Eric Bledsoe

[bwgood77]

I'm glad they are both gone and glad they are having their success. I'm happy with our team where we are and the assets we got for those guys. Win/Win

You do not believe that the Suns could, or should, have received more for those guards (two of the best in the Eastern Conference now), especially for Thomas? Phoenix did use the first-round pick procured in the Thomas deal to help acquire Chriss in last year's draft, but the Suns potentially could have received much more, at least if they had had waited.

Now, sure, one could argue that without those trades, the Suns would have finished with a better record in '14-'15, may not have been in a position to draft Booker (let alone Chriss and Bender), and so forth and so on. So maybe matters did work out, or will work out, for the best. But in that case, Phoenix would have been more lucky than good and still did not use those veteran assets (Dragic and Thomas) effectively. For the "assets" acquired in exchange for them look mediocre-to-marginal right now.

I think Dragic looking like he wouldn't re-sign in the summer and we'd lose him for nothing, getting two firsts, no matter how far in the future or where those picks land in the draft, is a great return. As for Thomas, in hindsight it doesn't look great, but the fact is, no one was even willing to give him a better contract that summer (if there was someone I'm almost certain he would have taken that deal over going to a team with two point guards), and I'm guessing if we could have gotten a better deal in trade we would have. Now should we have held on to him? Perhaps, but as you say, that likely provides a butterfly effect and we likely get a worse draft pick. But even disregarding that, I'm still not certain that his value increases if we keep him. Why would it?

He actually shot best from 3 (even since then) while with us, and had his best year as a pro (until that point) his last year in Sacramento. But his overall advanced metrics had dropped while with us because he was playing 2nd or 3rd fiddle often. He got much better in his first full year in Boston and especially this year when he got 32-33 minutes (a little less than his last year with the Kings).

Perhaps had we hung onto him he would have gotten more minutes after Dragic was traded and increased his value or if we held onto the following year he would have gotten a ton of minutes when Bledsoe went down. I think his value would have increased, but more largely because of his value contract.

But ultimately we turned cap space into the 27th pick and end up with all the players we have now and I'm happy with that.

[GMATCallahan]

These second hand reports all say pretty much the same thing. It goes like this: Thomas called Goran a few names because of an interview, Dragic went at him, the twins broke it up, Dragic was pissed and he was especially upset that Bledsoe didn't side with him. Dragic then demanded that Thomas be traded, a week later, after the front office had worked out an Isaiah trade, Goran changed his mind and demanded his own trade. The front office reluctantly obliged after Goran took his public cheap shots and traded him to Miami. They could have foregone the Thomas trade but as they'd already verbally agreed Ryan apparently felt committed to following through with Boston.

How much of that story is fact? I don't really know but I tend to believe it substantially, I've just heard and read too much that supports it. I'm less confident of the other stories that surround that time such as the claim that one of Goran's home country agents had already committed to putting him in LA no matter what happened that season or the other rumor that his model wife was insisting on a move to one of the happening places such as Miami, New York or LA. But, regardless of the back stories, I do believe Goran was understandably worried about his upcoming payday and that he was under a lot of pressure from friends, family and business partners and made some bad choices as a result (bad from the perspective of a Suns fan, maybe not bad for him).

I've always felt his negative comments about us were, initially, nothing more than a strategic move designed by his agents. IMO that "hate" was phony until Ryan inflamed the situation by firing back publicly at Goran. Had Ryan kept his mouth shut, like Babby wanted, Goran's apology would have carried the day and the situation would have been mostly resolved. I've never thought much of Lon but as bad as we ended up looking through that debacle, I think it would have gone nuclear without his involvement.

What was this interview that allegedly rankled Thomas? Does anyone possess a link to it?

[GMATCallahan]

I think Dragic looking like he wouldn't re-sign in the summer and we'd lose him for nothing, getting two firsts, no matter how far in the future or where those picks land in the draft, is a great return. As for Thomas, in hindsight it doesn't look great, but the fact is, no one was even willing to give him a better contract that summer (if there was someone I'm almost certain he would have taken that deal over going to a team with two point guards), and I'm guessing if we could have gotten a better deal in trade we would have. Now should we have held on to him? Perhaps, but as you say, that likely provides a butterfly effect and we likely get a worse draft pick. But even disregarding that, I'm still not certain that his value increases if we keep him. Why would it?

He actually shot best from 3 (even since then) while with us, and had his best year as a pro (until that point) his last year in Sacramento. But his overall advanced metrics had dropped while with us because he was playing 2nd or 3rd fiddle often. He got much better in his first full year in Boston and especially this year when he got 32-33 minutes (a little less than his last year with the Kings).

