finger of blame

[elindholm]

Who's the biggest culprit?

 

[slinslin]

Blame for what?

The Suns record?
The Suns terrible PR?
Hornacek getting fired?

 

[Chaplin]

Where's the "other" option? My vote is on elindholm.

 

[BC867]

Blame for what?

The Suns record?
The Suns terrible PR?
Hornacek getting fired?

The blame for the Suns becoming the joke of the NBA rests primarily with the meddling owner.

Everything else -- an inexperienced GM -- an inexperienced Head Coach -- both obsessed with an experiment that has not worked, no matter how many combinations they try -- was the owner's choice.

As long as the small town banker fashions himself a pro sports expert, it is not going to change, no matter how many of his chosen underlings he fires.

Our outrage now is nothing compared to when the Suns announce they're moving to Seattle or wherever.

 

[Dback Jon]

Sarver's insistence on trying to make the playoffs as an 8 seed versus bottoming out years ago

 

[elindholm]

Where's the "other" option? My vote is on elindholm.

Well, I meant second most to blame.

 

[Catlover]

Sarver's insistence on trying to make the playoffs as an 8 seed versus bottoming out years ago

This. No one is perfect, mistakes were made by each person listed but this was the one that set the stage for the current situation. I guess that points the finger at Sarver as he was likely the prime decision maker on this one. But IMO it's hard to fault him for deciding to try and keep the Nash train rolling.

 

[sunsfan88]

Sarver should have let Nash and Hill free the day they decided to not bring Amare back.

 

[Mainstreet]

There is plenty of blame game to around. Hornacek's insistence on playing a two PG offense created a ripple effect that set the Suns back. I think McDonough overreacted at the departure of Dragic with the knee jerk reaction of trading the Lakers pick for Knight. Maybe he was trying to give Hornacek another PG to run the offense. Then there was Isaiah Thomas. Also McDonough should have anticipated there would be problems after Marcus Morris was traded. There was Sarver and McDonough hiring Hornacek.

Maybe McDonough is the most to blame getting the Suns in this mess but I believe he is the GM to get the Suns out of this mess. Even good GMs make mistakes.

 

[JCSunsfan]

where is the Markieff Morris option

 

[Hoop Head]

I picked Obama because I think the blame lays evenly on McD and Hornacek. They were the ones who came in with the 2 PG idea and failed to get it to work properly. Sarver just signs the checks. He gets a lot more blame than your average owner because Suns fans still cling to the days of Colangelo. Sarver put McD in charge about the same time Hornacek came on board. Many moves were made to accommodate Hornacek's 2 PG system and Jeff failed to get it to work with the players he had. I think McD should have put an end to the system rather than bringing in and extending Knight but to think Hornacek didn't sign off on that is foolish. I think it will be easier to point the blame after this offseason, seeing what McD does with the roster and draft picks the team has.

 

[mojorizen7]

Sarver's insistence on trying to make the playoffs as an 8 seed versus bottoming out years ago

Yes.
I was over this years ago.
There's no one on this roster you can build a championship around. A couple good players, a few nice players, and mostly JAG's. It's not a crime to have a mediocre roster or go through tough stretches as a young team, but you've got to have that one elite player you can build around. Makes it easier to stay focused as a GM.

The Suns have given themselves no chance at all to go get or even luck into a premiere young talent. Picking at #13 every year is dumb. Tweaking your core roster every year and hoping to strike lightening in a bottle is a completely unsound strategy.

If the Suns had at least shown some semblance of a plan over the last several years then going through struggles and down times as a team is forgivable IMO, but it looks to me like the plan was to be stuck in mediocrity until the groceries ran out and the fans had had enough.

When the pre-Sarver Suns teams played no defense and had lulls in talent at least there was always a plan and a clear direction in place with solutions that pointed UP.

I blame Sarver and i sympathize with the fans. What a disaster.

 

[Errntknght]

So you're saying you were a dead horse years ago... welcome back to the living!

 

[mojorizen7]

So you're saying you were a dead horse years ago... welcome back to the living!

Lmao

 

[Catlover]

Yes.
I was over this years ago.
There's no one on this roster you can build a championship around. A couple good players, a few nice players, and mostly JAG's.

I wouldn't sell Booker short, he's got a chance to be a very special player. Maybe he'll never be a league MVP but put together a team with a couple more players of talent roughly equal to his and I think it could develop into a championship team. He's smart, he's comfortable with physical play, he's emotionally tough, he shoots as well as anyone in the game not named Curry and he's still only 19.

