RealGM

Read it and weep - could so easily have happened. We've talked about it a million times but it really hits home when an outsider tells it


http://dimemag.com/2011/07/the-best-tea ... never-was/

Yup, its like a broken record at this point. I really hate reliving all the drama. We may even have had a dynasty but we will never know and now we are on the brink of rebuild mode.

It's sad to think about but the one myth that keeps being perpetuated is that we didn't want to pay JJ. We SHOULD have inked him to the 50 mill deal in the summer of 04, but we didn't. That was the main mistake.

Then, Atlanta offered him a max contract summer of 05....initially Sarver balked, but he later offered to match. That's the part that people keep forgetting. Sarver was willing to pay Joe Johnson 73 million or whatever it was. JJ wanted out, and he ASKED Sarver NOT to match.

I don't regret letting JJ leave in 05. It didn't spell the end to our title hopes. Trading Kurt Thomas did, IMO.

And then 09/10 happened .

And then last year happened .

rsavaj wrote:It's sad to think about but the one myth that keeps being perpetuated is that we didn't want to pay JJ. We SHOULD have inked him to the 50 mill deal in the summer of 04, but we didn't. That was the main mistake.

Then, Atlanta offered him a max contract summer of 05....initially Sarver balked, but he later offered to match. That's the part that people keep forgetting. Sarver was willing to pay Joe Johnson 73 million or whatever it was. JJ wanted out, and he ASKED Sarver NOT to match.

I don't regret letting JJ leave in 05. It didn't spell the end to our title hopes. Trading Kurt Thomas did, IMO.

And then 09/10 happened .

And then last year happened .

That was when Sarver first decided to play GM and caused so much bad feeling JJ said screw it let me out.

Then he hired D'antoni, who was no better than he was, then kerr who i thought did well but he lowballed him and then Sarver played GM again last year, signing people. So, let's review then - Sarver may not be cheap but he's a crap GM.

Is that how he runs his other businesses?

Yeah, kerr really did do a good job, surrounding the main guys with good character/hustle/work ethic which translated to defense and more suprisingly- offense. The Kurt Thomas thing always gets me more than JJ because he was PERFECT next to Amare. Of course the worst thing is what could've been had Amare not left the bench(or even if just Diaw hadn't left). That Game 5...we...

argh can't think about it.

I just want to cry.

Losing Kurt Thomas didn't cost us a title. What hurt the most was the suspensions in that Spurs series. There is no doubt we win game 5 at home with Amare (nearly did anyway) and gone on to beat them in 7. Utah and Cleveland would win 1 game at the most against us. If Amare never has problems with his knees it could've been a dynasty.

I just don't understand giving Q a big contract before JJ. Q had better numbers the year before w/ LAC but was nowhere near as versatile and skilled as JJ. Not sure what Colangelo was thinking there.

And Rondo as a backup in our system would own.

I feel like throwing a brick through my own window.

I can't even bring myself to read the article...

DirtyDez wrote:Losing Kurt Thomas didn't cost us a title. What hurt the most was the suspensions in that Spurs series. There is no doubt we win game 5 at home with Amare (nearly did anyway) and gone on to beat them in 7. Utah and Cleveland would win 1 game at the most against us. If Amare never has problems with his knees it could've been a dynasty.

I just don't understand giving Q a big contract before JJ. Q had better numbers the year before w/ LAC but was nowhere near as versatile and skilled as JJ. Not sure what Colangelo was thinking there.

And Rondo as a backup in our system would own.

The Donaghy game was more detrimental to us than the suspensions, because we still should have won that game even without Amare and Boris. We led pretty much all game until that thug Bowen hit a pocket 3 with like 35 seconds left.

We were straight up SCREWED in the Donaghy game.

This is like re-watching a funeral.

Ahhhhhhhhh, nothing like starting the day with remembering some great heartache!

rsavaj wrote:It's sad to think about but the one myth that keeps being perpetuated is that we didn't want to pay JJ. We SHOULD have inked him to the 50 mill deal in the summer of 04, but we didn't. That was the main mistake.

Then, Atlanta offered him a max contract summer of 05....initially Sarver balked, but he later offered to match. That's the part that people keep forgetting. Sarver was willing to pay Joe Johnson 73 million or whatever it was. JJ wanted out, and he ASKED Sarver NOT to match.

I don't regret letting JJ leave in 05. It didn't spell the end to our title hopes. Trading Kurt Thomas did, IMO.

And then 09/10 happened .

And then last year happened .

Saying that Sarver wanted to pay Joe Johnson is only a half truth. Sure, Sarver eventually caved in the end--but the damage had already been done.

What's worse? Not offering to pay JJ at all---or only making him an offer after he decided to leave? Same ****, different toilet.

Regarding the article itself...I'm not going to read it all, because i'll get pissed. But once again a writer starts sounding off about trading picks like Rondo--When in reality the Suns did not make that pick for themselves. In the end the Suns agreed to take Rondo at Boston's request, with the agreement that Boston would help Brian Grant retire.

I'm not saying the Suns didn't make mistakes in the draft, but there's a clear and documented history of other elite teams avoiding the first round of the draft all together; it's not like the Suns weren't successful after those 'botched' draft moves, we were in the WCF in 2010...I didn't hear anyone talking about Rondo then.

I don't really mind trading draft picks, but I do mind getting nothing but cash in return. I think we wouldn't be in such a hole right now, if we had waited until those picks developed a bit, and then traded them for other assets.

The pick that turned into Rondo, or whoever we would have picked was sold so we could help Grant out of his $1.9 million contract? Was that really needed at the time, when we turn right around and signed Pike for two years at $1.2/ year? And then also Banks?

Rudy pick so we could unload Jones at $2.9 million and the Ibaka plus another to unload KT? We were throwing in picks like they were worth nothing, while years later that has hurt us. The year we unloaded KT, the Lakers turned Kwame Brown's similar expiring, a second rounder MGasol, Crieten(sp), and two extremely late firsts for Pau. Yet all we got was a conditional second for almost the same.

The KT deal is still the hardest to swallow, because his deal wasn't killing us, it was throwing a ton of money at Boris, when we could have waited another year and matched any offers, and signing Banks and Pike

RunDogGun wrote:I don't really mind trading draft picks, but I do mind getting nothing but cash in return. I think we wouldn't be in such a hole right now, if we had waited until those picks developed a bit, and then traded them for other assets.

The pick that turned into Rondo, or whoever we would have picked was sold so we could help Grant out of his $1.9 million contract? Was that really needed at the time, when we turn right around and signed Pike for two years at $1.2/ year? And then also Banks?

Rudy pick so we could unload Jones at $2.9 million and the Ibaka plus another to unload KT? We were throwing in picks like they were worth nothing, while years later that has hurt us. The year we unloaded KT, the Lakers turned Kwame Brown's similar expiring, a second rounder MGasol, Crieten(sp), and two extremely late firsts for Pau. Yet all we got was a conditional second for almost the same.

The KT deal is still the hardest to swallow, because his deal wasn't killing us, it was throwing a ton of money at Boris, when we could have waited another year and matched any offers, and signing Banks and Pike

Yes - good read on the situation. Picks were tossed away like used kleenex