RealGM

NBA Power Poll: Non-contenders

THE WRONG CONFERENCE

17. Phoenix Suns
An incredible ten months that included …

A. Owner Robert Sarver pushing Steve Kerr out after Kerr miraculously got his Suns under the luxury tax AND to the cusp of the Finals.

B. Sarver replacing Kerr with agent Lon Babby, who acquired two of his clients (Hedo Turkoglu and Josh Childress) at a prohibitive cost. One never plays; the other got traded within a few months. So that's worked out great. And for the record, Sarver allowed Amare Stoudemire to leave (defensible), then spent 80 percent of what it would have kept to keep Stoudemire on Channing Frye, Childress and Hakim Warrick (indefensible).

C. The team trading Turkoglu and Jason Richardson for Marcin Gortat and Vince "Half-Man, Half-Amazingly Washed Up" Carter, which ended up being a steal (Gortat emerged as the franchise's first legitimate center since … Alvin Adams?) and a disaster (Carter single-handedly murdered their playoff hopes).

D. Nash suffering through a brutally tough season off the court. To be honest, I wasn't talking about his divorce, I was talking about the fact that every morning, he had to wake up thinking, "Oh my God, I have to play with Vince Carter."

E. You realize Grant Hill quietly just had one of the most incredible seasons in the history of the league, right? He played 135 games total from 2000 to 2006; in the past three seasons, he's played every game but three and averaged 30 minutes a night. This season, he tossed up 48-84-39 percentages for FG/FT/3FG, scored 13 a game, played the best perimeter defense of anyone other than Andre Iguodala and even wrote a takedown essay of Jalen Rose for The New York Times. He's 38 years old! This shouldn't be happening.

One other thing: If you allowed me one do-over for the 2010-11 season, mine would be Phoenix trading Hill to Boston before the deadline for Semih Erden, Avery Bradley, Von Wafer and $3 million. Hill would have gotten one more chance to play for a title. Phoenix would have finally gotten good karma for a transaction. The Celtics could have avoided the potentially disastrous Perkins trade (Hill would have given them Pierce/Allen protection); I would have avoided 2,970 texts, emails and phone calls from my father bitching about the Perkins trade; and also, we could have seen an NBA team with Shaq, KG, Pierce, Allen, Hill and Jermaine O'Neal on it. Combined income since 1992: two kajillion dollars. Too bad. But hey, at least Sarver was consistent; he's like Nic Cage, you can always count on him to do the wrong thing.

D. Nash suffering through a brutally tough season off the court. To be honest, I wasn't talking about his divorce, I was talking about the fact that every morning, he had to wake up thinking, "Oh my God, I have to play with Vince Carter."

thamadkant wrote:I disagree with the Nicholas Cage bit

- The Rock was a good film
- Face Off was also good
- GhostRider was meh
- The Weatherman was okay
- Leaving Las Vegas was GREAT
- Raising Arizona was good
- National Treasure 1 and 2 were okay (they are for Family viewing not full action)
- Adaptation was GREAT
- Con Air was good
- And other films, he's always had good performances.

Sure he's on a slump at the moment, but their are more notable actors to use as an example of "doing wrong things" than Nic Cage.

thamadkant wrote:I disagree with the Nicholas Cage bit

- The Rock was a good film
- Face Off was also good
- GhostRider was meh
- The Weatherman was okay
- Leaving Las Vegas was GREAT
- Raising Arizona was good
- National Treasure 1 and 2 were okay (they are for Family viewing not full action)
- Adaptation was GREAT
- Con Air was good
- And other films, he's always had good performances.

Kerrsed wrote: