Failed as a GM for the Suns? He left right after taking us to the WCF within 2 games of going to the Finals.
He inherited a team that had been to the WCF twice in the previous 3 years and won over 60 games twice also. His first move as GM was making one of the worst trades in franchise history, sending KT to Seattle/Oklahoma City with 2 picks for nothing. Kerr has admitted that was his doing and not Sarver's fault also. He has no reason to lie about that and take responsibility since he's with the Warriors now but he owns up to that being his fault. His first year as GM he also traded away our 3rd best player in Marion for a 35 year old Shaq. That was supposed to help get past San Antonio in the playoffs but they only made the playoffs that first year with Shaq when he was acquired around the trade deadline. The Suns lost to the Spurs in 5 games that year in the first round so Shaq didn't help do what he was brought in to do.
Kerr's 2nd year he let D'Antoni leave without any compensation despite D'Antoni being under contract to the Suns. He hired Terry Porter to coach, which was supposed to help with team defense but instead it killed the offense by trying to run things through Shaq rather than Nash and playing a slowed down halfcourt style. He was fired 51 games into that season, which wasn't soon enough to turn them into a playoff team with the new coach. They missed the playoffs entirely, which proved the Porter hiring was bad and the Shaq experiment was a failure. Shaq was traded away for the 60th pick in the 2010 draft that offseason. The Suns waived the 2 players they got from Cleveland in that trade, Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic. Wallace was still a decent player but the Suns didn't give him a serious look since he was waived right away and resigned with Detroit where he started in 67 of the 69 games he played in. The Suns could have used an interior defender and rebounder like him that year also.
So that 3rd year the Suns did make a run to the WCF but that was mainly because of Kerr undoing the mistakes he made, hiring Porter, trading away Marion, and bringing in Shaq. He had Gentry as the head coach, who was a lead assistant with D'Antoni and adopted a version of his system only with more focus on defense and he also used a 10 man rotation instead of 7. That team overachieved, it wasn't really Kerr's construction of the roster that made them a contender. That was his best year and also his last and it was an average job by him at best. Since he made the mess he cleaned up I don't think you can view that as a great job by him.
