Exactly
Worse yet is their decision to not pay, then overpay, then cut payroll, then pay more, than dump salary. Each half-hearted move giving up what amounts to probably a first round draft pick if we make things easy and average them out.
$arver was always more enamored that HE COULD save money, that he had ASSETS he could sell, he never thought about SHOULD HE sell those assets.
Worse yet is each one of these moves somehow, I believe $arver internalizes them as ways he can convince himself that he isn't cheap, thus allowing him to make the next cheap move.
So in a sense I suspect we are here because a big stature outside (really small internally) man's ego.
He doesn't want to lose money
-cut $$$/payroll
He doesn't want people to think he's cheap
-so he overreacts the other way by taking on a bad contract or whatnot
his ego feels better....so let's cut payroll again.
Vicious cycle ensues for 4 years. So yeah, ego is a big part of this.
I was thinking more about this yesterday lol, the spoiled factor. One could almost say we could have been spoiled back with Jerry, but in reality that might just be a reason to let $arver off the hook in a convenient fashion.
As in: We've had it good, we shouldn't expect things always to be good, and thus if we aren't, it's okay. Forgetting everything about where we were and what we did to get here, we are just spoiled because we can't take the downturn that comes with every team.
Some big assumptions.
That somehow every team sells off all-stars for nothing. That every team has the most 1st round picks this decade, except has traded/sold about 15 of those off. Every team sells a michalengelo something for a spider man comic, only to sell the spider man comic with his mona lisa for a Don Mattingly Rookie Card. That's $arver, bonehead moves all the way around.
But this (how the suns treated as normal) is just folly. Because again, this team didn't get old, it didn't suffer from pri-maddonas. Some people mention Marion, but please, if he's pri-maddona, really, then Jerry Rice was freaking T.O. Everything about Marion was overblown. Irritating, yes,....cancer, no.
Again the folly would have us to believe that it is normal for teams to have such talent, but remove it because of money.
Hell you could say look at what happened talent wise to our team, and say, wow, the US and world economy is doing the same thing the suns have been doing. I'm not going to delve much into econ, because wrong section, but I really do seem similarities of penny wise, pound foolish, and the fact we just keep selling things off, finding off we can't afford the new 'cuts' (WONDER WHY LOL), and remove more talent via even more cuts, etc. etc. This isn't normal.
You seeing this and knowing isn't normal....IS NORMAL. Trying to blame yourself and saying as a fan your 'spoiled' is asinine.
It's done solely, for bottom line reasons (which really are bull whether here or our econ). We make all our decisions based on what the NUMBERS say. Nothing else but numbers make our decision, and the numbers won't tell us to do anything else, for quite a while.
Both for the Suns, and the economy. Somehow losing the control over making ANY decision, good or bad, is somehow GOOD? NO. Somehow acceptable, or par for the course? NO. Sign of a breakdown in a particular system that been very poorly run and looted? YES.
Also let's break a misconception: Only idiots run everything off the bottom line and think that's their ticket to prosperity.
So I guess I came down with my line of thinking. If you really look objectively and at the big picture. We've never been spoiled as Suns fans, because again, No championships. But with a consistently good product most years, you could say we have enjoyed some of the best basketball anywhere the past 30 years...but no championship = not being spoiled. Almost spoiled, but ultimately not being spoiled.
So again it's not that we're spoiled.
It's that $arver well, just plain is incompetent, tight, and sucks. I'll always love my Suns, but lets call a cheap man, a cheap man, and not start placing blame that it's us.
That's like saying a kid in Africa that's malnourished is their fault. It isn't.
Our perception of our basketball team is correct, we need not give $arver a pass and say it's our perceptions of our teams that is incorrect. No it's $arver's viewpoint that is incorrect, not ours the fans.
If some people want to blame themselves they can, it won't help, and just make you look and feel silly.
It's not our fault the Suns most likely will be average to 'suck' this year. It's not even the players fault. Well it is since they play, but it's not their fault they are on this team. Somebody needs to want and get the players...ahh yes the GM and owner who decides. They decide money over product. 4 years running. Except when they think people think they are cheap, it which case they'll make a bad move so you don't think that.
