elindholm
edited for content
Yes, I agree, but it's more for Nash's benefit than for the Suns'. I reject the argument that Nash is interfering with the development of other players on the roster. In fact I think we'd agree that the rest of the roster has developed far more this year than most of us would have expected.
That isn't going to change any time soon. That's the reality that I suspect some people are denying. Each season, the number of teams who wind up with the best player in the draft and the number of teams who win the title is exactly the same: one each, out of 30.
I'm not sure whether this is a typo, but in fact top-tier stars most definitely did come to the Suns before Sarver. Tom Chambers was a top-ten player when the Suns signed him, Barkley won the MVP in his first Phoenix year, etc.
I completely disagree. Cheesebeef keeps making the point that Nash isn't a megastar anymore. And yet the Suns' current win pace, if the season were 82 games, would put them at 45 or 46 wins for the season. So you're saying that they're a 20-win team without Nash, and that therefore Nash, the broken-down one-dimensional fading legend that he is, is responsible for 25 wins? I don't buy it.
I guess your threshold for believability is pretty strict. Has the Pistons' recent run been unbelievable? How about the Kings'? The Wolves'? Whether those teams have better short-term futures than the Suns is debatable, but you can't possibly say with a straight face that they're building toward a championship contender. And how long have they been dipping into the lottery's magic brew?
Marion is borderline. As for Stoudemire, how many times in the last 20 years has the best player in his draft class fallen to #9? Once.
I agree that the draft is a better option. The debate, I thought, had more to do with right now: whether it was better to overachieve for the #8 seed or instead spin the wheel on a 50-to-1 lottery shot because the roster is "old." Which it isn't.
No, but I acknowledge that it isn't possible to predict what may happen down the road. Who knows what star player might decide in the summer of 2014 or 2015 that he really wants to come to Phoenix as a free agent? I agree that it's unlikely, but not that much more unlikely than hoping to strike it rich in the draft. Take a serious look at all of the franchises who have been bad for the last several years and ask yourself, how many of those are really building a contender? Are you really that excited to get the Suns on that path absolutely as quickly as possible?
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