Amare enjoying his fame

[elindholm]

If the Suns lose Amare it'll tear the heart out of this franchise.

True, but as George notes, that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

 

[Treesquid PhD]

Before we TOO carried away with this, it is worth considering what did and did not happen this summer. What did NOT happen was the Suns letting JJ get away. What they did was make a business and economic decision that they were better off with a solid prospect and two first round picks than to overpay a supporting player and create major economic problems going forward.

It is fine to change the subject and say the Suns made a mistake a year ago, but the decision to make the deal is hardly a sign that they are on the verge of losing Amare. Even if Amare gets a player option after his 3rd year, it is not until the summer of 2009. Somehow worrying about the Lakers tanking for four years by never signing anyone to long term contracts just to have a chance at Amare takes paranoia to new heights.

Yes I agree it's not nessesarily the lakers I am worried about, it's the gorilla's sidekick that keeps me up at night.

 

[Joe Mama]

I don't know whether that's true or not. As we've seen time and time again, the Colangelos have a great talent for covering their asses with doublespeak whenever things go wrong. I frankly wouldn't trust either of them to tell me the day of the week.

Oh my god, I think you've got it.

Of course it was "about money" in the sense that that's where the disagreement was. But, as anyone affiliated with the Knicks, Blazers, or Mavericks can tell you, overpaying your players hurts your franchise just as much as losing them does -- and sometimes even more. If you want to be competitive over the long term, you simply can't pay every good player what he wants, even if you have all of the money in the world.

Sarver, surely well versed in the constraints of the salary cap, understands at least this much. You don't.

This is the "excuse" I hear Sarver used most often as his reason for not giving JJ the $50 million deal last summer. He had just spent a ton of money on the franchise and signing free agents Q and Steve Nash. It was far from obvious that JJ deserved the contract he was looking for regardless of what the Colangelos told him. Most importantly he already had 3 of his starting 5 tied up in big, long-term deals with a fourth set to get a maximum contract extension in a year.

No one knew how good the Phoenix Suns were going to be last year... absolutely no one. Most people, including the coaching staff, were just hoping to make the playoffs. Sarver has said repeatedly that he was reluctant to tie up the entire starting 5 in long-term deals when he did not know how good they would actually end up being. This makes sense.

Also, I keep hearing the argument that Sarver gave Q $43 million, so he should have given more to JJ. Yes, he did give Q at money, but it was the Colangelos that had him do it. They are also the ones who blew the draft that summer. As much as I love the songs I can acknowledge that for every good deal Bryan Colangelo has made over the last 4-5 years he made 3 bad ones to correct.

Supposedly the basketball people told Sarver to re-sign JJ. Now with the happenings this summer is has turned into "the Colangelos begged him to re-sign JJ". I've got to believe that if they were really, really pushing him to give the money to JJ he would have done it. As Eric has noted the Colangelos are notorious for covering their asses after something goes wrong.

Yes, it was a big mistake not to give JJ the $50 million deal last summer. I know this, Eric knows this, and Sarver knows this. If you look back objectively and rationally you can understand why the decision was made though. It's hardly proof that Sarver is cheap, and despite all of the requests in this thread from Eric I have yet to see you, sunsfn, provide other proof that he is.

There is no doubt that you come on her to just give people a bad time. I was having a discussion with elindholm and we were disagreeing.

that is just an ugly Freudian slip.

Joe Mama

 

[Arizona's Finest]

I think there was a story in the Republic about half way through last year that refered to how sarver saves money on lots of day to day operations and that article really made him look bad. I'm not saying Sarver is cheap at all, but he is not money bags Cuban either. The minimum players for practice, cutting employees from the front office, etc.. were all reason thats were cited for Sarver's frugality. I'm not saying his cheapness is an absolute truth because their has been alot of evidence to the contrary, (i think its safe to say we have been one of the most active franchises this last two off seasons) but he has a finite supply of money so costs have to be off set (such as draft picks being traded for signings to avoid the luxury tax, if we did sign JJ our current depth would have been greatly reduced as the 8-12 players would have been hot garbage, not to mention the inevitable trades that would have come to lop payroll).

