The Demise of the Suns

[WTFsunsFTW]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1523 ... uns/page/2

Nice breakdown by BR. To summarize:

2004 - Team purchased by Robert Sarver. Sold Loul Deng for Jackson Vroman (played 10 games) and 2005 pick
2005 - Sold Nate Robinson, Quentin Richardson and Marcin Gortat for Kurt Thomas and Cash
2006 - Sold Sergio Rodriguez and Rajon Rondo for 2007 pick and Cash
2007 - Sold Rudy Fernandez and James Jones for Cash. Sold Kurt Thomas, Quincy Pondexter, and Serge Ibaka for 2009 2nd round pick (later sold to Cleveland) and Cash
2008 - Traded Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks for Shaq. D'antoni replaced with Terry Porter then Alvin Gentry
2010 - Let Stoudemire go and replaced with role players (Hakim Warrick, Josh Childress and Hedo Turkoglu) after forgetting how to negotiate a trade exception
2011 - Traded Goran Dragic and a 1st round pick for half a season of Aaron Brooks
2012 - Start of the worst Suns team in franchise history

[ATF]

To think if we only had competent management for the last decade, what could have been.

[Frank Lee]

axe grinding anyone ?

If anything, Sarver's main problem was following the advice of Brian Colonjello, D'Ant, and Kerr in their less than spectacular and arguably failed runs as GMs.

Too many forget just how close we were.... and how snake bit we ended up when we were right on the doorstep.

[RunDogGun]

You forgot that we gave up two second rounders to acquire Chilldress and Warrick. Also having D'Antoni be the GM, while being coach killed us. He signed Banks to a four year deal, and then refused to play him, and also signed Diaw to a big contract before even seeing how terribly out of shape he was.

[rsavaj]

D'Antoni refused to play Banks because Banks sucked.

He's out of the league now.

[rsavaj]

axe grinding anyone ?

If anything, Sarver's main problem was following the advice of Brian Colonjello, D'Ant, and Kerr in their less than spectacular and arguably failed runs as GMs.

Too many forget just how close we were.... and how snake bit we ended up when we were right on the doorstep.

Interesting that we reached 3 WCF following their failed advice, and are now about to miss the playoffs 3 times in a row as soon as Blanks/Babby took over...

[EB2]

axe grinding anyone ?

If anything, Sarver's main problem was following the advice of Brian Colonjello, D'Ant, and Kerr in their less than spectacular and arguably failed runs as GMs.

Too many forget just how close we were.... and how snake bit we ended up when we were right on the doorstep.

Say what you will about Colangello in Toronto, but he was the one who put the SSOL team together...

[Frank Lee]

axe grinding anyone ?

If anything, Sarver's main problem was following the advice of Brian Colonjello, D'Ant, and Kerr in their less than spectacular and arguably failed runs as GMs.

Too many forget just how close we were.... and how snake bit we ended up when we were right on the doorstep.

Interesting that we reached 3 WCF following their failed advice,........

Yes.... in spite of them.

[WTFsunsFTW]

The GMs did what they could with the directive handed down: cut costs, get cash.

[rsavaj]

axe grinding anyone ?

If anything, Sarver's main problem was following the advice of Brian Colonjello, D'Ant, and Kerr in their less than spectacular and arguably failed runs as GMs.

Too many forget just how close we were.... and how snake bit we ended up when we were right on the doorstep.

Interesting that we reached 3 WCF following their failed advice,........

Yes.... in spite of them.

Colangelo got Nash. Colangelo drafted Marion and Amare.
Kerr put together the 09/10 team.

So if "in spite of them" you mean "because they made the moves that made it happen", then yes, you and I are on the same page.

[Sunsaholic]

Getting either Shabazz or McLemore this year as well as either Wiggins or Parker next year would make up for a lot of the crap we have seen the Suns do.

[RunDogGun]

D'Antoni refused to play Banks because Banks sucked.

He's out of the league now.