Perhaps had we hung onto him he would have gotten more minutes after Dragic was traded and increased his value or if we held onto the following year he would have gotten a ton of minutes when Bledsoe went down. I think his value would have increased, but more largely because of his value contract.

But ultimately we turned cap space into the 27th pick and end up with all the players we have now and I'm happy with that.

Your point about Dragic is difficult to argue with. Still, why not trade him to a franchise with a poor track record, thus improving the chances that the picks will yield outstanding players? Pat Riley generally seems to know what he is doing; during his tenure, the Heat has seldom been bad.

Thomas' minutes would have increased significantly with Dragic gone. His overall statistics would have improved, and presumably his trade value would have risen as well. Plus, we do not know if what McDonough procured from Boston really represented the best that he could have possibly found for Thomas or if he was instead eager to make a deal with the front office that he had previously worked for, in part because he felt loyal to Danny Ainge and the Celtics or because he simply felt comfortable in negotiating with them. What is quite possible is that McDonough, feeling that he desperately needed to offload Thomas in order to mollify Dragic or just move on from an unhappy experience, panicked and made a deal that proved quick and convenient.

Thomas' True Shooting Percentage with the Suns was .579, the same as it would be with the Celtics that season after the trade, slightly higher than the .574 that he tallied in each of his three years with Sacramento (amazingly, he posted the exact same True Shooting Percentage in all three of his seasons with the Kings) and higher than the .562 that he recorded last year. As you indicated, the reason was that Thomas shot a career-best .391 on threes with the Suns, but any astute observer could see that he had not fallen off as a player. Rather, his role was truncated and the Suns' lineup was jumbled. As for PER, as I have discussed before, it is a junk metric that misapplies team pace factors to individual performance (with no understanding of the game's nuances), so the Suns' third-highest pace factor would have unfairly depressed his PER. I hope that most basketball general managers know enough about the game to not determine players based on a ridiculously flawed metric that serves as a promotional gimmick for ESPN rather than providing any useful information or illuminating insight. And most other advanced metrics are similarly flawed or limited. Have you seen this interview with former longtime Los Angeles Times basketball writer Mark Heisler?

... The internet is full of less discerning guys who throw numbers around as if they’re a magic language, no matter how well or badly they’re conceived.

This is the age of the algorithm, which is a black-box kind of analysis based on a model somebody constructs, spitting out stats that no one understands, like WAR, which discerning baseball people (I like Keith Law a lot) use, or basketball’s PER.

I think a lot of John Hollinger — whatever you think of their models, a lot of analytic guys are really sharp — but his PER is one of my pet peeves. If you look at PER rankings, there are always total anomalies that make you wonder. ... I’d suggest the stat has shown itself to be problematic, rather than telling you anything of value.

... Bottom line, some stats work better than others but there’s too little recognition of that fact and too much inclination to throw around dumb numbers.

https://edodevenreporting.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/basketball-maven-mark-heislers-reflections-on-a-legendary-career/

Anyway, the Suns received the twenty-eighth pick in last year's draft for Thomas; twenty-two years earlier, in 1994, the twenty-eighth pick amounted to a second-round selection. (And back then, drafts were deeper because more players spent more time in college.) One could throw the label "first-round" on it, but the twenty-eighth pick is still just the twenty-eighth pick. In essence, the Suns traded someone with the talent to be the NBA's third-leading scorer (even if know one quite understood that talent level then)—basically the equivalent of an efficient Allen Iverson—for a highly-paid second-round pick with a guaranteed multiyear contract. I would say that by definition, on its own terms, the trade has proved terrible.

Now, since McDonough was able to use that pick as part of the package to procure Marquiss Chriss, an athletic high-lottery selection with a reasonably attractive upside, the trade was not a total loss. And, yes, it surely made the Suns a little worse in '14-'15 and much worse the last two years, so maybe the high draft picks that have resulted will all turn out for the best. But if one wants to evaluate process, rather than results that are partly determined by chance, clearly McDonough responded terribly with that trade. It has all the markings of a very young, inexperienced general manager panicking and reacting expediently rather than acting with patience and guile.

To be fair, McDonough is young, and he was younger then. He deserved the opportunity to learn from his mistakes and rebound with better decisions in the future, and I feel that he has generally done just that. Overall, he has probably made more good moves than bad ones. Still, one also wonders sometimes if he has a real perspective on matters or if he is just feeling his way through and guessing.