This does not necessarly make him cheap, (possibly but not necessarly) just careful with his money. This is actually a good thing as i have pointed out before, the morass the knicks, blazers and other free spenders seem to continually be in.

 

[Joe Mama]

I think there was a story in the Republic about half way through last year that refered to how sarver saves money on lots of day to day operations and that article really made him look bad. I'm not saying Sarver is cheap at all, but he is not money bags Cuban either. The minimum players for practice, cutting employees from the front office, etc.. were all reason thats were cited for Sarver's frugality. I'm not saying his cheapness is an absolute truth because their has been alot of evidence to the contrary, (i think its safe to say we have been one of the most active franchises this last two off seasons) but he has a finite supply of money so costs have to be off set (such as draft picks being traded for signings to avoid the luxury tax, if we did sign JJ our current depth would have been greatly reduced as the 8-12 players would have been hot garbage, not to mention the inevitable trades that would have come to lop payroll).

This does not necessarly make him cheap, (possibly but not necessarly) just careful with his money. This is actually a good thing as i have pointed out before, the morass the knicks, blazers and other free spenders seem to continually be in.

oh, I can agree that Sarver is probably a bit cheap when it comes to day-to-day operations, but the original argument was about him being cheap when it comes to him signing players who actually play.

Joe Mama

 

[sunsfn]

I will have to come back in a couple days and resume this "discussion".

I have relatives staying with me and need to spend time with them.

But I will be back!

Joe Mama,
just to answer quickly before I go.
Here is what I said somewhere in one or more of the posts.

Sarver is cheap because,

He layed off employees as soon as he took over the team.

He told the scouts they could watch the games on tv to evaluate players instead of spending money on airplane tickets.

He would only let the suns carry 12 players instead of the usual 14.

He would not give JJ 5 mil spread over 6 years after offering him 45 mil.

Just to make sure about something, the non signing of JJ last year to the trade with JJ this year as far as I am concerned is two seperate transactions.

The pending signing of Amare is similiar to the non signing of JJ last year, therefore the comparisons.
I am not upset at this time with the Amare non signing, but it should have been done already!

The only regret I have about not being able to post for the next couple days is the great conversations I am having with chaplin......very intelligent conversations that are a trademark of chaplin.
The happy part of not posting for a couple days is this,
Chaplin will respond to this with some comment and I will not even read it for a couple days. Bye Bye!

 

[Joe Mama]

Joe Mama,
just to answer quickly before I go.
Here is what I said somewhere in one or more of the posts.

Sarver is cheap because,

He layed off employees as soon as he took over the team.

He told the scouts they could watch the games on tv to evaluate players instead of spending money on airplane tickets.

He would only let the suns carry 12 players instead of the usual 14.

Of course none of these examples really supports the argument that Sarver won't spend the money on the players (the ones who actually play anyhow).

Just to make sure about something, the non signing of JJ last year to the trade with JJ this year as far as I am concerned is two seperate transactions.

The pending signing of Amare is similiar to the non signing of JJ last year, therefore the comparisons.
I am not upset at this time with the Amare non signing, but it should have been done already!

You apparently skipped over or didn't comprehend much of Eric's argument with your posts. These two situations are not similar. Everybody and their mom knows that Amare Stoudemire was getting a maximum contract. The only thing supposedly being debated is a player's option that Amare wants. They will have to give it to him. Even if somehow they couldn't reach an agreement this summer there's no way the Phoenix Suns will let him go next summer. It wouldn't matter if he slept with Sarver's wife and told everybody in Phoenix to blow. They will match any offer for him and throw the max they can offer from the get go.

The two situations are very, very different.

Joe Mama

 

[elindholm]

Nice rebuttal, Joe_Mama, but unfortunately sunsfn has already said he's out. Since he got the last word, that automatically means he wins the argument.