Mike is the one who signed him. Banks didn't suck, he was instantly yanked when he did something wrong. His main problem was he wasn't Nash. We could have used him much better, like putting him on Parker the game that Amare and Diaw sat. Instead we put Marion on Parker, which gassed our only offense.

One of the last games that season, a Banks lead squad brought us back from a thirty point deficit. He was a decent defender. Now was he worth his contract? Not at all, but that was my point in the first place, Mike sucked at GM.

[RunSunRun]

There's a reason other fanbases laugh at our front office and ownership.

I mean when we get openly mocked by Knicks and Clippers fans, you know you have it bad,

[garrick]

axe grinding anyone ?

If anything, Sarver's main problem was following the advice of Brian Colonjello, D'Ant, and Kerr in their less than spectacular and arguably failed runs as GMs.

Too many forget just how close we were.... and how snake bit we ended up when we were right on the doorstep.

How can you seriously defend Sarver and lay all the blame on the former GM's? If you don't remember we missed the playoffs the season before Nash came to Phoenix and that was all Bryan Colangelo's doing. Plus he traded for JJ which was a major steal and drafted well with Marion and Amare so without Bryan you don't have the SSOL system.
Kerr's one bad move was trading for Shaq and he had the right idea of making dantoni play more defense so he wasn't a horrible GM.
Sarver's problem was he didn't listen to his GM's and ran all the former Suns out of the FO with Chapman, Ceballos and now Dan Marjele which should tell you a lot about how classless he really is. We won despite of Sarver not the other way around.

[BobbieL]

The demise of the Suns, for me, can be traced to the manic world of Robert Sarver. I am not a doctor and am not trying to be flippant, but he has ADHD or something because there is no way in the world any sane person would do the crap he does.

First, he is not cheap. But he is fiscally a moron

Second, I can't point to two summers when he was the GM, or pseudo GM that crap happend

Summer of 2006 - trades the two picks for cash, then signs Banks longer term then rookies cost. Then signed Diaw and Barbosa to long term deals that put them over the lux tax in the summer of 2007. So if he were cheap, he would have traded the picks and then signed a veteran back up PG for $750k and not Marcus Banks. By being over the lux tax, they gave away Kurt Thomas. Marcus Banks was added to the Shaq trade. To this day, if the Suns really wanted to trade Marion, his value increases without Banks as a kicker

Summer of 2010- Sarver lets Kerr go and signs Childress, Frye, Warrick, trades for Turkoglu. HORRIBLE

So for me, its Sarver not spending money on Amare one day but then signing all these other average players to long term deals the next day. That is his biggest problem. Sarver doesn't have a plan. The Spurs have a plan. The Thunder has a plan. Sarver wants to make money one day, save it the next day, spend it the next day.

Hindsight is 20/20 but if Sarver had the b**ls to trade Ben Wallce for Tyson Chandler - he might have had a ring that year as all that team needed with a healthy Amare was Tyson Chandler.

Granted, I still go back further in the summer they had Marion, Amare and Diaw and the idiots signed Grant Hill - when again, for the playoffs, they needed a guy like Turiaf to defend the bigs. D'Antoni really is an effing idiot when it comes to winning in the NBA. He is so stubborn it wrecks a team.

[rsavaj]

D'Antoni refused to play Banks because Banks sucked.

He's out of the league now.

Mike is the one who signed him. Banks didn't suck, he was instantly yanked when he did something wrong. His main problem was he wasn't Nash. We could have used him much better, like putting him on Parker the game that Amare and Diaw sat. Instead we put Marion on Parker, which gassed our only offense.

One of the last games that season, a Banks lead squad brought us back from a thirty point deficit. He was a decent defender. Now was he worth his contract? Not at all, but that was my point in the first place, Mike sucked at GM.

I'm not arguing that he didn't suck as a GM. However, I'm arguing that he sucked as a GM because he wasted a contract on an incredibly terrible player, whereas you actually seem to think that Mike made a good initial signing and then screwed it up by not playing him.

