Can the Suns EVER win with their current GM? (Poll)

[ARZCardinals]

Seriously while I'm no NBA nut, when a guy trades away Goran Gragic' and he ends up playing great in Miami AND he gives away Thomas to Boston who is now ALL PRO AND he traded away the Lakers pick.
He obviously has NO IDEA about talent.
and I think he allowed the team to win meaningless games when they could have had the #1 pick this year...he could have told the coach to bench all starters and play backup guys or street guys.
It's amazing to me to see how ownership watches him hand away good players...and trading away the Lakers pick....STUUUUUUUUUUUPID.

What do you hard core NBA guys think?

 

[Bodha]

no. Hes an absolute failure at a GM and should go back to being a data cruncher for Danny Ainge



On a sidenote, Im thoroughly enjoying the playoffs. Watching Isiah Thomas be one of the most dominant PGs in the NBA

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Seriously while I'm no NBA nut, when a guy trades away Goran Gragic' and he ends up playing great in Miami AND he gives away Thomas to Boston who is now ALL PRO AND he traded away the Lakers pick.
He obviously has NO IDEA about talent.
and I think he allowed the team to win meaningless games when they could have had the #1 pick this year...he could have told the coach to bench all starters and play backup guys or street guys.
It's amazing to me to see how ownership watches him hand away good players...and trading away the Lakers pick....STUUUUUUUUUUUPID.

What do you hard core NBA guys think?

Okay since you are no NBA Nut, I will tell you what happened. It's really easy since Gambo laid it all out yesterday.

The day before the trade deadline, Goran Dragic told Jeff Hornacek, our coach at the time, that he would stay with the Suns, but only if they traded Isaiah Thomas away.

Apparently Dragic hated Thomas. So Jeff Hornacek called Gambo and told him the good news that Dragic was staying. He also told the GM that was the only way that Dragic would stay is if Isaiah was gone immediately.

So our GM told Thomas that he had to trade him and started working on a trade to do so.

Then 24 hours later Goran Dragic bad mouthed the organization and demanded to be traded.

So Goran basically blew up the Suns in 24 hours.

Out of that, our GM had to now trade two players, one who openly was bad mouthing the Suns and saying he would not resign at the end of the year.

Hornacek wanted to continue playing the style of basketball that they were doing, so the GM needed to find a scoring PG to play next to Bledsoe.

So first out went Dragic with a flat awesome trade. Getting 2 first round picks for someone who is basically carpet bombing your organization is great.

McDonough missed badly on Knight. He had to trade Thomas, he just picked the wrong guy to do it for.

After hearing all of this yesterday, Goran Dragic is dead to me.

 

[Ronin]

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Gambo swears this is all true, straight from Jeff Hornacek.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Now you might wonder, why wouldn't we just tell Dragic to pound sand in the first place when he demanded that Isaiah Thomas be traded for him to stay?

Dragic was basically the face of the franchise at the time. They were doing what they thought would make him happy again.

 

[SirStefan32]

Of course they can. Dragic and IT situations were mishandled, but that was not a failure to evaluate talent. That was a failure to manage people, which is VERY common for new/ first-time managers.

Morris situation is similar, but they also had some serious issues that Dragic and IT did not.

Knight trade and signing was the biggest unforced error, though at the time, he was almost an all-star player. Trading a protected pick for someone like that isn't really unreasonable.

He's made his share of mistakes, but he is far from terrible. Booker looks like a franchise player, Warren and Criss look great, Ulis was an amazing find in the second round. Williams was a good find as well.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

You have to wonder if him being a first time GM and relatively new if he just tried to cow tow to the franchise player and then got stabbed in the back.

 

[Mainstreet]

Okay since you are no NBA Nut, I will tell you what happened. It's really easy since Gambo laid it all out yesterday.

The day before the trade deadline, Goran Dragic told Jeff Hornacek, our coach at the time, that he would stay with the Suns, but only if they traded Isaiah Thomas away.

Apparently Dragic hated Thomas. So Jeff Hornacek called Gambo and told him the good news that Dragic was staying. He also told the GM that was the only way that Dragic would stay is if Isaiah was gone immediately.

So our GM told Thomas that he had to trade him and started working on a trade to do so.

Then 24 hours later Goran Dragic bad mouthed the organization and demanded to be traded.

So Goran basically blew up the Suns in 24 hours.

Out of that, our GM had to now trade two players, one who openly was bad mouthing the Suns and saying he would not resign at the end of the year.