Too bad we didn't think of that trick.

 

[Chaplin]

I will have to come back in a couple days and resume this "discussion".

I have relatives staying with me and need to spend time with them.

But I will be back!

Joe Mama,
just to answer quickly before I go.
Here is what I said somewhere in one or more of the posts.

Sarver is cheap because,

He layed off employees as soon as he took over the team.

He told the scouts they could watch the games on tv to evaluate players instead of spending money on airplane tickets.

He would only let the suns carry 12 players instead of the usual 14.

He would not give JJ 5 mil spread over 6 years after offering him 45 mil.

Just to make sure about something, the non signing of JJ last year to the trade with JJ this year as far as I am concerned is two seperate transactions.

The pending signing of Amare is similiar to the non signing of JJ last year, therefore the comparisons.
I am not upset at this time with the Amare non signing, but it should have been done already!

The only regret I have about not being able to post for the next couple days is the great conversations I am having with chaplin......very intelligent conversations that are a trademark of chaplin.
The happy part of not posting for a couple days is this,
Chaplin will respond to this with some comment and I will not even read it for a couple days. Bye Bye!

If you were civil and non-personal, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal, but you keep making this personal. I'm not sure why, I guess it's just because I disagreed with you and you don't like that. I sincerely hope you can grow up and get past this, because your take is certainly interesting, even if I think it's completely wrong.

 

[Charles V]

I thought it was common knowledge that the C's tried their best to sign JJ before last season.

http://www.nba.com/suns/news/ktar_colangelo_050419.html

Colangelo: There were recommendations, Dave, to sign him. Robert (Sarver) and his group were new coming into this thing and had wanted to get an idea, a concept. It might have been a risky commitment overall. Not in Joe’s case, but the overall contractual commitments. So, he knew that the potential was that it could cause the franchise a lot more money at the end of the year and, candidly, that’s what I predicted that’s exactly what would happen, believing that Joe would have a terrific year. When a player is deserving, that’s the time you pay him. You hate to be in a position where you’re paying the player for other reasons. In other words, you’re caught. You can’t afford to let a guy get away. You’re overpaying, in other words. Certainly, Joe has proven that he’s going to be one of the real premiere players in this league. If you look at the stats of players this year on a league-wide basis, Shawn Marion third in the rebounding in the NBA? Give me a break. I think fourth in steals. Joe has the second-best three-point shooting percentage in the league. Individually, therefore collectively, there’s been some outstanding things accomplished this year. And of course Steve Nash leading the league in assists. So, when players get the job done, my attitude was always I’m happy to pay them under those circumstances. I think, as Bryan was quoted in the paper today as saying, there’s every hope and anticipation that that will be taken care of, regarding Joe and Amaré.

Burns: Is there a concern that an offer will be made to Joe that is so lavish and outlandish that it will be difficult for you guys to match?

Colangelo: We have the ability to match any offer that’s out there, that’s the good news. Will somebody try to get creative and do some things? That remains to be seen. But on the eve of the playoffs and looking at USA Today, an article by David Dupree saying that if stats mean anything, the Suns are headed for a championship. I want to enjoy this run. There will be plenty of time to talk about signing players. We need the media and the fans just to enjoy. You know how tough it is just to be in a position to have a little fun like this and now is the time.

IMO, Sarver dropped the ball with regards to getting JJ signed long term. Does that make Sarver cheap? I'm not sure. You could just as well make the argument that JJ is greedy. I think Sarver was more naive than anything else.

 

[elindholm]

I thought it was common knowledge that the C's tried their best to sign JJ before last season.

It is certainly common knowledge that the Colangelos started claiming as much, once Johnson started looking really good last year. However, that doesn't really tell us anything about what took place during the summer.

 

[Arizona's Finest]

oh, I can agree that Sarver is probably a bit cheap when it comes to day-to-day operations, but the original argument was about him being cheap when it comes to him signing players who actually play.