Blanks was a bad basketball player. He did not succeed in any of his stops after Phoenix, and he is currently OUT OF THE LEAGUE. Mike should never have signed him.

[WTFsunsFTW]

How can we say our GMs sucked when they all resigned instead of getting fired? Along with other high ranking executives! The idiot owner drove them all crazy. He also thought it would be a good idea to make a coach dual role as a GM. Cut off the head to kill this cancer on my beloved Suns.

[Sunsaholic]

There were a few questionable GM moves, but the most harmful were the ones that were clearly under the orders of Sarver. Selling picks and the most underrated awful move of them all was giving away Kurt Thomas, our starting center who was the heart and soul of our front courts defense and rebounding , for cash. The next year we just weren't the same, which forced the Suns to make a move....the Shaq trade.

[Frank Lee]

There were a few questionable GM moves, but the most harmful were the ones that were clearly under the orders of Sarver. Selling picks and the most underrated awful move of them all was giving away Kurt Thomas, our starting center who was the heart and soul of our front courts defense and rebounding , for cash. The next year we just weren't the same, which forced the Suns to make a move....the Shaq trade.

You can't insulate Kerr from that deal. Yes, he had a directive from Sarver, but no one told Kerr to grease up and bend over like he did. He even said that was his worst move/trade and chalked it up to inexperience. Thanks Steve. To me that was the absolute worst deal that effected us the most.... He deserved a pay cut for that.

You guys blame Sarver for selling the picks.... but come on... look who was the coach. You really think Sarver was acting in a bubble ? Further more, outside of Rondo, I don't think any of those picks amounted to anything. Sergio was one wasn't he...? Whoopeee. I know some here will say 'What about Ibaka?' ... sure that was a cost cutting move... but again... that was pizzpoor negotiating. And if you remember.... the Deal for the 23rd pick (rondo) was the pick and Brian Grant for 3 mill. That was a net 5+ million. (Remember the carcass that was Grant ? Great pick up eh?) Yeah... passing off Rondo was a hind sighting mistake.... but 20+ other teams made the same mistake too. There are always dudes that fall through the drafting cracks. It is a spin on the roulette wheel.

Face it....We had Nash and Nash was this team. None of his (Nash's) GMs did anything short of make his court time more difficult. Pike, JuJones, the amazing Sean Marks? You could list probably 10 other worthless pick ups made by CJello, Kerr-plunk and D'cAnt. The best they did for him was adding a wore out Jim Jackson and of course, dirty Kurt.

Nash made every coach and GM look a lot better than he really was. He alone masked their inadequacies. And damned if we weren't but an injury or two and a suspension away from the finals. Thats bad luck as much as anything.

Look, I am not a Sarver apologist...I don't particularly care for his methods and in general, his persona...
but you guys like to 5h!t in bag, light it and set it all on his doorstep.

For my money.... the biggest mistake was not hiring a solid GM once BC took his smokey mirror to Toronto.

[RunDogGun]

I'm not arguing that he didn't suck as a GM. However, I'm arguing that he sucked as a GM because he wasted a contract on an incredibly terrible player, whereas you actually seem to think that Mike made a good initial signing and then screwed it up by not playing him.

Blanks was a bad basketball player. He did not succeed in any of his stops after Phoenix, and he is currently OUT OF THE LEAGUE. Mike should never have signed him.

Just because he is out of the league right now, in no way means that he sucked when we had him, you should know that, and should really stop using that as your "capital" argument. When Banks played with Boris and Jones, he did quite well. Banks was a scoring point, who could hound any other point on defense. We tried to play him like Nash, and it didn't work at all. Again, I agree it wasn't a good contract, but that wasn't the only crappy thing Mike did as GM. He could have been used better, without hurting the team. I think if Mike didn't make Banks walk on eggshells, we may have had a good backup. Again, I would have played Banks with Boris and Jones. Banks would bring the ball up, and give it to Boris to run the offense.

For a minute there, I thought you were talking about Blanks.