Bill Simmons' requiem for S.S.O.L

[gusmahler]

Stuff like that, is why I can't stand a bandwagon fan hitching up to a team, and trying to pretend that they can feel/understand half the pain that fans that have always been there feel.

Are you calling Simmons a bandwagon Suns fan? I thought the essay was entirely fair, and I've been a fan for almost 30 years.

He's not saying Simmons is a bandwagon fan (Simmons likes the Suns, but he's a Celtics fan at heart and shows it all the time).

I think what he's saying is that true fans live through the pain, making them appreciate the glory all the more than the bandwagon fans (the one who cheer when the team is winning but abandon when the team is a losing one.)

 

[LakeShowMan]

Are you calling Simmons a bandwagon Suns fan? I thought the essay was entirely fair, and I've been a fan for almost 30 years.

Not at all. I am referring to a 'hypothetical' person that 'became' a Suns fan recently, and assumes to know how painful the events from this article (and the results they have caused) could be to someone who has been a Suns fan for a long time. Not sure if I can articulate it any better than that (I am not that good of a writer).

 

[elindholm]

Now you know why I have been so onery for the last few weeks. I have been piping this tune for some time.

I hesitate to interfere with you patting yourself on the back, but that's not quite what you've been saying the last few weeks. You've lumped the O'Neal trade in with all of the other cost-cutting moves so as to damn it by association.

Many posters on this board ripped the Thomas and Jones deals, as well as the selling of draft picks, from the beginning. But to place the O'Neal trade in the same category isn't fair. Yes, the earlier bad deals forced the Suns to operate from a position of weakness, and they took a desperate gamble because they saw no other options. That's bad. Once they had painted themselves into a corner as severely as they had, however, I think the O'Neal acquisition was a reasonable play. It was motivated by the reality of the previous mistakes, but I don't believe it compounded them.

Another way to think about it is this: Let's imagine that a brand new owner and GM had taken the reins on January 1, 2008. Of course they are thinking, "Ack, this team sure is in trouble, how did they get themselves in such a mess?" But those mistakes have already been made, and now the question is how to look forward. Given the poor chemistry on the team, the evident failure of small ball, the rapidly aging core of a championship-starved franchise, and the strong likelihood that Marion was going to generate a substantial roster/payroll problem either this summer or next, how does the O'Neal trade look to this new group of bosses? I think it looks okay.

Sarver and Kerr are easy marks, because they've made so many indefensibly bad moves. But that doesn't mean that everything they've done has been a blunder. You're welcome to criticize the O'Neal trade all you want, of course -- and I have no doubt that you will continue to do so -- but it's disingenous to claim that a writer like Simmons is backing you up when in fact he agrees with you only on the other, incontrovertibly shortsighted trades.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

I have never said the Shaq trade was a cost cutting move and that is the reason I dislike it (though it techinically was). The reason I disliked the trade was I felt we did not get enough in return.

That's it. Even an additional second round pick would have shown some measure of GM savvy, especially considering how bereft this team is of those picks at this point.

It isn't an attempt to pat myself on the back btw, just an attempt to further clarify my position.

 

[devilalum]

Sarver is a TOOL!

This team has not made a single good move since this guy took over.

Everybody points to the Nash signing as his first big move but that's crap. Sarver didn't have control yet and Nash was delivered to Sarver on a silver platter by the Colangelos. All Sarver had to do was sign off on the contract. At the time that seemed like a big deal and it has been reported that he did a lot of hand ringing over what turned out to be the biggest bargain in franchise history.

Here's a poem that must have been written by Sarver as a child.

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head--
Too proud of me to speak!

 

[WuRaider]

This article does not make me as angry as much as it makes me scared. It makes me think that they may even sell this years pick and rationalize it by saying "it was a necessary financial maneuver to keep this core together".

 

[Andrew]

Do any of you think this current team has the appeal to lure any decent free agents here this off-season?

 

[CaptainInsano]

Sadly he actually didn't get everything, he was very close though. He didn't mention James Jones who could have still developed a little bit more and wasn't too expensive, and he didn't mention Tim Thomas who we could have locked up with a 20/4 contract.