 

[chickenhead]

It has to be Sarver unless you're giving him a full reset when McD came on board.

http://espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5289933

I'm willing to retire the blunders of the D'Antoni era. But I think Sarver bungled the Kerr era as well, and a competitive team that fell into his lap despite himself. Yes we would have had to move on from Nash, Amare, and Hill in that time, but we didn't need the complete blow-ups that have happened. That was probably the only chance to retool without rebuilding.

 

[Raindog]

No doubt, Sarver is a lousy pest of an owner - kind of like an NBA version of Dan Snyder. Most of the disappointments, failures and heartbreaks for Suns fans over the last decade are traceable to some decision by Sarver - letting D'Antoni have control of the whole team, being most egregious, in my book. You can certainly argue for the clusterup that was the Blanks/Babby era, but the miscalculations there didn't actually cost a legit shot at a championship... we just went from being slightly less mediocre to slightly more.

In any case, Sarver's pattern of interference/poor decisionmaking seems to have set a template of incompetence that the franchise cannot seem to escape. Even with a few folks like McD around, who seem like they might be smart enough to right the ship, you still end up with embarassing nonsense like the Dragic thing last year, the Markieff stuff, etc., that have dragged the franchise to laughing stock status.

As for Hornacek, he seems like a good guy, and certainly had a beloved history here, prior to the coaching stint. But he really did seem lost as a HC. The obsession with playing combo PGs was just bizarre... and the stubborness with which he stuck to it. To me, that was really the sign that he had no clue what he was doing in any phase of coaching the team.

 

[chickenhead]

Part of me just thinks that Hornacek spent a lot of time with Jerry Sloan--who was about the most analogous example of a college coach in the NBA--and that the situation wasn't transferrable.

 

[FArting]

I voted for McD

My other option would be Lon Babby. In 2004 the Dbacks hired Jeff Moorad an ex player agent to part ownership.

They had the worst record in the league. They went through a bunch of coaches.

Get rid of Lon

 

[CardsFan88]

I don't know why we would retire any 'era' of Sarver's bungling. In fact I don't know why we would segregate them out. To my eyes, it's been one long era of bungling and it's still going on.

Was McD a good hire? At the time it seemed so because it was a step in the right direction. He wasn't hiring cronies for jobs way over their heads. It looked like he had a future. He still might. But just because you take a step in the right direction, doesn't mean you are suddenly 100 miles down the road.

We finally went from selling draft picks, to acquiring them. We went from trading away picks and players to get out of contracts, to acquiring assets. $arver had to change his strategy to allow McD to do this. McD had to find ways to acquire talent. He did.

This is good. But it also shows you how far down we were. As probably $arver's biggest and one of his first critics, he finally decided to change his ways, at least a bit. But just because you change, doesn't mean your fortunes change overnight. It meant... now we can start to build up from the bottom like every other team that tries. Meaning... no guarantee of anything, we just stopped sabotaging ourselves. That's the sad truth.

Remember, I saw this whole thing coming from his first $$$ move and specifically said... he doesn't know what he's doing and going to waste everything JC built. The whole $arver era I saw coming. He wasted it all, he destroyed it all, and he didn't even really save any money. We had the most talent in the NBA on the roster, and the most 1st round draft picks stockpiled. That's where $arver started from.

One of my great strengths is seeing trends before anyone else. That's why I could see this, or the dotcom bubble, or the 2008 crash, or the coming one all before other people.

So no, I don't think it's entirely fair to go after McD. It's going to take years, maybe even a decade to turn this around (maybe longer...much longer). That's what $arver did. That's why I said then he'd figure it out too late, and he'd have to live through it.

The thing McD should be criticized for, is for picking up parts and not being able to adequately soothe the current players feelings. He can be criticized for the chemistry.

But for acquiring some semblance of talent, and for acquiring picks. He's done that.

He's also had to do alot of damage control from me first athletes. Dragic is a good guy, but he is 'me' first. He could of swallowed his pride and let things play out. I understand why he is upset. I would be. But you don't take it public after 1/2 season. We wanted to re-sign him, he was fine. We need to stockpile talent. He didn't get that. Markieff is Markieff. Not his fault. It's their fault. Isaiah also didn't help things from what we understand either.

Maybe McD talked to these guys and they gave McD the wrong info at the beginning. We'll never know. But no matter, the players went crazy and forced McD into things.

