OT LaCava rakes Sarver over the coals

[mojorizen7]

Thank you Jude LaCava for expressing your feelings about the disaster that is the Suns ownership under Robert Sarver.

 

[Chaplin]

Even if Babby was whispering in his ear, he was not even on the payroll yet. And I honestly believe his influence in those moves if overblown. If Sarver was REALLY playing puppet to a guy (and player agent for that matter) who was not even employed by him yet then he is truly one of the stupidest people to ever wear a 3 piece suit.

It was Babby. Hedo was a former client and they had been talking to Babby about taking over for weeks before he actually did.

 

[Folster]

There's a lot of anger toward Sarver and the management team. We are not even one season into the rebuild, the rebuild that all of us were begging for. Management traded Nash and got a decent return that could very turn out to be phenomenal if the Lakers continue to implode. The 2015 pick could be even better.

They also took a couple low risk flyers on guys like Beasley and Johnson. Neither guy has lived up to their draft position, but I'm sure management wants our coach to give them every opportunity. (Did Gentry?) They also brought in a solid point guard in Dragic. He's not KJ, Kidd, or Nash, but count me as a Suns fan who would like to try to build a championship team around any position other than a point guard for a change. We haven't had the greatest luck with that.

We are tanking folks. It may not have been the goal when the season began, but we are tanking and it ain't pretty. For those who wanted the Suns to tank and are now bitching about management, I don't know what to tell you. Babby has told us all along that they will remain patient and look to capitalize in the draft, free agency, or via trade. He has kept his word and amassed some modest assets and maintained cap space.

I hope this season continues to be ugly and we are bad enough to get the number 1 pick. There is only one way to go from where we are right now and that is up. I'll take that any day over having and old fading team that we had the last few seasons.

I for one, think management is finally doing something right.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Sarver is the one who signed Childress, Babby wasnt even hired yet. That was during the insane period when idiot Sarver decided to go into free agency with no GM. The result was moves like Childress, Frye and Warrick getting long term deals and Sarver trading for one of the worst contracts in the league in Turkeyglue. In a brief few weeks Sarver did an astonishing amount of damage to the franchise and there is NO ONE to blame for that but Robert.

But as for Amare... how can it possibly be questioned if that was the right move? Just because we could amnesty him it means it would have been okay to keep him? Does anyone think we WOULD have amnestied him? 60-80 million bucks is a really tough amount of money for ANY owner to just flush down the drain. If he had been resigned I firmly believe he would still be on our roster hobbling around and playing his matador defense.

There have been a lot of bad moves made the last few years but the buck stops at Sarver. He steadily hired worse and worse people to run the team. And while his reputation of being cheap with the payroll is a little unfair (I WISH he was only cheap with the roster, instead he has been flat out stupid and thats far more damaging), his reputation of being cheap with the front office is totally over-looked and has been utterly devastating.

You just don't get it, don't you know, Sarver's revolutionizing the NBA front office, the results have been amazing!

Sarver is the worst thing that's ever happened to the Suns, he's the anti King Midas.

 

[Mainstreet]

There's a lot of anger toward Sarver and the management team. We are not even one season into the rebuild, the rebuild that all of us were begging for. Management traded Nash and got a decent return that could very turn out to be phenomenal if the Lakers continue to implode. The 2015 pick could be even better.

They also took a couple low risk flyers on guys like Beasley and Johnson. Neither guy has lived up to their draft position, but I'm sure management wants our coach to give them every opportunity. (Did Gentry?) They also brought in a solid point guard in Dragic. He's not KJ, Kidd, or Nash, but count me as a Suns fan who would like to try to build a championship team around any position other than a point guard for a change. We haven't had the greatest luck with that.

We are tanking folks. It may not have been the goal when the season began, but we are tanking and it ain't pretty. For those who wanted the Suns to tank and are now bitching about management, I don't know what to tell you. Babby has told us all along that they will remain patient and look to capitalize in the draft, free agency, or via trade. He has kept his word and amassed some modest assets and maintained cap space.

I hope this season continues to be ugly and we are bad enough to get the number 1 pick. There is only one way to go from where we are right now and that is up. I'll take that any day over having and old fading team that we had the last few seasons.

I for one, think management is finally doing something right.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. We will see, but if history is a window into the future, I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[Phrazbit]

There's a lot of anger toward Sarver and the management team. We are not even one season into the rebuild, the rebuild that all of us were begging for. Management traded Nash and got a decent return that could very turn out to be phenomenal if the Lakers continue to implode. The 2015 pick could be even better.

