Wha? He tried to make what he thought was a HUGE move and get Blake Griffin but Blake wouldn’t even give us an interview.
And from all reports, he tried most of the off-season shopping Bledsoe and trying to get Kyrie.
Trying to get either Blake or Kyrie weren’t attempts to make big moves? Just because he failed laughably to do so, doesn’t mean he wasn’t trying.
It's odd that most admit that McD plays things very close to the vest and the moves he makes are never leaked before hand but then refer to a few items that were in the rumor mill that never came close to happening as a sign of his incompetence. McD and Sarver both stated that the Suns didn't plan on making any big moves in free agency last year and they didn't. You can say they tried to court Blake Griffin but he agreed to resign in LA before free agency started and didn't meet with anyone else. Considering McD's moves don't leak and he said they weren't going to be going after any big name free agents, I tend to believe him.
Don't believe they didn't plan on going after free agents last offseason? Here's an article from March of last year about a meeting with season ticket holders last season about them not being players in free agency and they were going with their youth movement and the timeline.
https://www.brightsideofthesun.com/...on-in-2020-no-free-agent-splashes-this-summer
In regards to trading for Kyrie, that was in line with what he's said about not being players in free agency since it was a trade and it's also in line with what he's said since he came to the Suns about shopping for a disgruntled star. Cleveland's asking price was too high so the Suns bowed out of trade talks. They would not trade their pick and they weren't willing to trade Josh Jackson either after he was selected with that pick so talks stalled at that point. We don't know what else was offered or discussed but I'm betting that Lebron and Bledsoe are good friends and share an agent had something to do with all of the rumors about that trade since it would have sent Bledsoe to Cleveland where Lebron is basically General Manager.
That trade rumor doesn't change anything about the Suns not being players in free agency or with their cap space. Sorry I wasn't clear in stating that distinction about free agency and cap space but I didn't expect someone to challenge how the team didn't plan on making big moves and they were sticking to the timeline. That doesn't change much of anything though since they didn't make any moves through free agency and shopping Bledsoe because he asked out is different than actively shopping him to make roster changes. We don't know when he asked out, if it was before the Kyrie rumors or not either. However Bledsoe asking out changed their plans some. They still tried to make things work with him since he was kept for the beginning of the season. What else were they supposed to do though? They didn't find a trade they liked at the time and tried to make it work a little while longer and then Bledsoe decided to go public.