Hornacek wanted to continue playing the style of basketball that they were doing, so the GM needed to find a scoring PG to play next to Bledsoe.

So first out went Dragic with a flat awesome trade. Getting 2 first round picks for someone who is basically carpet bombing your organization is great.

McDonough missed badly on Knight. He had to trade Thomas, he just picked the wrong guy to do it for.

After hearing all of this yesterday, Goran Dragic is dead to me.

Even not hearing it from Gambo it makes total sense.

This is what I thought happened. Unfortunately McDonough missed badly on Knight.

Every GM makes a mistake.

 

[ARZCardinals]

Okay since you are no NBA Nut, I will tell you what happened. It's really easy since Gambo laid it all out yesterday.

The day before the trade deadline, Goran Dragic told Jeff Hornacek, our coach at the time, that he would stay with the Suns, but only if they traded Isaiah Thomas away.

Apparently Dragic hated Thomas. So Jeff Hornacek called Gambo and told him the good news that Dragic was staying. He also told the GM that was the only way that Dragic would stay is if Isaiah was gone immediately.

So our GM told Thomas that he had to trade him and started working on a trade to do so.

Then 24 hours later Goran Dragic bad mouthed the organization and demanded to be traded.

So Goran basically blew up the Suns in 24 hours.

Out of that, our GM had to now trade two players, one who openly was bad mouthing the Suns and saying he would not resign at the end of the year.

Hornacek wanted to continue playing the style of basketball that they were doing, so the GM needed to find a scoring PG to play next to Bledsoe.

So first out went Dragic with a flat awesome trade. Getting 2 first round picks for someone who is basically carpet bombing your organization is great.

McDonough missed badly on Knight. He had to trade Thomas, he just picked the wrong guy to do it for.

After hearing all of this yesterday, Goran Dragic is dead to me.

Isn't the GM's job to put the BEST players on the court...whether they like one another or not. Either way he traded away BOTH top quality players AND a future TOP pick for NOTHING.
His job is to make the TEAM WIN....not have players like one another...get a councilor for that.
Even if that was the case...he didn't get enough compensation for Thomas, G or the pick...he got whipped...yet he keeps his job. Makes no sense. Fail at your job over and over and over again....coaches come and go like ice cream on a Summer day in Phoenix. He's gotta go! Last question...would YOU hire him if you had an NBA team?

 

[slinslin]

1. Dragic plays great in Miami? What exactly has he done? 2x Lottery in a horribly weak Eastern Conference. And we have 2 almost not at all protected first round picks from MIami in 2018 and 2021 while Dragic is over 30 and making 20 Mil per year.

2. We tanked hard, Brooklyn was incredibly bad far far ahead in terms of losses. Plus finishing worst would have only been a 5% better chance to actually draft 1st.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

I can see you are going to be obtuse and your use of CAPS is really annoying.

Goran Dragic was a free agent at the end of the year. If the GM said "Suck it up and play with Isaiah", he would have left after that year for zero compensation.

So getting 2 first round picks from an aging team for a disgruntled and aging free agent PG was brilliant.

Isaiah Thomas at the time was our backup PG. He was signed for peanuts because no one wanted him after Sacramento. This is why the team tried to pick Dragic over him.

 

[Matt L]

Does anyone know what happens to the pick if the Lakers keep it this year? Are there no protections next year?

 

[slinslin]

yes

 

[SirStefan32]

You have to wonder if him being a first time GM and relatively new if he just tried to cow tow to the franchise player and then got stabbed in the back.

I actually think there were two parts. First off, he misread Dragic. He thought he was a nice guy who would just accept his role. Then, when he realized he miscalculated, and it was apparent Dragic wasn't gonna be happy standing in the corner hoping Bled or IT pass him the ball, he tried to recover by cozying up to Dragic, but at that point it was too late. I really want to know what the story is behind Goran's cryptic statements about broken promises and trust.

All this is common for new managers. I see it all the time. One of the first lessons I give to people I mentor is that their job is to build trust with their team and learn how to manage individual personalities. McD is a nerd- the equivalent of a serious IT nerd who got into management. Extremely smart, intelligent, an outstanding analysts who knows the technical side of things better than anyone else, but doesn't know how to read and work with people. It takes a while to figure that stuff out. McD will be fine.

