Read :07 Seconds or Less. It gives you a lot of subtle insight on the Sarver situation. Robert Sarver and Steve Kerr must be long-term thinkers, becasue they are killing any future the Suns have. Sam Mitchell seems like a good coach, but I'm pretty sure Colangelo would rather have D'Antoni running that squad, so long as D'Antoni coaches defense. Could you imagine Calderon running D'Antoni's system? Oh, and Kapono would be even more beastly. As far as Joe Johnson goes, there's no way anyone could have thought he would be as good as he is. He was asking for a lot of money, but it was dumb to only offer him $45M when he wanted $50M. You're already paying him $45M, just throw on that extra $5M, and you've locked up a pretty good player. I think if anyone had to go, it had to be D'Antoni. I'm sorry, but everyone has been saying it forever: that style of basketball is never going to win a title. The Suns may pick up big leads, but then they don't play very smart. They keep going high octane all the way, but when they start missing shots, instead of slowing it down, they keep giving the other team chances to come back and win the game. They put up points fast, but they also drop points fast. They are an old team. Once Shaq and Hill are off the books, they'll have some breathing room. Even Nash is getting old. Bell isn't a youngin' either. They have to find a way to motivate Boris Diaw and keep him, they need to find a way to keep Amare for sure. Any chance they sign a guy like Wade in a couple seasons?
"No way anybody could have thought" JJ would be this good? I disagree. He had demonstrated what he could be, it was just a matter of his desire to improve and go to the next level. You never know what will happen when a player with "potential" signs his first big contract, but JJ had already showed me enough that he was worth the risk. Probably because of his misjudgment on JJ, Sarver forked crazy money over to Diaw later. $5MM over 5 years. Tsk tsk.
I'll be surprised if Steve Kerr will just let D'Antoni go and wont ask a pick or swap pick or money compensations.
The Suns screwd up by getting rid of Kurt Thomas and Marion. Ok Marion for Shaq may have turned out to be a wash, but Marion + Kurt Thomas > Shaq.
This was right after the Suns had "overpaid" (at the time) for Steve Nash and Quentin Richardson. Pretty stupid of Sarver to spend all his money buying the franchise ($400+ million) then not commit to continue building it. It wouldn't have mattered if the Suns could have managed to keep their draft picks over the last couple of years. Or James Jones + Kurt Thomas. So many obvious mistakes that made them go from a feared team with an identity to floundering. Amare is stupid. He has heart but will always be stupid. He's like a bigger AI, but that won't get you anywhere. He becomes very dangerous when he has smart guys like Nash and Joe Johnson around him but once those guys are gone... it's just a black hole.
Joe Johnson was already on a way up trajectory. 17-5-4 on ridiculous shooting %s the year before they traded him. He was their best wing defender (they hadn't acquired Bell yet) and ran the offense much better than anyone has before, or since, not named Nash (which would have reduced the wear on him). They should have built around Nash, Amare, Johnson and Marion in 2005-, and if salary was a concern, dump the higher contract Marion (for role players like Thomas and Bell) while his value was extremely high. They blew that move, pure and simple.
Phoenix had a chance to lock Johnson up for $50 million in the '04 offseason. Granted his stats weren't as impressive in the 03-04 offseason - 43% FG and 30% 3PT, +$5 million for a young player who was a big part of the team... always a better choice than Marion.