Of course, all general managers guess, including those who were former players. After all, we can recall the Lance Blanks era. I wonder, though, why hiring young general managers (former players or not) with no previous experience in the position is so in vogue. (Remember Steve Kerr, too, who arguably made some mistakes early on yet had a deep reservoir of playing experience, and also broadcasting experience, to draw upon.) But why not hire a fifty or sixty-year old guy who has been a general manager before and can really draw upon experience and wisdom?

I am not saying that hiring McDonough represented a mistake or that I would fire him now. I just wonder about some of the concepts and trends in play. Okay, so a younger guy will possess a better feel for "analytics," but "analytics" are slipshod at best. Maybe the younger guys come cheaper ...

[Frank Lee]

McDo was full bore in asset aquiremnt ala Ainge, his mentor. May be he was a bit over zealous, but it is what it is and we are where we are.

Spilt milk eventually sours.

IMO, the over all knight deal is his biggest black eye....as it still requires attention. Who knows, may be BK comes through enough to warrant value or minutes. But it was a head scratcher from the get go. I mean, how many players had an entire YouTube montage of broken ankles?

The real question we are facing now is what to do with Bled. And that looks to depend upon who we draft and the reaction from petulant Paul. I have to think, as an agent concerned about his client, he is doing as much 'feeling' as McDo.

[Zelaznyrules]

What was this interview that allegedly rankled Thomas? Does anyone possess a link to it?

I'm too lazy to search for it, I'd do it if it were the only soft spot in that story but it isn't. In fact, it's about the only part in that story that has been fairly well documented. Anyway, not that it will prove anything but here's a tweet that relates to this situation: Paul Coro - Isaiah Thomas said he was a team player for PHX. "The guy that complained, you seen it in the media. I didn't say anything.

To the best of my recollection, the actual interview that set Thomas off was a post game interview with the NBA Channel. Goran didn't say anything extreme but IMO he came across a little whiny when he pointed out that he was having to sacrifice for the team. This came about during that stretch when we were playing our best ball by running all three guards together, forcing Dragic to defend against small forwards.

[GMATCallahan]

What was this interview that allegedly rankled Thomas? Does anyone possess a link to it?

I'm too lazy to search for it, I'd do it if it were the only soft spot in that story but it isn't. In fact, it's about the only part in that story that has been fairly well documented. Anyway, not that it will prove anything but here's a tweet that relates to this situation: Paul Coro - Isaiah Thomas said he was a team player for PHX. "The guy that complained, you seen it in the media. I didn't say anything.

To the best of my recollection, the actual interview that set Thomas off was a post game interview with the NBA Channel. Goran didn't say anything extreme but IMO he came across a little whiny when he pointed out that he was having to sacrifice for the team. This came about during that stretch when we were playing our best ball by running all three guards together, forcing Dragic to defend against small forwards.

Thanks. If Thomas indeed confronted Dragic over some relatively generic comment in an interview, my guess is that Dragic had to have been complaining behind the scenes, too, and possibly placing a damper on team chemistry, much like Shawn Marion during the '07-'08 season. (Mike D'Antoni later stated that had Marion been a happy camper, he never would have embraced the idea of swapping him for Shaquille O'Neal.)

Obviously, I do not know. But if the team's chemistry had been better on the inside, a banal comment in an interview probably would have been brushed aside by his teammates.

[bwgood77]

I agree with everything you wrote GMAT, though I never referenced PER and that wasn't what I was primarily looking at when I wrote my post, as I was also looking at VORP, BPM, etc....I'm sure every metric is flawed to some extent so I tend to look at all of them as well as per game, per 36, TS%, efg%, etc, to come up with some sort of consensus on seasons when coming up with a quick conclusion as I didn't want to heavily research IT's career in depth.

[GMATCallahan]

McDo was full bore in asset aquiremnt ala Ainge, his mentor. May be he was a bit over zealous, but it is what it is and we are where we are.

Spilt milk eventually sours.

IMO, the over all knight deal is his biggest black eye....as it still requires attention. Who knows, may be BK comes through enough to warrant value or minutes. But it was a head scratcher from the get go. I mean, how many players had an entire YouTube montage of broken ankles?

The real question we are facing now is what to do with Bled. And that looks to depend upon who we draft and the reaction from petulant Paul. I have to think, as an agent concerned about his client, he is doing as much 'feeling' as McDo.