They also took a couple low risk flyers on guys like Beasley and Johnson. Neither guy has lived up to their draft position, but I'm sure management wants our coach to give them every opportunity. (Did Gentry?) They also brought in a solid point guard in Dragic. He's not KJ, Kidd, or Nash, but count me as a Suns fan who would like to try to build a championship team around any position other than a point guard for a change. We haven't had the greatest luck with that.

We are tanking folks. It may not have been the goal when the season began, but we are tanking and it ain't pretty. For those who wanted the Suns to tank and are now bitching about management, I don't know what to tell you. Babby has told us all along that they will remain patient and look to capitalize in the draft, free agency, or via trade. He has kept his word and amassed some modest assets and maintained cap space.

I hope this season continues to be ugly and we are bad enough to get the number 1 pick. There is only one way to go from where we are right now and that is up. I'll take that any day over having and old fading team that we had the last few seasons.

I for one, think management is finally doing something right.

Its just a continued run of amateurism. Yes, we're finally going to receive a high pick, however the front offices intention this year was to contend for the playoffs. If not for New Orleans bailing us out we'd be a 35 win team with no cap space. Their marquee free agent signing is the worst player in the league. They bring in a bunch of old vets in the offseason then fire the coach for not playing the youth. They somehow did not have an interim in mind when they fired the coach and their resulting bumbling for 3 days alienated cost us all but one of our coaches.

We might be in a decent position cap-wise going forward but I dont dont want these dummies to be the ones to handle it. Our current regime's calling card is nothing but blown picks and absurd multi-year deals to bench players.

 

[CardsFan88]

It doesn't matter at looking at what the Suns payroll has been. That's a case of meaningless numbers. All they really prove is how much of a moron $arver is at managing money. At how just reading numbers doesn't tell you anything. How you need to dig deep and find out...how did we arrive AT those numbers?

He had a great team. Almost set up for a dynasty run. But was too cheap with Joe Johnson. What he then started was make decisions only an idiot banker could make. (since Bankers are mostly worthless these days running a rigged game and still can't make money or create business for anyone else)

Now what $arver did goes beyond numbers. He would say...oh we're spending to much on payroll.

So what did $arver do? He cut payroll. How? By trading people away for crap.

Then he'd say 'Oh *&)(, we suck'.

Then he'd say bring someone in....well then we'd have to give up draft picks and/or players as well as cap flexibility...say take on contracts with more years. The pieces people were willing to trade us weren't as good and cost more. Because other teams aren't trying to give away talent and picks like a bankruptcy auction.

The problem was, this sell and buy was a net loss...so that in the end...we had less talent, and less assets going forward.

Then he'd go...payroll is too high.

So he'd trade more players or assets away.

Then he'd go...oh crap we suck.

So he'd trade more players or assets to pick up once again a lesser talent with more years and salary on board. Once again we end up with less talent and assets. Net loss.

Then he'd go...our payroll is too high.

So he'd trade more players or assets to dump salary. You know like trading all those picks so he didn't have to pay Googs the last 2 months of salary and the luxury tax.

Then he'd say...oh crap we suck.

So he'd trade away more assets or picks to once again put us with less overall talent, assets and flexibilty. Net loss.

This shows HOW INEPT of a business man he was (duh he's a worthless banker).

This is what he'd do basically every year. Every year we had a little less talent, picks, assets in total. Whenever we had cap space, they'd spend it on crappy players.

Finally in the end, as I called it many years ago, we'd just have Nash, and we'd need to trade him. Which we did. We made it so it was time to pull the plug on Nash. No way to get better. Stuck without talent or cap space to improve enough. Just about the same amount of money being spent, but instead of a team filled with stars, young talent, and draft picks, we had Nash and a bunch of overpaid bench players or marginal starters.

Only a certifiable moron can be so wishy washy, short-sighted fool that he runs a team like it's a Wall Street firm. Where by a certain point every year the books have to be made a certain way. Then realize his team sucked, and spent the rest of the year trying to undo those moves.

Not only did he not save money on payroll, in order to make all those moves to in net fashion not save money on payroll, he gave away all the talent and drafts picks the organization had.

That's how much of a moron he is. We had picks and talent out the wazoo. He pissed it all away so his end of the year books looked good. But in the end, he ended up spending about the same amount of money anyways, but instead of spending it on a talented team, he's spending it on crap. All because he has no idea how to run a business. Spent about the same money, but killed the roster. Didn't save. Didn't win a championship. Now he has a team no one wants to care about anymore, so really, he'll lose a ton of money. Then on top of that, the franchise worth will either drop or not increase with the pace of everyone else. All by his order.

Let's put it this way, only $arver could start with a Maserati and trade in cars every year and end up with a Kia in about a decade, and in the end spent the same amount terminating leases and penalties and everything and end up spending like he had a Maserati the entire time, but had a Kia.

