Landry Shamet with the pick becoming Sharpe ( a much better player in terms of size/impact production at a position of need) BUT ALSO with Herb Jones still being available in that range.
Then, He aggressively and carelessly trades away nearly all of our remaining assets for the next 8 yrs in a deal with Washington for an oft injured, unreliable redundent player that has a cap killing contract that's widely perceived as the worst contract in the entire league and with a no trade clause that makes it impossible to even move! All while having ALL OF THE LEVERAGE IN THE TRADE ITSELF, but still surrendering the vast majority of our few remaining assets just because he admittedly doesn't value the draft:
https://www.si.com/nba/suns/news/phoenix-suns-james-jones-devin-booker-espn"He even confesses that, had he been at the helm in 2015, he probably would have passed on Booker," said Arnovitz.
"It all depends on what your goal is," Jones says. "Devin is great, but there are 50 skeletons tied to that swing for the star. It wasn't until winning was imported -- Chris, Jae Crowder, drafting a three-year guy who could help right away like Mikal -- that it translated to success. And if you don't import winning around him, there are even more skeletons. So if you want to find the guy with the highest potential to be the future star, then it makes sense to draft him -- if you're willing to navigate the land mines."
It's astounding just how truly terrible he is at talent evaluation, Value assessment, or even a willingness to just simply put in the amount of work that any other reasonably successful GM would be willing to do in comparison. James Jones should be booted from the NBA and never allowed anywhere near an NBA franchise in any decision making capacity at all. Having in making decisions for any team is clearly an egregiously reprehensible decision. HOWEVER, I do understand why an immature, inexperienced, melding jack azz clout chasing cheapskate owner like Saver or an inexperienced ego driven clout chasing overtly impulsive rich boy with a frat boy attitude and a "little man" superiority complex needs an insulatory puppet GM "yes man" to be a shield against their very obvious terrible ego driven decisions.
I just hate every bit of this argument. Theres a 1000 players that 100s of GMs have passed on, has happened since the beginning of time and will keep happening. This spilled milk that suns fans are obsessed with never ceases to amaze me.
Fair enough! That's an accurate assessment, You're definitely allowed your opinion, and clearly no one is gonna hit on every prospect either. But clearly there was multiple impactful prospects each year that he's missed on whilst specific high end franchises seem to still find a way to identify outlier talents and again hit time after time. Please explain to me why these numerous high end franchises can keep hitting on talent while others do not?? I'll give you a hint............ they actually invest time in that aspect with quality scouting departments, and most all of their GMs' too actually dedicate time to scouting talent because they recognize the value in it and realize to be a top championship franchise, you do actually need to try and maximize every a=vailable avenue to add talent and/or depth while maintaining cost control. Then you have Jones who missed on multiple impactful talents perennially (I can list them for you if you like) all while openly admitting that he'd have passed on Booker
BECAUSE he just doesn't value the draft or trying to build from it!!
By the way, when was the last time Jones even drafted a young talent to try and develop, or take a swing at? Almost half a decade of absolutely zero young cost controlled talent, upside assets, and now we have absolutely zero draft assets young talent or cost controlled depth peices WITH ACTUAL UPSIDE, again keeping in mind that Jones openly admitted that he doesn't value the draft. Yeah, the draft is always hit or miss, HOWEVER, clearly the top franchises that keep pulling talent at various ranges seem to find a way to identify talent, so why hasn't Jones in almost two decades?? Jones may admittedly may not value or even care about the draft, but this becomes important when you just consider that we with our big three and a roster full of his vet choices under his blueprint, got their azzes handed to them by a younger, more athletic, more energetic and more physical team with more size too. And also the Thunder who obviously value the draft correctly and seemingly keep hitting on talent year after year just happen to be the #1 one team not only throughout the entire season, but also well into the postseason while our teams' season ended before it really began. How do you suppose that the Thunder and other top franchise manage to keep doing so well in the draft year after year??
Spoiler alert! It's due to their WILLINGNESS to actually invest time/research into actually scouting and identifying talent. How do you suppose so many amatuer draft fanatics and amatuer scouts can somehow also identify these talents even before the draft, and with not even a 10th of the resources at their disposal that NBA franchises have yet again, Jones has identified maybe 1-2 of these at the most in over 20+ yrs with this franchise? By the way, Haliburton as well as Maxey and Bane were no big secret even to casual fans that followed the draft. The difference is actually putting in the time/effort to spot these players, and the franchises that are successful are those that put the work in and develop those abilities! Jones has just never cared to (by his own admission). Instead, he's always thought he was smarter than everyone else and opted to choose vet min options year after year. How has that worked out for us so far?