Trading for Knight, and re-signing him, either means that McDonough is shaky at judging talent or that he was acting expediently (or both). Hopefully, he was just acting expediently in that matter, meaning that he wanted to keep the two-guard attack in place, but he needed to ditch Dragic due to the latter's pending free agency, he felt that Thomas was too short to start alongside Bledsoe (and/or he had already agreed to trade Thomas to Boston, depending upon what one believes), and Knight was an available alternative with just enough height to make the pairing plausible on paper.

Ultimately, though, one should never judge a player by "type" or by some general profile. The nuances matter.

And then once the Suns traded for Knight, McDonough did not want to see him leave after a few weeks' worth of games, for the whole ping-pong game of trades would have seemed even worse at the time.

[sunsbum]

If we kept one or the other we don't have Devin Booker, that's the way I look at it. So I could give 2 **** about either of em.

[Zelaznyrules]

What was this interview that allegedly rankled Thomas? Does anyone possess a link to it?

I'm too lazy to search for it, I'd do it if it were the only soft spot in that story but it isn't. In fact, it's about the only part in that story that has been fairly well documented. Anyway, not that it will prove anything but here's a tweet that relates to this situation: Paul Coro - Isaiah Thomas said he was a team player for PHX. "The guy that complained, you seen it in the media. I didn't say anything.

To the best of my recollection, the actual interview that set Thomas off was a post game interview with the NBA Channel. Goran didn't say anything extreme but IMO he came across a little whiny when he pointed out that he was having to sacrifice for the team. This came about during that stretch when we were playing our best ball by running all three guards together, forcing Dragic to defend against small forwards.

Thanks. If Thomas indeed confronted Dragic over some relatively generic comment in an interview, my guess is that Dragic had to have been complaining behind the scenes, too, and possibly placing a damper on team chemistry, much like Shawn Marion during the '07-'08 season. (Mike D'Antoni later stated that had Marion been a happy camper, he never would have embraced the idea of swapping him for Shaquille O'Neal.)

Obviously, I do not know. But if the team's chemistry had been better on the inside, a banal comment in an interview probably would have been brushed aside by his teammates.

Yeah, players were on edge and what should have been a throwaway comment turned into a major problem instead. I'm sure the language barrier didn't help either, just like it didn't during Gortat's stay. With Marion, it wasn't language but much of that had to do with the media trying to find a story. I remember how they kept asking him if he felt disrespected and he'd respond very positively but simply asking that question eventually brought about a change in his responses. Before long, he truly was feeling disrespected and that's when the pouting and complaining began. Something similar happened with McDyess too and IMO eventually led to him being seduced away by John Lucas and the Nuggets.

[GMATCallahan]

I agree with everything you wrote GMAT, though I never referenced PER and that wasn't what I was primarily looking at when I wrote my post, as I was also looking at VORP, BPM, etc....I'm sure every metric is flawed to some extent so I tend to look at all of them as well as per game, per 36, TS%, efg%, etc, to come up with some sort of consensus on seasons when coming up with a quick conclusion as I didn't want to heavily research IT's career in depth.

I was primarily using PER to make a point. I find the Value-Over-Replacement/Win Shares/Box Score Plus-Minus stuff to be similarly flawed. For example, according to OBPM, Gary Payton was a more efficient offensive player than Kevin Johnson. According to OBPM, Payton was a more efficient offensive player than Johnson ever was in a year where Payton shot .434 from the field, .295 on threes, and .721 from the free throw line. If one believes that, then ...

Kevin Johnson was a much more explosive scorer than Gary Payton (he scored 37-46 points in a playoff game six times and at least 35 points in a playoff game eight times; Payton reached 35 in a playoff game once, and to reach 35, he shot a three at the buzzer in a game where his team was already leading by eight points); K.J. was a much more efficient scorer than Payton; he was a vastly better passer and playmaker; he was a batter ball handler; he was a much better jump shooter, especially off the dribble; he was a much better free throw shooter who reached the foul line much more often; he was much more dangerous in the pick-and-roll; he was better offensively at virtually everything, and basic statistics and a metric that essentially makes sense, such as True Shooting Percentage, indicate that reality. Payton was better at one thing offensively: scoring in the post. But since scoring in the post still did not make him anywhere near as efficient as K.J., who cares? Payton shot a lot more threes for the most part, but he was a below-average three-point shooter (usually way below average) in every season except one. Conversely, when K.J. decided to shoot a major volume of threes, he finished third in the NBA in three-point field goal percentage.

Many of these metrics just involve throwing a bunch of numbers into a hopper and making false assumptions—in essence, math without context.

