The Green Mile for McD

[bigfoot]

https://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2018/8/12/17680894/marks-on-phoenix-suns-gm-you-should-only-get-2-coaching-hires


McD has definitely been given a long, long rope. I imagine it will be similar to Sam Hinkie and McD will be let go just as the Suns begin to turn things around.

Prematurely looking back on McD's tenure I think his two worst moves were 1) the trade for Bledsoe and 2) the Watson hire.

The Bledsoe-Dudley swap looked genius-like but brought nothing but misery to the fans and Suns. I believe Bledsoe was primarily responsible for the crappy locker room culture we have had since 2013.

The lack of due-diligence interviewing coaching candidates and bringing back Watson was another set back.

I guess the gift horse is we have Booker and Ayton for those two miscues.

[WeekapaugGroove]

I agree with Marks. I was pretty vocal on my opinion that he shouldn't have survived last season. Splitting hairs but I don't agree with the article and count Triano as a head coaching hire but the fact they fired a coach 3 god damn games into a season is a huge negative mark on McD's resume; it just shows a real lack of a coherent plan. If he was bad enough to fire that quick it was a mistake to have him start the year. Hiring a coach is a MAJOR part of a GM's job and if you fail twice you had better have a great record in player acquisition to survive it as a GM.

Now with all that said I do really like Igor so hopefully the third time is a charm.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

I don't understand how anyone can say this wasn't part of a coherent plan. The plan was to tank, and in that we succeeded. I also have a hard time counting Bled as a negative, given that winning was not the objective. We managed to get a first rounder out of him. We would have gotten much more if he hadn't had two meniscus tears while in a Suns uni. Can't blame McD for Bled's injuries.

McD's worst moves were trading for Knight and drafting Alex Len. But if this team moves up the food chain this season, as I very much expect, then the world will be singing his praises - much the same way the world now champions Hinkie. The only difference between the two is that Hinkie told you he was tanking, whereas McD tried to give the impression that he wasn't. I wasn't fooled, but a lot of fans apparently were.

If the team fails to take a significant step this season, then sure, you can put McD on the chopping block. But if we're close to a winning record by midseason, then McD's come out of this smelling like roses. I for one am ecstatic to have so much young talent on the roster. We added a quality coach just as it became time to win. Everything makes sense to me. Getting drowned in losses this season would reverse my perspective, much the same way I hope winning would reverse everyone else's.

[Christine-In-AZ]

Not re-signing Frye, and then signing Thomas lit the fuse to a whole lotta bad juju. The Dragic-Suns storyline is completely changed with those FA decisions...and so is the Morris Brothers. Frye's departure profoundly effected that young team, both on court (the great Frye-Dragic duo done) and off (Mo Bros reveal their stupid).

The drafting of Len? Ok, but without being a Nostradamus, what was the right pick?

Watson? He was a care taker coach hire while the tank was on.

Anyway, who knows how the dominoes then fall with a good (8th seed?) '14-'15 team?

Forward

[lilfishi22]

I don't understand how anyone can say this wasn't part of a coherent plan. The plan was to tank, and in that we succeeded. I also have a hard time counting Bled as a negative, given that winning was not the objective. We managed to get a first rounder out of him. We would have gotten much more if he hadn't had two meniscus tears while in a Suns uni. Can't blame McD for Bled's injuries.

McD's worst moves were trading for Knight and drafting Alex Len. But if this team moves up the food chain this season, as I very much expect, then the world will be singing his praises - much the same way the world now champions Hinkie. The only difference between the two is that Hinkie told you he was tanking, whereas McD tried to give the impression that he wasn't. I wasn't fooled, but a lot of fans apparently were.

If the team fails to take a significant step this season, then sure, you can put McD on the chopping block. But if we're close to a winning record by midseason, then McD's come out of this smelling like roses. I for one am ecstatic to have so much young talent on the roster. We added a quality coach just as it became time to win. Everything makes sense to me. Getting drowned in losses this season would reverse my perspective, much the same way I hope winning would reverse everyone else's.