He forced moves that shouldn't of happened. Forced the quality of the team to go down to cut expenses, then overpay to bring some talent back (but because it was forced it was always a horrible return).

It's so simple of an idea to understand.

He traded baseball cards, started with a Mickey Mantle rookie, and ended up with a 2012 common card of a utility infielder that hits .220.

Just because $arver gives people away, doesn't mean when he wants to buy back some talent, people will give him the same deal. Because he's begging to sell and begging to buy, and needing to let the other side win every time.

Amazingly we got the Nash trade, which was a gift.

The sad thing is we had the most 1st round picks in the 2000's to draft, and ended up drafting the fewest. (well technically through 2008, stopped keeping track around then). But literally we had about 17-20 1st round picks in the 2000's float through our hands and what did we draft, 4? 5? Gave the rest away. Gave away Joe Johnson. Marion.

That's the amazing thing. We were so cheap again, we couldn't pay the luxury tax for Googs and the last 2 months of his contract, so we TRADE away picks to get rid of him. But since it was an expiring contract, only our front office and ownership has to PAY to do that. Most people PAY YOU to give them an expiring contract. But when front office forces stuff, well you see what happens.

It's like $arver thinks players are money, 1- one hundred dollar bill is the same as the other. Well players aren't like that $arver.

How could anyone pay someone to take on an expiring contract? It's amazing. It's like paying someone in order to give them the key's to your house which you are giving them all paid off and free.

To other franchises, he should be known as Mother Theresa.

Somehow I still think $arver wants to win. I want to see WHO we play these first few games under Hunter. If it's the vets, then $arver wants to WIN, not play youth. I don't think it's Gentry not wanting to play the young guys. I think he was fired because the crap team he had to coach wasn't winning. I bet it was those moronic 'metric' snake oil salesmen's numbers who are giving idiot $arver the rationale that we had enough talent to win.

Well sorry, but rat meat isn't going to win a burger cook-off at a state fair or something.

 

[Folster]

That's the amazing thing. We were so cheap again, we couldn't pay the luxury tax for Googs and the last 2 months of his contract, so we TRADE away picks to get rid of him. But since it was an expiring contract, only our front office and ownership has to PAY to do that. Most people PAY YOU to give them an expiring contract. But when front office forces stuff, well you see what happens.

You going to blame Sarver for losing the coin flip for Lew Alcindor as well? Googs was traded by JC and Co. prior to selling the team to Sarver. Maybe you are thinking of Kurt Thomas.

 

[CardsFan88]

You going to blame Sarver for losing the coin flip for Lew Alcindor as well? Googs was traded by JC and Co. prior to selling the team to Sarver. Maybe you are thinking of Kurt Thomas.

Nope. Just the things he forced that went against all Basketball sense. Which means....pretty much every move.

You're forgetting an important part of the deal to sell the team to $arver.

Well at this point in time I forget the actual timing....but what I DO remember, is the following.

$arver made JC cut salary before buying the team.

Thus the last of JC's moves, were really $arver moves.

$arver came in demanding salary dumps. So if that was JC's last move, it was really $arver's.

 

[SunsTzu]

Nope. Just the things he forced that went against all Basketball sense. Which means....pretty much every move.

You're forgetting an important part of the deal to sell the team to $arver.

Well at this point in time I forget the actual timing....but what I DO remember, is the following.

$arver made JC cut salary before buying the team.

Thus the last of JC's moves, were really $arver moves.

$arver came in demanding salary dumps. So if that was JC's last move, it was really $arver's.

It wasn't even known the team was going to be put up for sale at the time of the Googs trade and there were other potential buyers in the off-season.

Gugliotta's contract was expiring so he wouldn't have even been on the books by the time the new ownership took over. Trading him was all about getting far enough under the cap so those that owned the team at the time could receive a league payout.

 

[Folster]

Nope. Just the things he forced that went against all Basketball sense. Which means....pretty much every move.

You're forgetting an important part of the deal to sell the team to $arver.

Well at this point in time I forget the actual timing....but what I DO remember, is the following.

$arver made JC cut salary before buying the team.

Thus the last of JC's moves, were really $arver moves.

$arver came in demanding salary dumps. So if that was JC's last move, it was really $arver's.

It's common practice to improve the financial standing of a sports franchise prior to selling. That's often done by cutting payroll. JC also jettisoned Marbury and Penny to New York in a brilliant salary dump that allowed us to pursue Kobe and McGrady, but ultimately enabled us to get Nash. That trade was done to facilitate the sale to Sarver. Does Sarver get credit for that too?