Joe Mama

OKAAAAY....but being cheap is not really a mutual exclusive term. I agree with you that he has not shown to be cheap when it comes to players, but what we get as info and what actually happens might be two different things. You know its possible Sarver is spinning this whole JJ thing so he doesn't look like a bad guy. He didnt get rich being an idiot. Who knows what other possibilites he has turned down or tossed aside for financial reasons. We have no idea. It seems to me that for every dollar spent on a player their was a reaction move

Nash and Q = Trading draft picks, not giving Joe 50 million

KT = getting rid of Q's contract

Bell = letting JJ walk (u can argue this but once again we have no idea of the mans real intentions, and you cant argue that one happened before the other)

Once again I have no idea if Sarver is cheap with players. He overpayed for Nash and Q, but one is gone and i dont think Nash will be around at the end of that contract. He has proved to be cheap in day to day moves so it would be safe to say money is a concern in every endeavor. And he wont even get near the luxury tax. Understandable.....but i would have liked to add KT, Bell, Jones, and Grant AND keep are young stud 2 guard. But that is wishful thinking i guess...Sarver has a couple more off seasons before we can say anything either way, but right now the evidence is unsubstansiated.

Remember, Sarver is kinda forced to put out money now b/c we are so close to a ring and he doesn't want to make a bad PR move or look frugal. The real test will be (god forbid) if we are a lottery team and we need to spend to get better. Thats when his wallet will be tested .....

 

[Charles V]

It is certainly common knowledge that the Colangelos started claiming as much, once Johnson started looking really good last year. However, that doesn't really tell us anything about what took place during the summer.

Is there any evidence to believe otherwise? What purpose would it serve for JC to put those comments out there, all throughout the season, if they were not true? Furthermore, Sarver has had every opportunity to set the record straight, and all he has said is We committed a lot of money up front and we hadn’t really proven yet how successful the team was going to be, and I was reluctant to lock in the starting five, all with big contracts, with a team that we didn’t know was going to be that successful..

IMO, there does not seem to be much room for interpretation. In their own words, JC suggested signing JJ before last season and Sarver was reluctant to spend any more on a team that had not proven anything.

 

[George O'Brien]

This is getting tiring. I have heard no evidence to suggest that Sarver has been making seriously bad decisions due to being "cheap". Cheap is Sterling of the Clippers and Shin (sic?) of the Hornets. They routinely make bad decisions based on economics and the results are fairly evident.

Obviously Sarver is not in Cuban class of "money is no object" and even he balked at paying Nash market. In a world of salary cap and luxury tax, the ability to make sound economic decisions is the hardest part of the process of running a team and no one gets it right all the time.

So what is the EVIDENCE that Sarver is in the Sterling/Shin class of cheap? He didn't extend JJ, he didn't have a bunch of guys who can't play on the IR, and he cut some administrative staff.

It is "claimed" he reduced the advance scouting staff and relied more on analyzing tapes. Obviously this had terrible impact on a team that won 62 and got to conference finals.

If this was a court case, I'd say the evidence is pretty weak. Repeating the same charges with the same thin evidence over and over does not make the case any more convincing. Charging Sarver with being "cheap" without setting benchmarks for what is and is not cheap is simply unfair.

 

[elindholm]

This is getting tiring.

Actually, George, your persistent habit of dismissing long discussions as "tiring" when they don't involve you is getting tiring. Let us talk.

 

[George O'Brien]

This is getting tiring.

Actually, George, your persistent habit of dismissing long discussions as "tiring" when they don't involve you is getting tiring. Let us talk.

Come on Eric. Do you really find this topic interesting? I realize that I tend to go back to certain themes more than you'd prefer, but do you really enjoy reading endless bad mouthing of Sarver and the Suns?

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

He told the scouts they could watch the games on tv to evaluate players instead of spending money on airplane tickets.