Instead of TT we ended up with grant hill, who doesn't help space the floor and ran out of gas before the playoffs.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Do any of you think this current team has the appeal to lure any decent free agents here this off-season?

not unless they pay them the full MLE, which ain't happening. The teams people will flock to now are the Celtics, Spurs (as usual) and the Lakers. No one comes to an aging team who just got their asses kicked in the first round unless it's for premium dollars.

 

[sly fly]

I stopped reading halfway down. Not that the article wasn't breathtaking. It's just I felt the need to crush something.

Bill Simmons is the ultimate.

 

[CaptainInsano]

I stopped reading halfway down. Not that the article wasn't breathtaking. It's just I felt the need to crush something.

Bill Simmons is the ultimate.

Yeah, many many thanks and bigtime kudos to Simmons for writing this all down for the fans of the nba to see. This type of stuff should be brought to the front so people know the type of bs that can go on with terrible ownerships. The type of dreams that they can crush.

If I could ever get my hands on the full 04-05 Suns season I would be in complete bliss.

Do any places even sell that type of stuff?

 

[DeAnna]

Very good read. So he's saying the beginning of the end was when Grant Hill got here. I knew it!! I always thought he had jinxed us once the playoffs started.

I will miss SSOL.

I love Mike Tyson's classic quote "faded into Bolivian."

 

[DeAnna]

If I could ever get my hands on the full 04-05 Suns season I would be in complete bliss.

Do any places even sell that type of stuff?

Unfortunately, don't know of any. I do have the season recaps they do on FSN every year (around June) on my TiVo from 2004 onward.

 

[da_suns_fan]

so chris if we were to expand the "trade in and outs" for the sarver era suns:

You trade:

Andre inguodala, Joe johnson, Kurt Thomas, Marcus Banks, James Jones Jr, Shawn Marion, and 3 first round draft picks.

You get:

Shaq, Boris Diaw, #15 pick this year and cash.

something is off here, but not by much.

Not quite. They used the Joe Johnson trade exception to get James Jones.

More like,

They Trade:
Andre Igoudala (or Luol Deng), Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, Marcus Banks, Quentin Richardson, Sergio Rodriguez and our two first round picks in 2008 and 2010

For:

Shaq, Diaw, cash and the number fifteen pick next year.

 

[da_suns_fan]

This article does not make me as angry as much as it makes me scared. It makes me think that they may even sell this years pick and rationalize it by saying "it was a necessary financial maneuver to keep this core together".

Don't forget:

"We plan on big things this year from Sean Marks and we're expecting to have Grant Hill in the playoffs this time."

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

Not quite. They used the Joe Johnson trade exception to get James Jones.

More like,

They Trade:
Andre Igoudala (or Luol Deng), Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, Marcus Banks, Quentin Richardson, Sergio Rodriguez and three first round picks in 2007, 2008 and 2010

For:

Shaq, Diaw, cash and the number fifteen pick next year.

fixed

 

[Bufalay]

Sadly he actually didn't get everything, he was very close though. He didn't mention James Jones who could have still developed a little bit more and wasn't too expensive, and he didn't mention Tim Thomas who we could have locked up with a 20/4 contract.

Instead of TT we ended up with grant hill, who doesn't help space the floor and ran out of gas before the playoffs.

Simmons is a big time TT hater.

 

[Errntknght]

Reading Simmons recap of the Suns Follies is bad enough but living through it was much worse.

I do think he left out one element which I think is important - the acquisition of Quentin Richardson. I thought at the time it was a slap at JJ, because they didn't want to pay JJ as much as they paid Q. I believe that the brass thought they were taking out insurance against JJ never playing up to his potential or playing up to it and wanting more money than they thought he was worth but the result was to convince Joe that he had more future elsewhere.

Its true we wouldn't have had the same kind of season that we did the next year with Q on the team but IMO we'd have been much better off without it - say if we'd spent the money getting another decent frontcourt player. And I'm not basing that on the eventual KT fiasco that ensued from trading Quentin.