You can fault McD for his arguments with the players int he media, but again, he was also pushed into some of that. If a player calls you out that much, sometimes you have to respond. Other times he could of let it go.

I don't blame McD for taking a swing at LMA. He needed a guy like Chandler on the team to make that appealing, and we were in the running. We needed a team voice like Chandler, and if we can put some pieces around him that aren't flailing around, he might help the team. Chandler can't stop this mess, but he could still be part of the solution. His contract doesn't bother me, because cap wise it's the equivalent of like 6 million a year under the recent cap.

So we have to remember what started this, $arver and what we need to do to get back, acquiring talent.

McD is acquiring talent, and we have a long ways to go... thanks to $arver.

$arver took us from on top ahead of everyone else, to 10 years behind everyone else. That's who to blame. He's the one who decided to hire all these no name guys. Blanks? C'mon man.

Sold everything off. Gave away everything to get out from under bad contracts.

Also remember, he was wishy-washy. He'd sell off a piece, realize it made us worse, then sell off more pieces to make us better, but we were still less then what we were. Then the next offseason he'd go back and try to cut costs. Sell off more pieces, make us worse, panic, sell off more to get us a little better. This is what he did, and he was a moron for doing it. We got worse AND he didn't save money. He'd save some money, but then lose it on less tickets, less merchandise, and the destruction of his brand, and the value of his franchise. He's lost money being 'cheap'.

He had Kerr, and let him get away. They were friends, but even Kerr wanted out. Probably because he was instructing/hinting Kerr to sell assets, rather then acquire them. I don't blame him. So he went to the team that tried to emulate the Suns, the Warriors, and now has another championship and helluva squad.

It really should hit home to Sarver. We're in this mess because $arver directed it to be this way. He pushed everyone away. He pushed JC away. He destroyed what the Suns were, and only now are we trying to pick up the pieces, and $arver like I saw well over a decade ago, is finding out how hard it is to build up a franchise.

Any moron like $arver can tear one down while wearing a foam finger, but it took JC 25 or so years to build us up, and we're going to have to endure a lot of losing to POSSIBLY get back there. There is no guarantee. We could be looking at 50 more years of futility. So another 5-10 wouldn't surprise me. But we need more assets. McD is getting them, and not in the 76ers way. So I'll give him time to do it, because we're not getting back to the top likely anytime soon.

About time most of us realize it. Including $arver. At this point getting rid of $arver won't stop any destruction. We've already been destroyed. Perhaps a better owner could bring more competent people in charge, but we don't want to be like the Browns trying to change things every year. We need continuity. Most new owners would be more clueless then $arver on many things. So now that $arver is starting to learn, hopefully he gets it right going forward. But it will be a bumpy ride. Hopefully he allows himself and McD the time to learn on the job, because there's a lot of learning to be done, and we need the people in our organization to learn it... especially $arver.

...and remember, we can see what happens when a competent owner can get control of things, we see what MB taking over for BB did for the Cards.

 

[chickenhead]

One of my great strengths is seeing trends before anyone else. That's why I could see this, or the dotcom bubble, or the 2008 crash, or the coming one all before other people.

Please elaborate on the latter. Let's hear some predictions for 2016...

 

[CardsFan88]

Please elaborate on the latter. Let's hear some predictions for 2016...

Predictions? I never said predictions.

You don't predict, you see trends. You don't know what date it will happen, or what year. You just know it will happen, and the areas that will cause it.

This isn't the space for what's coming. But the signs are all there. The policies in place are not that of recovery, but one of continued collapse. Remember we still haven't even returned to mark to market or reinstituted GAAP as policies after all these years, and more and more countries are going to NIRP or negative interest rate policy. Which means I borrow money from you and you pay me to do it. Still no Glass-Steagall, 2 quadrillion in derivatives (worthless gambling sidebets) and with Dodd-Frank (bail-ins)...which means they can steal your money from your account to pay off the bets gone bad on derivatives. Lowest labor participation rate since about 1978. Real inflation much higher. The few jobs that actually were created were $7 an hour jobs, when they used to make 15-20-30. Not all jobs are equal. The one area we got decent paying jobs was in the oil sector, and it's collapsing, along with commodities in general (no demand). Oil at $25-30 is just the beginning. It will go much lower. I could go on, but that's enough.

That's all I'm going to say on this thread about that.

 

[Cheesebeef]

There's only been one constant in the last 5 years of suckage. It's Sarver.