If the plan is to just tank then you would've kept Hornacek because he was trending down anyway. Instead McD went through two other coaches between Hornacek and Igor in a season and a half. You can tank and *still* find success with a quality coaching hire. You bring up the Hinkie comparison but he hired a coach with rock solid assistant coaching experience (almost a decade under Pop). They kept him through their tanking years and now he has a roster that he can actually work with. That continuity, laying down his system and being a consistent voice really aided the Sixers in growing internally. Who in all honesty could be confident that even with a solid roster that a G-league level coach like Earl Watson could be that guy going forward?

McD's worst moves are the Knight trade and the Len draft but I also put the HC signings and player mismanagement squarely on him as well. With Bender/Chriss coming up to their 3rd season in the league and still not having shown they are legitimate NBA players yet, I think all 3 guys should be on the chopping block. And I say this as fan of Bender.

I can't see how anyone can say there is a coherent plan after 4 coaching hires alone in 5 seasons.

[lilfishi22]

I agree with Marks. I was pretty vocal on my opinion that he shouldn't have survived last season. Splitting hairs but I don't agree with the article and count Triano as a head coaching hire but the fact they fired a coach 3 god damn games into a season is a huge negative mark on McD's resume; it just shows a real lack of a coherent plan. If he was bad enough to fire that quick it was a mistake to have him start the year. Hiring a coach is a MAJOR part of a GM's job and if you fail twice you had better have a great record in player acquisition to survive it as a GM.

Now with all that said I do really like Igor so hopefully the third time is a charm.

Totally agree. After 2 coaching hires, you shouldn't be able to pick a 3rd (let alone a 4th). Also your point about firing a guy 3 games in the seasons is absolutely spot on and speaks volume about having Watson to start the season as a mistake to begin with.

[bwgood77]

He's made some good moves and dumb moves. It was obvious when he traded Gortat and Scola for picks and Dudley for Bledsoe, we were taking a tank approach. No one on that team had ever started except Dragic and maybe Frye who was out the whole prior season and probably wasn't expected to do much.

The fact that team won 48 games when projected to win like 17 or whatever it was kind of thwarted the plan, and made Sarver eager to speed things up, so it just complicated McD's job. I know many are not high on Warren, but even had we tanked and gotten the 1 or 2 pick we probably take Wiggins or Parker, so probably no big deal.

Then of course the next season was a disaster, but if it doesn't go that way, we probably don't draft Booker.

The trade for Knight was dumb, as were some other moves, but some have been good, and I think most of the trades have netted decent results.

It's really hard for me to judge McD (other than his seemingly terrible communication with players, though that happens with other GMs as well).

The other thing that has been pointed out was firing Watson 3 games into the season. It amazes me that they seemingly had no idea that the team wasn't anywhere near ready to play the season. It was almost as if everyone went home for the summer and showed up for the first game without any preparation.

The main thing that will define McD, is that with these three tanking years, how do his picks pan out. He gave up a ton to move up for Chriss. I'm sure many thing that was a terrible deal, and it appears that way, but I'll give it one more year to judge, as with the Bender pick.

The Jackson pick felt right (though I was just as high on Isaac and leaning slightly him at the draft) and Jackson severely disappointed as a rookie.

And now Ayton.

I don't have real high expectations for Ayton having watched him at AZ, so with me, he will have quite a bit of rope as I think he still as quite a bit of development when it comes to off ball defensive awareness and what to do without the ball on offense.

And we better see huge improvements from Jackson.

Then I thought trading an unprotected pick to move up six spots to pick Bridges (though I love Bridges) was odd, considering we had Warren and Jackson (even though Bridges may be the best for the current NBA of the bunch) and then obviously I found it more odd on top of that to see us sign Ariza, for the same reason.

Perhaps this is a sign they know Jackson isn't ready to contribute to winning quite yet, which is fine and hopefully he can improve throughout the year and get there.