RealGM

Nobody ever talks about it but since 2005/6 there has been nothing but a revolving door of GMs, coaches, and players for the Suns. It all coincides with the gradual decline of the team.

5 GMs since 2006 - Bryan Colangelo, D'Antoni, Kerr, Sarver, Babby/Blanks

4 Coaches since 2006 - D'Antoni, Porter, Gentry, Hunter

Too many players coming and going to count. Just the change in starters (> 50 games started) was impressive

Marion, Bell, Diaw, Nash, K. Thomas, J. Johnson, Q, Rich, Amare, Hill, Shaq, J. Rich, Frye, Lopez, Carter, Dudley, Dragic, Gortat

Hard to build any identity or continuity with all the constant changes.

What if the right people aren't in charge? Is it still important to keep stability?

The Beas Knees wrote:What if the right people aren't in charge? Is it still important to keep stability?

How do you if you have the right people if you don't give them enough time to build the team??

I'll go back and look for some Nash quotes from 3-4 years ago but I recall he complained about the constant player turnover. The problem as I recall was building chemistry, relearning the players favorite spots on the court, relearning defensive schemes, etc, etc, etc. Why do NCAA teams with Seniors and Juniors compete against more talented teams with Freshman?? Because it is a team sport and the longer you play together the better you get (ala Spurs).

Edit: In terms of the front office that is important to keep stable so that a new group isn't coming in every two years and wanting to blow things up because it isn't a team composed of their people (coaches, players, etc).

Frank has brought this up in a few posts this season to remind the chicken littles.

This is a double edge sword in a way, and I think a reason we tend to promote from within, rather than search out a good coach. We have promoted from within since Cotton took over for Westphal, besides the Porter hire (but he was quite an unproven coach).

Good team chemistry was the reason we had such a good shot in 2010. Guys played for each other, and did not mind giving up minutes for their understudies.

But the turnover of every position both on and off the court has been ridiculous.

Stability is great is you have something worth preserving. The 2004-05 team should have been better preserved, no doubt. But it takes some pretty rosey thinking to argue THIS team is largely worth keeping together. I'd be interested to hear an argument for this bunch that is based on something besides wishful thinking.

And our front office turnover has been inexcusable, its true. Kerr and BC (love them or hate them) were shipped off after conference finals runs, those transitions were... odd. So take some comfort that they extended Babby, he has done okay in trade swaps and has not destroyed the cap (though he tried last year). But what has Blanks done to merit his continued employment? He has been at the center of some really bad moves, if you buy into the reports that it was Sarver who caused the Dragic signing then Blanks "eye" as a talent scout has landed the Suns zero starting caliber players. The team is arguably at its lowest point ever and its not like these guys were hired recently. This summer they boasted that now in their 3rd year they finally had a team that matched their vision on the court. Well... if this is their vision, or even the beginnings of it, then I dont need to see anymore.

Finally someone remembered that basketball is a team sport and if you want to have a team in its true meaning you need time, work and dedication on and off-court. I think THIS Suns group have/had enough hard working and dedicated players to go at least to 2nd round with good coaching (see the Spurs and the 2007-2008 Celtics teams). Unfortunately, everyone thinks that the Suns are bad just because they don't have on the roster anyone who ESPN and such designated as a "star" (we come here to the absurd term "talent" that pretty much says cooperative work and coaching have no place in basketball). Also unfortunately, the majority of people believes that a couple of 20 years old kids with no knowledge of the game or bodies for NBA will lead this organization to a shiny future just because they are "high picks" and ESPN and other media told you they are going to be "stars". Unfortunately, the most unfortunate thing here is that the people from the Suns organization believe these same things and created a loosing enviroment that will be very hard to overcome.

The Suns major problem is they dont know how they want to try to win games. I think I heard Eddie Johnson say it best during one of the telecasts.... you have to have a script in order to win games. Meaning our biggest problem is coaching. He was refering to specifically Beasly at first but expounded on it kind of by saying you should know what you are trying to do in every game that works for you individually, like bread and butter plays, pick and roll, whatever it is and do it to death, always come back to it. The Suns seem to go into every game with a wait and see attitude, see if first we are playing hard, then see if shots are falling, then see who is stepping up, not this is what we are going to run to death like pick and roll at various points of the floor or back screen the hell out of the other team all night and try to free up shooters. They never run a play till it stops working, they just move on to another play, and sometimes never come back to plays that worked previously. Even with the talent we have, we should be able to run like a well oiled machine and look better than this, but our machine is flawed starting from coaching. A strict system coach like Sloan would have been able to get more out of this team this year for sure, because while boaring, he still gets results because he makes the motions the routine, like a machine that strikes over and over again, in mostly the same way, maybe varied a little as far as spot on the court or players involved but routine trying to exploit specific weaknesses. Watching Hunter coached ball is like watching a pickup game at the YMCA, you never know who is going to do what, its like they never played together.

Stability is critical. That's why so many of the teams that constantly suck balls in sports continue to suck balls. All of them change coaches, players, GMs, management ridiculously quickly and to what should be nobody's surprise, they never garner any semblance of stability, chemistry, or success.