Calvin Klein wrote:Puff wrote:JJ and Monty took us to the finals they are not playing fantasy basketball. You just make up a scenario you love and expect them to do exactly as you say or you pout like a spoiled brat and call for their heads. You have no idea what restrictions that they are dealing with due to the purchase of the franchise. You have no ideas what is going on behind closed doors.
Finally some sense. This applies to a lot of people unfortunately.
We've been better than anyone expected these last few years. Half the team gets injured, the team is sold and now everybody that was so great before, becomes inept.
You and Puff are very right about taking our recent success into consideration. And of course Monty and Jones ( by extension/ default) deserve a percentage of that shared recognition too for being part of that success. But I believe the sense of urgency around wanting to make bigger moves to add significant talent is in the realization and acceptance that our success is realistically not sustainable long term under this current roster construction.
Sure we've had some great showings here and there. And in typical suns fan we've made our traditional once in every 30 years Cinderella style finals run. But the bigger picture overall taken into full context indicates substantial moves a needed or inevitable if we're intending on legitimately contending. Last season was an indication that as good as our talent can be,
We have serious and legitimate weaknesses that other teams are repeatedly exploiting and (if we're being honest here) have gone largely unaddressed whilst other teams throughout the league have continued adding on depth/ talent/ high end athleticism.
The reality is that our recent #1 option that we wouldn't have even reached the finals without is on his last legs and will be gone as early as next season. And then what??? Our franchise super max player for all his sporadic greatness has only shown to be consistent enough to be a # 2 option and not yet a true # 1 necessary to win it all or lead a team to a championship and Bridges and Ayton in their large sample opportunities recently (despite a few outlier games here and there) have only shown to he complimentary players themselves. Our bench has been relatively solid here and there too.
But overall, this team ( as constructed) is simply not a legitimate contender. We don't have the requisite size, elite level talent or high end athleticism to legitimately compete against the rest of the league's ipper echelon teams. Our recent postseason record honestly indicates this reality. Our only finals run two seasons ago was arguably a large result of " right place" right time " scenario, wherein to our credit we capitalized on pretty much the majority of opposition having their key/ or star contributors out/ injured etc. And we also in large part snuck up on teams as we were previously terrible for so long. But even with those players out it still took amazing outlier performances from our players to beat those injury riddled teams that season.
Then when we made the finals against a fully healthy Bucks team with a legitimate #1 option and an all star level supporting cast, EVEN WITH A 2-0 LEAD and only needing to win just two games for our 1st ever championship in half a century!!! We give up four straight games. The next season only served to further that reality. As teams played down and basically went through the motions saving themselves for the postseason, We maintained the best REGULAR SEASON record in the NBA. But once the finals started against actually healthy western conference opposition, we struggled mightily just in the first round against younger and more athletic teams. And we again needed outlier performances from BOTH Paul and Ayton just to get out of the first round. And in the 2nd round, we had our coaches weaknesses repeatedly exploited, our players weaknesses repeatedly exploited and our positional and unadressed depth weaknesses repeatedly exploited to the point wherein we got HISTORICALLY embarrassed and sent home early by a lesser seeded team with seemingly less depth.
My point here is that whilst we may be a an occasionally highly competitive team at times. Our true roster construction does not yield a LEGITIMATE high end postseason outcome. We can maybe win some games or a series or two IF we are lucky and things break our way. But we absolutely are not and have not yet proven to be legitimate championship contenders ( as currently constructed). And that doesn't look to improve once Paul's completely gone or completely irrelevant as early as next season. And we also don't have any cap space and/ or desirable assets to other teams. We have alot of players that are expiring contracts with no real avenues absent of trade to address those positions once they expire Too.
These are the concerns that illicit such a profound urgency to make moves and add necessary talent either through the draft ( for cost controlled flexibility) or via trades. I just think fans ( especially long term fans) are hungry for that actual championship after over half a century of waiting through every maschocist event and all the various circus of situations the franchise has put us through these many decades.
yikes. Looks like you’re going to be using your burner account for a while. Totally uncalled for man, get a grip.
