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Q Unloads

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Q Unloads 

Post#1 » by Mr. Sun » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:51 am

We wondered if Richardson ever thinks about what might have been had the Suns kept that 2004-05 core together and let it ride.

We only had to ask once:

"The most amazing thing is that most of us are still tight to this day. Every time we go to Atlanta, I go over to Joe's house. When they're in New York, he'll come hang out. In the summer, I'll go to Atlanta. Joe will come to Chicago. We'll see Shawn (Marion) all summer, and we'll hang out with Stat (Amaré Stoudemire). No matter where we are, we always talk about that - 'Why did they have to do what they did?' "

He wasn't done:

• "If you look at it, we were really just a healthy Joe Johnson away from being able to compete with San Antonio. It's unfortunate, but sometimes that's the way the NBA is. They think they have to do this or that to fix something, when the reality is if you give us another one or two or three years with our same core group of guys, we would have won a championship."

• "The most frustrating part about it all, when you've been around the league you know when you have a special group of guys with that blend of talent and the kind of egos that allowed it to work, allowed everybody to be who they were. You don't come across that a lot."

• "You get teams with a lot of talent, but you don't have guys who are willing to sacrifice and are willing to say, 'OK, we'll take the back seat.' Guys who really know what it takes to win."

• "Everybody is making money and having good careers, but at the same time we all realize and acknowledge that we had something pretty good. Even from coach. We had a great coach that everybody got along with. You never get that - all the players on the same page and the coach likes everybody and everybody likes the coach. We had a rare thing, and it was pretty much dismantled in the snap of a finger."

• "The way it unraveled, nobody expected. It would have been different if we weren't getting along or we weren't having success and we had a clue that it was coming. We were ready to go right back at it again, then boom, it just exploded, and it has been one piece after another since then."

• "I mean, dead serious, we still talk about it till this day because we had a great time. We loved the fans, loved being here, and we had a great group that all hung out together. That (62 wins) is the result you get. I definitely, in my heart of hearts, know we would have won it if we had a couple years."

• "I was especially disappointed about Joe. I know who Joe is, and the way they tried to portray how everything came down. . . . I watched the game when he came back here when they were booing him. Anybody who knows how Joe is, they know he won't say anything controversial. He just took it with a grain of salt and played. But anybody that knows him, knows the spin that was put on it, it was never like that."

• "The whole season long, they told him he's the top priority in the off-season. Then he's not the top priority. Then they tell him to go get a new deal. They signed Raja Bell before they got him signed, so if he's the top priority, why are any moves being made before he's taken care of?"

• "Joe was important. He was our backup point guard, too. People forget that, and they're still looking for a backup point guard."

• "They said he was going for the money. Yeah, after you stick it to him once, twice - man, you still think he's coming back here? Joe did not want to leave. But that's the business part. They have to cover their own butts so the fans won't say, 'You ruined our team.' In actuality, they did."

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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#2 » by rsavaj » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:05 am

Wow. Just wow.

It's amazing how this Sarver/Kerr(he was a consultant) brain trust seems to specialize in alienating everyone.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#3 » by psyclone1982 » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:10 am

I never even thought about our backup PG problem until just then and how Joe would have been it.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#4 » by SUNSARETHEBEST » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:17 am

Strange that Q-Rich never mentioned the name "Steve Nash" even once.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#5 » by NashtyNas » Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:11 am

SUNSARETHEBEST wrote:Strange that Q-Rich never mentioned the name "Steve Nash" even once.


I enjoyed that whole read, brought back good memories, BUT, the fact that he didn't mention Steve really hit me. I'm starting to feel Steve wasn't very welcome at that point in time.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#6 » by TheMoochinator » Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:22 am

I don't think it's significant really that he didnt mention Nash.

Nash was what? 31 at the time? and they're all in their twenties and probably shared many different interests? I'm sure they all respected one another and got along fine they just probably weren't all chummy chummy as the rest of the guys were due to age and probably hobbies outside of basketball.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#7 » by JohnVancouver » Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:58 am

Anyone got a link for this invu? Where's it from?
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#8 » by mkot » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:08 am

This article just another proof of Sarver = @sshat. Since he took over, he kept running BC's people out of town and painted these guys all evil. It's always "well but you know he isn't happy and doesn't want to be here". And then at some point, you got to wonder why do they not want to work for Robert Sarver? Why aren't they happy?

I actually wasn't upset that we traded Q for Kurt. He was useless against the Spurs and KT made us better defensively. But he's right, we screwed JoeJ, we screwed Q with the trade too. We should've given the 03-04 team another chance. We didn't. We should've given the 06-07 team another chance. We didn't. Kerr and Sarver said they sold draft picks to keep the core, they didn't. Oh well.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#9 » by rsavaj » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:15 am

mkot wrote:This article just another proof of Sarver = @sshat. Since he took over, he kept running BC's people out of town and painted these guys all evil. It's always "well but you know he isn't happy and doesn't want to be here". And then at some point, you got to wonder why do they not want to work for Robert Sarver? Why aren't they happy?

I actually wasn't upset that we traded Q for Kurt. He was useless against the Spurs and KT made us better defensively. But he's right, we screwed JoeJ, we screwed Q with the trade too. We should've given the 03-04 team another chance. We didn't. We should've given the 06-07 team another chance. We didn't. Kerr and Sarver said they sold draft picks to keep the core, they didn't. Oh well.