 

[Sunburn]

Gotta relive this nightmare again and again. Dark times for the Suns. Got decent value for Dragic and IT just wasn't worth that much at the time. Biggest mistake he made was the Lakers' pick. However, since then, he has done an excellent job in the draft and finding young talent. He's redeemed himself enough to keep his job. Let's see where we go from here. I'm excited for the draft.

 

[sunsfan88]

I don't care about the Dragic or IT trade but man, that Knight trade is what pisses me off like no other.

Every single person in the world besides McD knew that was an awful trade right when it was made. Knight was one of the worst players ever in advanced analytics measures at the time.

I think the Knight trade has now led to the Suns to use advanced analytics a lot more when evaluating players and talent.

It would be so amazing to be talking about how we can have TWO top 5 picks in this draft.

That pick was Steve Nash's departing gift to the Suns and McD ruined it. If whoever Philly drafts with that becomes a stud then it's gonna be similar to that time when Billy King traded the pick that ended up Damian Lillard for Gerald Wallace.

And I doubt Billy King is a GM that McDonough wants to associate himself with.

 

[slinslin]

I still believe that Hornacek was a driving force behind acquiring Knight but we will never know, of course that was an awful trade.

 

[Hoop Head]

Isn't the GM's job to put the BEST players on the court...whether they like one another or not. Either way he traded away BOTH top quality players AND a future TOP pick for NOTHING.
His job is to make the TEAM WIN....not have players like one another...get a councilor for that.
Even if that was the case...he didn't get enough compensation for Thomas, G or the pick...he got whipped...yet he keeps his job. Makes no sense. Fail at your job over and over and over again....coaches come and go like ice cream on a Summer day in Phoenix. He's gotta go! Last question...would YOU hire him if you had an NBA team?

Basketball isn't like football or baseball, you need good chemistry between the players on the court and if they're openly feuding it won't work. They blew up a dynasty in LA because Shaq and Kobe couldn't co-exist and they won 3 titles together. Do you think Dragic and IT were really going to win?

He got played, and so did Sarver, by Dragic. It is what it is. Sure it was a mistake to try to retool that season to make a push but they did it and had it worked out the revisionist history wouldn't be so bleak.

 

[chickenhead]

Goran jobbed the Suns but also did them a favor (though you don't thank him for it). The trade is one they otherwise wouldn't have made for him, and I think it would have been a mistake to keep him. He would have at best been a fan-favorite undeserving max player, and at worst he would have been who he ended up being, just still in Phoenix.

 

[BC867]

I think the lesson to be learned is when you hire inexperienced GM's to save money, you're not going to win championships. That's more than an opinion. That is a fact here in Phoenix. As we well know after half a century of Suns basketball. Even when we entertained, we were never elite.

The curse of thinking like a small market team even though we are one of the most populated cities in the country. Phoenix grew. The Suns didn't. And now we can only hope to rise to the next level with our young talent. Making the playoffs. We still don't have the balanced roster to be a contender. The Suns obsession with overloading the backcourt. And not dominant at any front court position. At best, we are an unbalanced team. Always hoping that we'll luck into sellout crowds.

 

[StreetTruckinTitan]

IMO Goran got jobbed by the Suns by forcing him to play out of position at the 2 spot. Gorans strength was at the point. His agent was telling him the Suns were killing his future earnings playing him out of position where he struggled. I agree.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

IMO Goran got jobbed by the Suns by forcing him to play out of position at the 2 spot. Gorans strength was at the point. His agent was telling him the Suns were killing his future earnings playing him out of position where he struggled. I agree.

That is fine. Then be professional and don't lie about your intentions to your coach.

 

[AsUpRoDiGy]

McD drafts great, and trades horribly. Recently he's been trading better, but wow, that Knight trade was one of the worst trades ever and that really had to have changed McD's philosophy moving forward. Goran was a crybaby and was the worst out of IT and Bledsoe....in hindsight it would've been nice to just say adios to Goran, but I think McD learned now to go with his gut and screw what the crybaby wants...because in reality that hardly ever works out. Luckily for us, Miami is going to stink it up next year, so hopefully we get a decent draft pick out of it. The Suns are young and have a ton of young talent, but we also need a legit All-Star vet that can come in and take this team to the next level...a move I'm not so sure McD can pull off.

 

[slinslin]

IMO Goran got jobbed by the Suns by forcing him to play out of position at the 2 spot. Gorans strength was at the point. His agent was telling him the Suns were killing his future earnings playing him out of position where he struggled. I agree.

The Suns were most succesful when Goran was at the 2.

They never had a winning record when Goran Dragic started at PG.