He wanted to do that, but the Cs expressed to him how important it was that Advance scouts go to games. There wasn't a single game missed by an AS.

 

[elindholm]

but do you really enjoy reading endless bad mouthing of Sarver and the Suns?

No, I don't. But telling people to shut up doesn't help them understand, unless you are a political commentator for Fox News, in which case it's an acceptable substitute for intellectual discourse. It's probably naive of me, but I keep thinking that if I get in a lengthy discussion with someone, I'll eventually be able to correct their misconceptions.

The long interchange might be a waste of your time, and I can accept that. But it's presumably not a waste of time for the people involved in it. And if it is, well, that their own stupid problem.

 

[Chaplin]

but do you really enjoy reading endless bad mouthing of Sarver and the Suns?

No, I don't. But telling people to shut up doesn't help them understand, unless you are a political commentator for Fox News, in which case it's an acceptable substitute for intellectual discourse. It's probably naive of me, but I keep thinking that if I get in a lengthy discussion with someone, I'll eventually be able to correct their misconceptions.

The long interchange might be a waste of your time, and I can accept that. But it's presumably not a waste of time for the people involved in it. And if it is, well, that their own stupid problem.

Doesn't seem to be working.

 

[George O'Brien]

It's probably naive of me, but I keep thinking that if I get in a lengthy discussion with someone, I'll eventually be able to correct their misconceptions.

Good luck.

It is my observation that most people hang onto their opinions very tightly and take criticisim of their opinions personally. I guess that if everyone based their opinions on facts, then it would easy to change their minds simply by presenting new facts. But it doesn't work that way for most people.

No, I'm not claiming to be any better than the rest of humanity in this regard. Nor do I give up trying to alter unfounded opinions even when I suspect the effort is pointless. Maybe you just have more patience, but I'm just being honest when I state that I find beating my head against the wall tiring.

 

[elindholm]

It is my observation that most people hang onto their opinions very tightly and take criticisim of their opinions personally. I guess that if everyone based their opinions on facts, then it would easy to change their minds simply by presenting new facts. But it doesn't work that way for most people.

Yep, all good points. Indeed, for most people, the refusal to base opinions on evidence is itself an "opinion" about how information should be related to conclusions drawn therefrom.

No, I'm not claiming to be any better than the rest of humanity in this regard. Nor do I give up trying to alter unfounded opinions even when I suspect the effort is pointless. Maybe you just have more patience, but I'm just being honest when I state that I find beating my head against the wall tiring.

No, it was just that I thought I might have finally started to make some headway. Naturally, Chaplin was quick to set me straight on that misconception.

However, I was being unfair. If it's your opinion that the process is tiring, I should not interfere with your right to express it.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

If it's your opinion that the process is tiring, I should not interfere with your right to express it.

But if it is your opinion that George's opinion of a tiring thread is tiring to you doesn't that mean you should express that thought?



Im done, I swear

 

[elindholm]

But if it is your opinion that George's opinion of a tiring thread is tiring to you doesn't that mean you should express that thought?

I'm thinking of an opinion right now. It's two words, the first of which is four letters and begins with F...

Just kidding, I saw that coming, but was hoping no one else would jump on it. I owe you three more illegal free-agent signing suggestions for that one.

 

[George O'Brien]

But if it is your opinion that George's opinion of a tiring thread is tiring to you doesn't that mean you should express that thought?

I'm thinking of an opinion right now. It's two words, the first of which is four letters and begins with F...

Just kidding, I saw that coming, but was hoping no one else would jump on it. I owe you three more illegal free-agent signing suggestions for that one.

Wow, that's quite an offer.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

But if it is your opinion that George's opinion of a tiring thread is tiring to you doesn't that mean you should express that thought?

I'm thinking of an opinion right now. It's two words, the first of which is four letters and begins with F...

Just kidding, I saw that coming, but was hoping no one else would jump on it. I owe you three more illegal free-agent signing suggestions for that one.

LOL