[GMATCallahan]

Yeah, players were on edge and what should have been a throwaway comment turned into a major problem instead. I'm sure the language barrier didn't help either, just like it didn't during Gortat's stay. With Marion, it wasn't language but much of that had to do with the media trying to find a story. I remember how they kept asking him if he felt disrespected and he'd respond very positively but simply asking that question eventually brought about a change in his responses. Before long, he truly was feeling disrespected and that's when the pouting and complaining began. Something similar happened with McDyess too and IMO eventually led to him being seduced away by John Lucas and the Nuggets.

In Marion's case, "respect" ultimately amounted to money, as is usually the case in sports. He publicly requested a trade after newly hired general manager Steve Kerr refused to offer him a maximum contract extension. Kerr's refusal, combined with trade rumors, caused Marion to speak out.

Truth is, Marion did not want to leave the Suns at that time (before last June’s draft), believing they could win a title. He changed his mind later in the summer after his ego got bruised when Steve Kerr met with him and Fegan and told them Tim Duncan and Garnett were the lone players deserving of max money.

“If you don’t think I’m worth the money I’m making, then trade me,” Marion responded calmly.

http://nypost.com/2008/03/02/going-diss-way/

http://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3036829

McDyess never complained or pouted with Phoenix; he simply hung out with Nick Van Exel in Houston during the 1998 lockout. The Lakers had just traded Van Exel to the Nuggets, who were coming off an 11-win season, and the point guard obviously wanted some help. McDyess became close to Van Exel, fired his own agent in favor of Van Exel's agents, and they steered him back to Denver for $20M less than he would have received in Phoenix.

McDyess was young and naive and basically had no idea what he was doing. He joined a vastly inferior team for a lot less money, because he became entranced by the notion that he and Van Exel could go do something great together in Denver, McDyess' original franchise. Years later, he admitted that he had made a mistake, and he may well have gone back to Phoenix had he known that Jason Kidd, Rex Chapman, and George McCloud were waiting outside snowy McNichols Arena in Denver, trying to speak with him after McDyess had called Kidd to express his reservations about leaving the Suns.

As the Nuggets were about to announce last Thursday that he had chosen them, McDyess, still tormented by doubt, abruptly canceled the 3 p.m. press conference. Some of those doubts were fueled by a phone conversation McDyess had with forward LaPhonso Ellis, a close friend whose rights were about to be renounced by the Nuggets so that they could sign McDyess to a six-year, $67.5 million deal. The fact that he wouldn't be playing alongside Ellis in Denver was news to McDyess, so he tearfully called Suns point guard Jason Kidd and told him he was uncertain about joining the Nuggets. Phoenix guard Rex Chapman joined Kidd on the line, and when he asked McDyess if they should fly to Denver to talk with him, McDyess said yes. "It was clear he was really struggling," Chapman says.

McDyess then instructed Tony Dutt, one of his agents, to call Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo and ask whether McDyess could still return to Phoenix; Colangelo assured Dutt that he could. What followed in the next 12 hours is a tale of intrigue that lends a new and bizarre meaning to the term free-agent frenzy.

When Issel learned that Chapman, Kidd and Suns forward George McCloud, another one of McDyess's close friends, were in a private jet bound for Denver, he realized it was time to change tactics.

https://www.si.com/vault/1999/02/01/255087/inside-the-nba#

Marion, conversely, was twenty-nine and knew exactly what he was doing when he sought to leave Phoenix. He wanted a maximum contract, especially given that his name had been subjected to trade rumors. And although the switch was great both for the team and his career, Marion never wanted to match up at power forward, as he usually did under D'Antoni. He felt that if he was going to make that sacrifice, he needed to be compensated to the utmost.

[Zelaznyrules]

^^I know that money became an issue but I was talking about the discord that developed prior to his negotiations. He went from being a happy carefree guy to a bitter player driven by (mild) jealousy and paranoia and IMO the media set the stage for that drama. He was never the brightest person and 29 or not, Marion was still just a big kid. I don't blame the team for trading him but I regret the way it all played out.

With McDyess, you're leaving out some things IMO. He was already a highlight reel when we first acquired him but he really didn't know how to play the game. He was completely lost on defense and had a propensity to pick up early fouls. Fans were excited by his play and sports talk radio (internet sports forums & newsgroups too) always seemed to focus solely on his lack of minutes and ignore the teaching process in play.

By the time the midseason rolled around the perception was that Ainge was playing hardball with our future star. The popular accusation at the time was that we were trying to keep his minutes down so as to limit his demands for his upcoming FA contract. It didn't matter that by midseason Antonio was averaging the second most minutes on the team (trailing only Jason), the perception that he was being held back won the day.

