I've had a couple days to process this, but it is unusual that I haven't had a chance to post within the first 30 pages of this thread.
First of all, I am happy that Ryan is gone. He had some hits, and he had some misses, but he was NEVER going to be the guy to take us to the promised land. Someone on the radio said that giving James Jones this trial run for this season may tell us whether he's going to be a good GM or not. I can't help but notice the parallels between this situation and the way Earl Watson was hired as HC. The only difference I can see is that Jones has had a full year in the organization in an "official" front office role, which is more than you can say for Watson up until his interim tag.
As for this offseason, there is some good and there is some bad. The bad really is the trading. I like Mikal Bridges, and I've been on record saying that the Miami pick wasn't as golden an asset as others have said, but we turned Zhaire Smith, the Miami pick, Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss into Bridges, Ryan Anderson and DeAnthony Melton. Oh, and the Bridges pick was actually the Laker pick we had given up when we acquired Knight in the first place. The irony is not lost, and to me, that is a huge "x" on Ryan's record.
But I think mostly this is about where we are on the PG front. Which is, nowhere. We can't know what's happened behind the scenes, but the fact that we don't have a point guard yet is a problem. I'm also speculating, that when Sarver approved the Knight/Chriss trade, he approved it on the caveat that Ryan would soon after acquire a point guard. That obviously has not happened, and Sarver was probably already on the fence about the front office to begin with, so there's your tipping point.
A lot has been thrown at the feet of Sarver, and yes, he is definitely not our favorite person, but this was the right move for this team. Ayton and Booker aside, our scouting has been atrocious, which is supposed to be Ryan's specialty. So firing Ryan and the head scout was the right play.
A lot has also been made about the timing. A talking head on ESPN, I don't know who, made an interesting point about the timing. Hiring a GM before the draft is dicey because there is a very small window of time for whoever the new GM is to research the team enough to have good input about draft picks and even trades later in the summer. I don't know if that's a GOOD point, but it's something to think about.
And then we come to Igor. Many have been complaining about WHY would you let a GM you're going to fire hire a new coach, draft four guys, sign a free agent and make trades and THEN fire him? Well, regardless who the GM is, Igor was the right hire, IMO. He was IMO the best available coach at the time, and I have no regrets about that. Drafting Ayton was a no-brainer, and it's a good possibility that both Bridges and Okobo will work out. We got Bridges, who I think is a good player and could become Trevor Ariza sooner rather than later. The only "not great" move that I felt Ryan has made this summer was not picking up a starting-caliber point guard. Everything else I thought was fine, and in fact, last week I would have given us a B+, if not an A, for this summer's moves.
So it all boils down to the moves that Ryan DIDN'T make this offseason and his blunders of offseason's past. Justified? Yes. Bad timing? Probably.
But for the best IMO, so I'm not going to rake Sarver over the coals for this one.