 

[nowagimp]

SSOL is gone, the end of an era. Its too bad we never got to see how a loaded SSOL team would fare. Nash is a shadow of his former self, shaq brought the plodding suns who get outrun by the oldest team in the NBA, and guys like JJ, and Iggy who could have been teammates are gone or never arrived. I will miss the SSOL suns, dont think watching the games will be such a high priority anymore. On the good side, this means I will no longer experience quite the agony when they lose a close playoff game. I thought the suns might save the NBA with team basketball, like the showtime days, but it looks like a new wave of individualism and superstars is being pimped bigtime. Theres superman, and CP3, bron and kobe. Back to the shameless WWF promotion model of individual characters that led to the superstar rules. I guess I'll spend more time in other pursuits when the NBA bores me.

 

[abomb]

Simmons is a big time TT hater.

Is it not justified? The guy had one good contract year before breaking the bank with LAC.

I think Simmons' (a Clips' season ticket holder) watching him the past two years has jaded him even worse.

 

[elindholm]

Is it not justified? The guy had one good contract year before breaking the bank with LAC.

The stats say otherwise. If you look only at Thomas's numbers and salary, without thinking that it's the dreaded Tim Thomas, he's a great value.

Tim Thomas is Amare Stoudemire with less power and more range. Both are supremely talented but spend a lot of their time coasting and put little effort into defense or rebounding. Thomas gets even less out of his ability than Stoudemire does, but he makes less than half as much. In no way is his contract breaking anybody's bank -- not even Sterling's. He's an MLE player who produces at an MLE level.

 

[Muggum]

Genius column. Totally sums it up.

 

[abomb]

The stats say otherwise. If you look only at Thomas's numbers and salary, without thinking that it's the dreaded Tim Thomas, he's a great value.

Tim Thomas is Amare Stoudemire with less power and more range. Both are supremely talented but spend a lot of their time coasting and put little effort into defense or rebounding. Thomas gets even less out of his ability than Stoudemire does, but he makes less than half as much. In no way is his contract breaking anybody's bank -- not even Sterling's. He's an MLE player who produces at an MLE level.

Interesting. Maybe that is why the general perception for TT is what it is; he looks like he should be much, much better.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

The stats say otherwise. If you look only at Thomas's numbers and salary, without thinking that it's the dreaded Tim Thomas, he's a great value.

Tim Thomas is Amare Stoudemire with less power and more range. Both are supremely talented but spend a lot of their time coasting and put little effort into defense or rebounding. Thomas gets even less out of his ability than Stoudemire does, but he makes less than half as much. In no way is his contract breaking anybody's bank -- not even Sterling's. He's an MLE player who produces at an MLE level.

You are better than this.

 

[Maligzar]

I think some of you missed the point, it's not Sarver's fault:

What makes that one even more painful: Instead of signing Richardson before the 2004-05 season to a six-year, $42.6 million deal, they could have drafted Deng or Igoudala that summer and paid one of them two-fifths as much as Richardson over that same time frame. One year later, they swapped Richardson and the No. 21 pick in 2005 for Kurt Thomas, who they dumped on Seattle last summer along with two more No. 1's just to get him off their cap. As astounding as this sounds, Bryan Colangelo's decision to sign Richardson instead of drafting Deng or Iguodala -- which was dumb at the time, by the way -- ended up costing them a whopping FOUR FIRST-ROUND PICKS! Would you rather have Richardson, or would you rather have the No. 7 pick in 2004, the No. 21 pick in 2005, and your first-rounders in 2008 and 2010? Hold on, this gets better. Your 2005 NBA Executive of the Year? That's right, Mr. Bryan Colangelo! I love the NBA

The blame is with Bryan Colangelo. He cost the Suns Joe Johnson and 4 first round picks. I'm sure that Jerry Colangelo had a lot to say about it as well. I know that Sarver had nothing to do with that blunder.

Blaming Sarver for asking his management to keep the team under the salary cap is unreasonable. The cap is there for a reason. Spending a ton of money does not equate to a championship, just ask Dallas and New York.

The Colangelo's made horrible decisions, and set Sarver up for failure.