Hey Elindholm; go back to this thread BARRY INTERESTED IN SUNS
I'd forgotten about the thread. But in this current discussion, I never said Barry wasn't a good player; my thoughts on him haven't changed. At the time of that thread, I didn't realize that the Suns were so committed to small ball -- I'm sure you can find lots of posts where I insisted that Marion could not possibly be their PF. So obviously I was not on the same page as Suns management.
In spite of that report, I doubt that Barry was ever seriously interested in the Suns. People make things up all the time. How many times did we hear that Dennis Rodman might be joining the team? Several that I can recall.
Anyway, since you've done the research, I'll concede the point. Maybe they should have gone after Barry this summer. As far as the draft pick trade and getting Richardson is concerned, I was never thrilled about either of those, so you'll get no argument from me there. My hunch is that, in spite of management's revisionist history, the real reason they dumped the draft pick was to go after Bryant.