George O'Brien said:
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.
The administrative staff was not drastically reduced. All of the big name people, sans Chapman, are still in office. In fact, David Griffin has recieved a promotion bumping his pay scale up even more.
Chapman was removed because of conflict with Bryan.
He didn't understand why the scouts needed to travel when they could watch the video on TV. The scouts however never stopped traveling, Todd Quinter still goes on the road constantly. So while he didn't feel it was necessary to pay for the road trips he went along with the Cs and still sent everyone.
AZfinest, let me take a chance to reply to some of your points:
Nash and Q = Trading draft picks, not giving Joe 50 million
You can only count the draft pick as being traded once. Essentially they traded Q and their 2004 #7 pick for Kurt Thomas. Of course we had to trade the pick in order to sign Q in the first place.
Looking back this was simply a judgement call. It was also done before Sarver was in any sort of control (over a week before the deal closed). BC and JC wanted the cap space and figured the guy they wanted (Iggy) wasn't going to be there. Most mock drafts had him going anywhere from 3-5, so I can understand why they didn't think he would fall. They should have done better homework though.
To be honest I don't think the Suns would have given Joe 50 million dollars even if they didn't sign Q. It was a very high risk signing, and no one expected his value to baloon that much. I think I put the highest number out there in the beginning of the season for Joe (6 years, 60 million) and all but 1 or 2 people laughed me off. Turns out that number was way too low.
KT = getting rid of Q's contract
Getting rid of Qs contract wasn't a good thing for them to do. Q had a large signing bonus, and a trade kicker for 2.5 million dollars. So while looking at the cap numbers on hoopshype it looks like the Suns saved money, they broke even at best.
Remember what Sarver said about how you can't trade a player with a big upfront payment for a couple of years in order to make any sense? Well he violated his own rule in an effort to make Amare happy. He traded away a young player for an aging veteran and didn't even save a bunch of money like people suggest.
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)
I can argue what happened first quite easily. The Suns were very very intent on getting into conversations with Joe. It is all well documented. If they signed Bell to let JJ walk then why would they even bother to extend him an offer? Why would they go through all the effort (and money) in order to get him to resign?
I guess it could all be part of a giant master plan, but that is almost as far fetched as thinking Sarver is going to undercut Amare in contract negotiations.
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.
Who cares if he won't go near the luxury tax? Only about 5 teams in the league will lose money due to the tax this season (when you account for the rebates). Only 2 of those 5 teams are competitive.
The argument i have been getting into the most this summer that some people dont seem to get is contracts are paid for EXPECTED production. In other words potential. Kwame Brown was not given 8 million by the Lakers becuse of his sick 4 pt average a game. Its because he has tools to develop and apparently the Lakers think they can get that out of him.
This is true, although it usually doesn't work out. Shawn Marion is the best example I can think of where a guy was paid based on potential, and a lot of people think he is still overpaid.
Also, Kwame may be getting 8 million a year - but he is only getting 16 million total. That is a far cry from 72 million. Not to mention LA doesn't exactly have a
great track record with FA signings.
Bottom line: Joe should have been paid last year. Now hindsight is 20/20, but im convinced most NBA basketball people saw what i saw in Joe, and Sarver paid no mind.
Basketball people saw the good in Joe, they always have. There is a reason he was a lottery pick.
Of course most basketball people saw the bad in Joe too. If you put any other owner in Sarver's exact shoes I don't think that they would jump at the opportunity to have paid him last summer. In fact I bet the number is very small.
It was an understandable mistake by Sarver based on flawwed logic ("he isn't a star, i have already paid for Nash and Q")
This is ridiculous. It is cap suicide to lock in a starting 5 with the lowest contract being 7 million a year. Not to mention that there was a new owner and the team was coming off a dismal season.
It may have been a mistake, but it was based on very good logic.
of my posts on this subject have probably not been open minded because of my negative impression of Sarver, and my high regards for JJ as a basketball player.