Following that season, we were prevented from having any contact with him because of the CBA negotiations but John Lucas, who lived near Van Exel and was unaffiliated at the time, had open access to him. He was instrumental in convincing him that he should return to Denver once teams were again allowed to negotiate. I'm sure you remember that whole situation including the way we were locked out by Issel so we couldn't even make our pitch. In the end, we lost McDyess and Lucas gained a job with Denver. I know most Suns fans hate McDyess as a result of that situation but I save my enmity for Lucas.

[GMATCallahan]

The only person who can claim disloyalty is Goran, who I really don't give a crap about thanks to his tirade out the door and his play since then. The 2 picks we got are much more valuable to us than Goran would be on his current deal.

I do not necessarily disagree with your overall point, but Dragic enjoyed a very good season this past year, not dissimilar from his '13-'14 All-NBA Third Team campaign in Phoenix. His statistical averages (20.3 points, 5.8 assists, 3.8 rebounds, .476 field goal percentage, .499 two-point field goal percentage, .406 three-point field goal percentage in 3.9 attempts, .790 free throw percentage in 5.2 attempts, .575 True Shooting Percentage) speak for themselves, as does Miami's .500 record for a club predicted to be one of the worst teams in the NBA.

But would Dragic have turned the Suns into a perennial playoff team had he remained in Phoenix? The answer seems unlikely.

[JoRain]

McDo was full bore in asset aquiremnt ala Ainge, his mentor. May be he was a bit over zealous, but it is what it is and we are where we are.

Spilt milk eventually sours.

IMO, the over all knight deal is his biggest black eye....as it still requires attention. Who knows, may be BK comes through enough to warrant value or minutes. But it was a head scratcher from the get go. I mean, how many players had an entire YouTube montage of broken ankles?

The real question we are facing now is what to do with Bled. And that looks to depend upon who we draft and the reaction from petulant Paul. I have to think, as an agent concerned about his client, he is doing as much 'feeling' as McDo.

Trading for Knight, and re-signing him, either means that McDonough is shaky at judging talent or that he was acting expediently (or both). Hopefully, he was just acting expediently in that manner, meaning that he wanted to keep the two-guard attack in place, but he needed to ditch Dragic due to the latter's pending free agency, he felt that Thomas was too short to start alongside Bledsoe (and/or he had already agreed to trade Thomas to Boston, depending upon what one believes), and Knight was an available alternative with just enough height to make the pairing plausible on paper.

Ultimately, though, one should never judge a player by "type" or by some general profile. The nuances matter.

And then once the Suns traded for Knight, McDonough did not want to see him leave after a few weeks' worth of games, for the whole ping-pong game of trades would have seemed even worse at the time.

It might of been that McD acted a bit rash, considering the PG situation at that moment. But I do think McD has very good eye for talent. What he lacks is the vision or understanding how that talent fits together. What I mean is that players can perform way better or way worse than their average depending on the team they are on, coaching they have and most importantly teammates (and their skills and habits) they have. That's why fit, both character wise and skill (including tendencies) wise is important.
Knight actually had a pretty good season before he was traded to Suns. He does have skills, but his style of play just doesn't really fit. I think McD lacks that bigger picture vision on seeing how all players work/fit together on the court and I think Watson has the same problem as well.

[GMATCallahan]

^^I know that money became an issue but I was talking about the discord that developed prior to his negotiations. He went from being a happy carefree guy to a bitter player driven by (mild) jealousy and paranoia and IMO the media set the stage for that drama. He was never the brightest person and 29 or not, Marion was still just a big kid. I don't blame the team for trading him but I regret the way it all played out.

With McDyess, you're leaving out some things IMO. He was already a highlight reel when we first acquired him but he really didn't know how to play the game. He was completely lost on defense and had a propensity to pick up early fouls. Fans were excited by his play and sports talk radio (internet sports forums & newsgroups too) always seemed to focus solely on his lack of minutes and ignore the teaching process in play.

By the time the midseason rolled around the perception was that Ainge was playing hardball with our future star. The popular accusation at the time was that we were trying to keep his minutes down so as to limit his demands for his upcoming FA contract. It didn't matter that by midseason Antonio was averaging the second most minutes on the team (trailing only Jason), the perception that he was being held back won the day.

Following that season, we were prevented from having any contact with him because of the CBA negotiations but John Lucas, who lived near Van Exel and was unaffiliated at the time, had open access to him. He was instrumental in convincing him that he should return to Denver once teams were again allowed to negotiate. I'm sure you remember that whole situation including the way we were locked out by Issel so we couldn't even make our pitch. In the end, we lost McDyess and Lucas gained a job with Denver. I know most Suns fans hate McDyess as a result of that situation but I save my enmity for Lucas.