 

[Covert Rain]

How anybody can say it's not on Sarver is beyond crazy. I think most of you guys said it above. He is the constant. He is the owner. The buck stops with him. He does the hiring of the guys who make the decisions. Lets' not forget that Sarver appears to be hands on as well anytime his pocket book is touched.

What a bunch of crap that Sarver is not the main problem. He is simply an awful owner.

 

[Chaplin]

How anybody can say it's not on Sarver is beyond crazy. I think most of you guys said it above. He is the constant. He is the owner. The buck stops with him. He does the hiring of the guys who make the decisions. Lets' not forget that Sarver appears to be hands on as well anytime his pocket book is touched.

What a bunch of crap that Sarver is not the main problem. He is simply an awful owner.

He is an awful owner, but honestly, over the past 2 years, what evidence do you have that he is originating all these decisions? Sure, blame him for going along with them and signing off on them, but don't absolve the others of blame simply because you think Sarver is making all the basketball decisions. He isn't.

 

[Covert Rain]

He is an awful owner, but honestly, over the past 2 years, what evidence do you have that he is originating all these decisions? Sure, blame him for going along with them and signing off on them, but don't absolve the others of blame simply because you think Sarver is making all the basketball decisions. He isn't.

Where did I say that Chap? I never mentioned originating. I never said he is making all the basketball decisions. I am not sure you read my previous post. I said the buck stops with him. He hired the guys making the decisions. He is ultimately responsible. He is the constant.

 

[Chaplin]

Where did I say that Chap? I never mentioned originating. I never said he is making all the basketball decisions. I am not sure you read my previous post. I said the buck stops with him. He hired the guys making the decisions. He is ultimately responsible. He is the constant.

And...? I'm not sure what you are saying here. Who exactly is giving him a free pass? His biggest problem at this point in time is signing off on the hiring of Lance Blanks.

 

[Covert Rain]

And...? I'm not sure what you are saying here. Who exactly is giving him a free pass? His biggest problem at this point in time is signing off on the hiring of Lance Blanks.

I am responding to your comments about something I never said. I actually think we are agreeing here. I am simply saying that no matter who is making the decisions or who is contributing, Sarver is responsible. He is the owner who either makes the decisions or hires the people making the decisions.

 

[Chaplin]

I am responding to your comments about something I never said. I actually think we are agreeing here. I am simply saying that no matter who is making the decisions or who is contributing, Sarver is responsible. He is the owner who either makes the decisions or hires the people making the decisions.

I agree we probably are agreeing here, but we're confused on semantics. It's easy to be angry with Sarver and yes, he is ultimately responsible for those beneath him. But when trying to come up with solutions, I think Sarver himself is a dead end, because nothing anybody says will make him sell the team. So we have to look at the next best thing--those that are expendable. And right now, IMO that is Lance Blanks.

 

[TruCard]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiMh6tFX47c&feature=youtu.be

 

[Covert Rain]

I agree we probably are agreeing here, but we're confused on semantics. It's easy to be angry with Sarver and yes, he is ultimately responsible for those beneath him. But when trying to come up with solutions, I think Sarver himself is a dead end, because nothing anybody says will make him sell the team. So we have to look at the next best thing--those that are expendable. And right now, IMO that is Lance Blanks.

And to me that is not saying much. I will continue my vigil for a new owner. I know probably a pipe dream but if Suns fans can dream for a title for the past 44 years, I can hang on to my dreams of a new owner for a few more.

 

[CatBoxBackFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiMh6tFX47c&feature=youtu.be

http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2788002&postcount=5

 

[Covert Rain]

http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2788002&postcount=5

He is right. Sarver doesn't have any vision at all. The decisions he has made and the people he hires to make those decisions is a reflection of that.

 

[Superbone]

His biggest problem at this point in time is signing off on the hiring of Lance Blanks.

No, his biggest issue thus far is not having fired him yet and letting him continue to tear the franchise apart from the inside.

 

[slinslin]

No, his biggest issue thus far is not having fired him yet and letting him continue to tear the franchise apart from the inside.

if he fires Blanks he probably has to fire Babby first since Blanks is Babby's guy.

 

[SunsTzu]

if he fires Blanks he probably has to fire Babby first since Blanks is Babby's guy.

I lay more blame on Blanks, but I'd have no issue with seeing Babby sent off.

 

[JCSunsfan]

It wasn't even known the team was going to be put up for sale at the time of the Googs trade and there were other potential buyers in the off-season.

Gugliotta's contract was expiring so he wouldn't have even been on the books by the time the new ownership took over. Trading him was all about getting far enough under the cap so those that owned the team at the time could receive a league payout.

No. It was reported widely at the time that the Suns had to do that deal to cut salary to satisfy the prospective ownershi group.