Bickley: Suns stuck in NBA quicksand with no easy fixes

[Covert Rain]

There are 47 reasons to dispel that as a serious Suns goal. 1968-69 to 2014-15.

Two finals appearances in 47 seasons.

The first as a Cinderella team that took the league by surprise for one magical year with a rail-thin 212 lb. Center until the novelty wore off and the league caught up with it.

The second, another one-time occurrence, rather than building a foundation for NBA excellence.

But then you did say that the end game is a title rather than a run at titles.

I have to believe that is a serious Suns goal. If not, there is no reason to watch this team play basketball.

 

[JCSunsfan]

There are 47 reasons to dispel that as a serious Suns goal. 1968-69 to 2014-15.

Two finals appearances in 47 seasons.

The first as a Cinderella team that took the league by surprise for one magical year with a rail-thin 212 lb. Center until the novelty wore off and the league caught up with it.

The second, another one-time occurrence, rather than building a foundation for NBA excellence.

But then you did say that the end game is a title rather than a run at titles.

BULLL CRAP!!!!. If you don't believe this team is trying, or has been trying over its existence, to win a title, you need to choose another team!

Good grief. JC mortgaged the future to try to win a title on multiple occassions. You might try to make that accusation with Sarver, but absolutely cannot with Colangelo. Its just nonesense.

 

[Cheesebeef]

There are 47 reasons to dispel that as a serious Suns goal. 1968-69 to 2014-15.

Two finals appearances in 47 seasons.

The first as a Cinderella team that took the league by surprise for one magical year with a rail-thin 212 lb. Center until the novelty wore off and the league caught up with it.

The second, another one-time occurrence, rather than building a foundation for NBA excellence.

Jesus... talk about revisionist history. a one-time occurence that was BUILT to be a dynasty and was subsequently derailed by injuries to it's best player in the playoffs in two consecutive years after putting the eventual champion at death's door. You make it seem like the Barkley teams were just a one time flash in the pan when the next season they won 56 games and were on the doorstep of knocking out the Rockets to go to the Finals when Barkley got injured and then the next season loaded up even bigger, won 60 games, lost their second best player in Manning and STILL had the Rockets on the ropes AGAIN until Barkley got injured again up 3-1. All those rosters were loaded and caught serious bad breaks.

But hey... it's easier to bash the past when you completely dismiss the reality of what happened.

 

[slinslin]

Are we still talking about tanking to get a top draft pick? If we are, I can only think of Miami in recent memory, besides the LAL and SA that I mentioned earlier that had a top draft pick get a title for the team that drafted them. MIA and the Lakers both needed some pretty major FA help to get those titles, so I'm not sure how those examples help the argument of tanking to get a top pick that gets you the title.

Call it tanking, call it bottoming out. The essence is that successful teams found their major contributors in the draft and this is almost always tied to a top 10 pick or better yet top 5 pick.
The SSOL Suns would never exist without 2 top 10 picks Amare and Marion, 3 if you count Joe Johnson.

Miami -> Wade #5
Golden State -> Curry #7 (Thompson, Green, Barnes)
Cleveland -> Lebron #1, Irving #1, Thompson #4, (Wiggins #1, Bennett #1)
Atlanta -> Horford #3, tanked enough to get in the top 3 to keep their pick
SA -> Duncan #1, (Parker, Ginobili, trading Hill to draft Kawhi)
Clippers -> Griffin #1 (Jordan , acquired Paul for Eric Gordon #7)
Blazers -> Roy #6, Aldridge #2
Memphis -> Conley #4
Dallas -> Nowitzki #9
New Orleans -> Davis #1
Chicago -> Rose #1, Noah #3
Washington -> Wall #1, Beal #3
Oklahoma -> Durant #2, Westbrook #4

Isn't it funny how every team with a winning record this year pretty much has drafted their top contributor high in the draft?

In due time we will probably add Minnesota to the list having turned a top 5 pick Kevin Love into a #1 pick Wiggins and drafting Towns #1.

Houston is really the exception. These Harden situations don't come up very often and won't in the near future with the cap exploding and every team having cash to spend. Plus nobody though Harden would be anyhwere as good as he is now.

Or the Lakers although there had to come a few things together that Kobe lasted to #13.

In todays day and age that would not happen. Neither would Dirk slide to #9 but when they were picked GM's clearly were not as comfortable picking high schoolers or euros.

 

[sunsfan88]

Bickley tells it like it is. Always has. It's not homer journalism, nor is it pot shot negativity.

Agreed. I certainly don't see how fans can disagree with any of it.

 

[Phrazbit]

Agreed. I certainly don't see how fans can disagree with any of it.

Any more 6 month old threads you want to bump? Have you run out of random twitter feed updates to spam us with?

 

[Mainstreet]

IMO, Paola Boivin and Dan Bickley stir the bottom of the pot at azcentral for their writing material. Give me Paul Coro any day for content.

 

[iLLmatiC]

One thing struck me as really odd from Bickley... lauding McD for the Warren pick. what exactly has Warren proved yet that gives McD any kind of props? I hope the kid's good, but to single that pick out speaks volumes as to the job McD's done so far.

I have no idea, Hornacek would rather play PJ instead.