... yeah, I am just not sure if the question of McDyess' minutes was really a critical factor in his decision to leave or if it was something that his new agents pitched to him—and the media—later on to rationalize an otherwise inexplicable choice.

That said, your comments do remind me of something that I had forgotten about, even though I had read about it this past November in an Arizona Republic game story regarding the Suns' 102-80 blowout loss at New York on November 29, 1997, dropping Phoenix's record to 9-3.

While KJ remained stoic on the bench, McDyess was clearly frustrated each time he came out of the game. Teammates tried to console him, and KJ attempted to encourage him during a timeout. "I'm on the bench, we're losing and I want to help," McDyess said. "I get frustrated, but we've got many more games (to play)." McDyess said he didn't get into a rhythm because he was coming in and out of the game. "You lose all sense of confidence when that happens," said McDyess, who had just seemed to be regaining that confidence. "You can't get into the game. We needed someone to pick us up, and when it doesn't happen, you can't really get back into it."

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/124127726/

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199711290NYK.html

And indeed, although McDyess started all 81 games that he played during that regular season and finished second on the Suns in total minutes (behind Kidd) and third in minutes per game (behind Kidd and leading scorer Rex Chapman), his minutes could be erratic during the first half of the season. And as indicated in that loss at New York, there was some frustration at times, so you are correct.

By the same token, there is no evidence that McDyess became a negative presence in the locker room or that he allowed occasional frustration to brew into a longstanding issue. Indeed, his teammates all seemed to find him a genuinely nice, sweet person, helping explain why Kidd, Chapman, and George McCloud later flew to wintry Denver in a last-ditch effort to bring him back to the Suns in January 1999. And contrary to the theories of media members and fans, I do believe that McDyess understood that he was playing for the NBA's deepest roster (the '97-'98 Suns went eleven-deep in quality NBA players) and with a bunch of big men (John "Hot Rod" Williams, Mark Bryant, Clifford Robinson, Danny Manning) who possessed much more experience and savvy than him. McDyess was willing to learn, and while he might have struggled defensively early on, I believe that he eventually became a defensive force and a significant reason why Phoenix ranked sixth in the NBA in Defensive Rating (points allowed per possession) that year. He ended up averaging a team-leading 1.7 blocked shots and also 1.2 steals per game that season, including 2.5 blocks and 1.7 steals over the Suns' final eleven games, during which time Phoenix went 10-1. In a home win over Portland that April, McDyess recorded 5 steals and 6 blocks, one of ten games that season where he posted multiple steals and multiple blocks.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199804040PHO.html

Of course, there is more to defense than tallying steals and blocks, but to come up with that many of both, one has to be in the right place at the right time quite often—that is the kind of stuff that Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson would do in their primes. Indeed, Ainge praised McDyess' defense after that game.

"McDyess was all over the place," Ainge said. "He's always energetic. He made some huge goal-saving plays."

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/124415993/

For what it is worth, I viewed/studied Game One of the Suns' 1998 First Round series versus the Spurs again last November, and I had also viewed it again in October 2013. Outside of San Antonio's first possession, where Kevin Johnson shaded Avery Johnson to the latter's weak hand (right hand) on a pending pick-and-roll and McDyess failed to fill the space, he definitely was not suffering defensive lapses in that game, even if none of the Suns could stop Tim Duncan late in the second half. Last November, I also viewed/studied Phoenix's home win over Houston in November 1997, and in February 2012 and November 2015, I viewed/studied the Suns' home win over Chicago in November 1997. Outside of a sensational play versus the Bulls where McDyess leaped high to block a shot in the third quarter and then sprinted like a gazelle to finish on the other end with a spectacular slam off a great pass by Kidd, nothing about McDyess' defense really stood out either way in those two games. Maybe I will need to check again, but I did not notice him being lost defensively. In September 2010 and November 2016, I also viewed/studied the Suns' quadruple-overtime win at Portland from November 1997 (two days before the Houston game). I did not notice any problematic defense from McDyess in that contest, either. Actually, I was viewing the first quarter of that game again last month, and McDyess' defense looked good to me: with his athleticism, he could rotate from the low post out to the perimeter very easily and then defend an athletic shooting guard such as Isaiah Rider one-on-one. His body positioning, angling, and technique all looked good, to say nothing of his agility, quickness, and length.