Methinks you mean the 04/05 team, b/c there was no need to give that 03-04 team more time ;)
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#10 » by mkot » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:23 am

LOL. Yeah my mistake.

By the way, what Q said about the spin they put on JoeJ when he left is spot on. It's a pattern that we've seen with all of the guys who have left since Sarver got on board. The story is very repetitive. He's always the martyrs. Poor him. No one likes Robert Sarver.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#11 » by phx#7 » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:36 am

mkot wrote:LOL. Yeah my mistake.

By the way, what Q said about the spin they put on JoeJ when he left is spot on. It's a pattern that we've seen with all of the guys who have left since Sarver got on board. The story is very repetitive. He's always the martyrs. Poor him. No one likes Robert Sarver.


I never understood how people bought into JJ being the bad guy and I personally think anyone who boo'd him is an idiot.

I agree with pretty much everything he said, except he needed to be moved. He had 2 hot streaks that year where he lit it up for 2-3 weeks but other than that he didn't give the team anything they needed. Imagine if the Suns had signed Okur(who I didn't want at the time) instead of him.

Also I wouldn't think much of him not mentioning Nash. I remember him speaking very highly of Nash in several interviews the season after he was traded.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#12 » by eastsidecrossover » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:18 am

Those were the good days. I missed that. too bad BC did not sign JJ and nash instead of nash and Q that year. We had our backup, we had our crunch time guy when we needed a bucket. We had marion who did everything and Stat was a beast.

MD was the right coach, but we needed to add the right role players and MD needed to expand the bench. too bad that we did not use that pick, bring in bell the next year as a backup etc.

This is how I think it could have looked.

nash / barbs
JJ / Bell
marion / jax
TT /
Amare /

what IF's could kill us.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#13 » by Vernon Maxwell » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:25 am

phx#7 wrote:
mkot wrote:LOL. Yeah my mistake.

By the way, what Q said about the spin they put on JoeJ when he left is spot on. It's a pattern that we've seen with all of the guys who have left since Sarver got on board. The story is very repetitive. He's always the martyrs. Poor him. No one likes Robert Sarver.


I never understood how people bought into JJ being the bad guy and I personally think anyone who boo'd him is an idiot.

well from what came out in the media is that ATL offered JJ a contract, sarver said he would match it, JJ said no, and the rest is history.

Q is saying that isn't what happened.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#14 » by rsavaj » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:26 am

Vernon Maxwell wrote:
phx#7 wrote:
mkot wrote:LOL. Yeah my mistake.

By the way, what Q said about the spin they put on JoeJ when he left is spot on. It's a pattern that we've seen with all of the guys who have left since Sarver got on board. The story is very repetitive. He's always the martyrs. Poor him. No one likes Robert Sarver.


I never understood how people bought into JJ being the bad guy and I personally think anyone who boo'd him is an idiot.

well from what came out in the media is that ATL offered JJ a contract, sarver said he would match it, JJ said no, and the rest is history.

Q is saying that isn't what happened.


JJ said no after Sarver screwed with him all summer and the summer before
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#15 » by OzzyAZ » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:23 am

He's right about pretty much everything. The ship went belly up once Jerry sold the team. It took Sarver only a year to turn a championship contender into a joke (Lowballing JJ, forcing him and BC to walk, selling every draft pick and giving picks away to keep us under the cap). Our team literally depreciated every year rather than improving; all of this when we were so close to a title.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#16 » by garrick » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:11 pm

Don't forget Rex Chapman left the Front Office for unknown reasons around the same time too.
This guy was one of my favorite Suns and they made him leave.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#17 » by phx#7 » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:45 am

Vernon Maxwell wrote:
well from what came out in the media is that ATL offered JJ a contract, sarver said he would match it, JJ said no, and the rest is history.

Q is saying that isn't what happened.


The only media you seem to be recalling is the Suns spin machine. There were various reports of the Suns lowballing JJ and Sarver pissing off his agent in a phone conversation. I think it's pretty clear JJ thought he was going to stay since he didn't start seriously fielding offers until there were only 2 teams with capspace to sign him.
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#18 » by Suns_fan_2007 » Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:42 pm

You wonder how much Mike D'Antoni had to do with some of the moves, ie selling the picks because he "doesn't develop players"...

Also, can anyone remember ANY NBA team that made no trades / moves during the off-season? Even the Chicago Bulls made moves during off-season to acquire pieces during their championship dynasty.

Q Rich seems to be a bit naive in his thinking. This is a business, and if the team had stayed together, and tanked, would the fans be blaming Sarver for not making any moves?
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Re: Q Unloads 

Post#19 » by mkot » Tue Dec 16, 2008 10:01 pm

Suns_fan_2007 wrote:You wonder how much Mike D'Antoni had to do with some of the moves, ie selling the picks because he "doesn't develop players"...



Selling picks is and will always be on the owner. It's money to his bank account. The 'Mike doesn't use his bench' is just another spin Sarver put on to justify his selling of the picks. MikeD had developed Amare, LB, Boris, JoeJ, James Jones, and probably got as much as anyone has and ever will out of Steven Hunter, Q, TT and House. He will use guys that can play. If we would have drafted either Deng or Iggy, he would have developed them as well.
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