Of course, there may well have been other instances, in other games, where McDyess struggled defensively. Overall, though, he definitely seemed like a defensive asset. When the Suns lost or shed McDyess, Williams, and Bryant after that season and replaced them with Tom Gugliotta, Luc Longley, and Joe Kleine (back for a second stint with Phoenix), their defense collapsed, going from sixth in Defensive Rating to nineteenth during the post-lockout 1999 season, as the Suns fell from a fourth seed to a seventh seed.

But back to the main point, again, you are right that some issues regarding McDyess' playing time existed early in the season. On the other hand, during the Suns' four-game playoff series versus San Antonio, he averaged 36.8 minutes and a team-leading 16.3 field goal attempts, playing 43 minutes in both of the last two games. Granted, Manning was out by then with a torn ACL, but given that McDyess was by far the youngest member of that big man rotation, his playing time would have clearly increased in the future. My sense is that he was not actually unhappy in Phoenix, certainly not by the end of the year, but that he listened to the wrong people later on.

My point about Marion was that he only became a foul presence, regarding the club's chemistry, after the sour negotiations with Kerr. But I do understand, and largely agree, that during the previous season ('06-'07), Marion increasingly took on a Leslie Nielsen persona—and not in a good way. And I also concur that the media fed his ego with puerile speculative queries, but that is what sports media tends to do: troll for "stories" rather than engaging in hard-core analysis and critical thinking.

[GMATCallahan]

It might of been that McD acted a bit rash, considering the PG situation at that moment. But I do think McD has very good eye for talent. What he lacks is the vision or understanding how that talent fits together. What I mean is that players can perform way better or way worse than their average depending on the team they are on, coaching they have and most importantly teammates (and their skills and habits) they have. That's why fit, both character wise and skill (including tendencies) wise is important.
Knight actually had a pretty good season before he was traded to Suns. He does have skills, but his style of play just doesn't really fit. I think McD lacks that bigger picture vision on seeing how all players work/fit together on the court and I think Watson has the same problem as well.

I concur that overall, there is a greater concern in that regard, and I have made that point previously myself. And that was part of my point about Knight, too: just because two quasi-point guards played effectively together in the past does not mean that any two can do so, yet McDonough might have made that assumption by pairing Knight with Bledsoe rather than examining the idiosyncrasies of the particular player and potential tandem.

Knight can play; even this past season, there were two games in Denver where he got on a roll and became unstoppable.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201611160DEN.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201701260DEN.html

But he is so streaky that inconsistency—and thus inefficiency—seems the norm with him. And I am not sure that any kind of "style" or "lineup" is really going to turn him into a valuable player. As you said, Knight was enjoying a pretty good season with Milwaukee before being traded to Phoenix, but that was mainly because he was shooting .409 on threes, thus elevating his True Shooting Percentage to .556. Yet nothing about his track record suggests that that kind of long-distance percentage is sustainable over a full season (indeed, he has shot .334 on threes in Phoenix and he shot .325 on threes in his one full season with the Bucks, '13-'14), and Knight was still only shooting .448 on two-point field goal attempts in '14-'15 with Milwaukee prior to the trade. Plus, his assists-to-turnover ratio (1:69:1.00) that year proved poor for someone who fancies himself as a point guard.

Knight is too weak going to his left, his shot selection is too undisciplined, and he has little feel for how to open passing lanes. Again, the result is perpetual inconsistency and inefficiency. Combined with his lack of size and strength and a general lack of awareness and positional technique on defense, he amounts to a "negative value" player—"zero sum" at best.

[rsavaj]

If we kept one or the other we don't have Devin Booker, that's the way I look at it. So I could give 2 **** about either of em.

Not sure why people keep saying this. We don't know how the rest of the season would have played out, how the lottery would have gone, how the draft order would have gone, etc.

[sunsbum]

If we kept one or the other we don't have Devin Booker, that's the way I look at it. So I could give 2 **** about either of em.

Not sure why people keep saying this. We don't know how the rest of the season would have played out, how the lottery would have gone, how the draft order would have gone, etc.

I feel like you just proved my point even though you are disagreeing with what I'm saying.

[rsavaj]

If we kept one or the other we don't have Devin Booker, that's the way I look at it. So I could give 2 **** about either of em.

Not sure why people keep saying this. We don't know how the rest of the season would have played out, how the lottery would have gone, how the draft order would have gone, etc.

I feel like you just proved my point even though you are disagreeing with what I'm saying.

ha I guess in a way I did

just saying that it's not a certainty that we don't end up with Booker if we kept Thomas