The funniest thing is, we're not talking like he would have been bankrupt from signing Joe Johnson to that original deal, or didn't trade away our draft picks. It's just been a cheap owner, doing cheap things. He never saved 100 million dollars by slyly trading away a single player that was worth nothing. He was always trading away good/great players for nothing in return. That's cheap. Selling off draft picks (which is the cheapest way to make your team good). That's cheap.
Then let's take this reality, and use it for health care and economy in the real world. Because what I see is that in all 3 of these areas, people are looking at the situation, like we're spoiled Suns fans. When really, it's just a lame reason to look at something that way. Place blame at the individual, instead of the people pulling the strings. Then confuse them by saying money and ownership. Not saying that the $$$ figures of what they are saying doesn't add up, and that simply being an owner does not make ones decisions any better.
If you want to call any fan spoiled you need to look at the teams that have the advantages, and/or the track record. So basically a Yankees or Lakers fan are in this boat. Some might say a few others, or throw in a hockey team as well.
Either way, we should just be realistic and say if for the past 4 years everything about this team has been tearing it down, not allowing the teams potential to reach dynasty, and every move with $$$ solely in mind, how can we be considered spoiled? I say more like tormented.
Don't blame yourself, or else you deserve the punishment you get by bending over and allowing someone to shove their bs of why your teams sucks up your 'you know what', and like it.
But personally I don't let any cheap owner control my mind like that.
With this owner I already have my worst expectations, that he'll consistently make $$$ moves when no moves need to be made, and make the wrong moves when he needs to make a move because the $$$ on that direction seemed better. Or overreact based on public sentiment and make a bad move to try and fail in swaying minds that they aren't cheap. So we need to roll boxcars 4 times in a row before we make a good move huh. No wonder we trend towards suck.
People have been using $$$ as an excuse to be a horrible decision maker since money was invented. But we all should know that's just bull.
Again this whole thread is based on someone who at least sub-consciously believes what $arver is selling. That it's your mind's fault that the Suns don't appear to be as fun to watch as they used to.
I say don't give up an inch. He has the right to be whatever owner he wants. But he doesn't have the right nor the power the make cheap decisions and expect us to believe his reasons are valid nor will we believe what the politburo says.
Because if you do believe him, if you do believe that we needed to do all of this, and that we couldn't of gone down any other road but incompetence, than that's exactly what type of information you would believe if it was around, the politburo.
Propaganda is propaganda, and the one place it belongs, and is definitely alive and well is in sports. So don't blind yourself to that. Just realize, when a tightwad owner is getting you to believe this was all necessary, you think about what the Lakers and Yankees do every year, and realize that $arver is selling you a load of bull.
Because all told, with this dismantling of our team over the past 4 years. How much has $arver saved? Well I won't get into lost revenue, because if one realized how much he lost revenue wise by having a crappy team, there would already be no need to even do this.
But forgetting that, how much did $arver save. 20-30 million dollars? For all these moves. Maybe 40? Of course he didn't really save that, since he would have to use some of these saving later on as a natural course of things, and of course he always overcompensated by adding even more salary (that you then knew would cost draft picks to get rid off).
But would a spoiled fan have to endure what we did for 40 million dollars tops? How much of that 40 million would have been paid off by even 1 championship. Then realize we probably would of had 3 by now and 5-6 total in a few years.
Next chapter: What psycho meds to the public at large need to be developed to get people who realize this, yet in subsequent years will still back $arver's reasons.
So really we did this for NOTHING. There has been no savings for $arver, and glory for the Suns. The only thing $arver accomplished was this. To reduce costs (in the single, short term moment) to the team during moments he could using assets he could. Then screwing those moves off by doing the opposite.
That's it. He didn't save, he didn't make money, he sure didn't put a better team on the court. He saved short term money, that was then lost by the end of the year via less revenue had he spent the money. He cut costs, and his revenue dropped accordingly. It's not your eyes, it's not your heart, it's not that your are 'spoiled'. It's that you've convinced yourself you are the problem of the matter. When really the only thing running things is $$$. Hell you could say $arver is just a conduit through which his $$$ beliefs shine through. Because the bottom line determines everything.
No wonder things have fallen off the cliff everywhere. Because such thought is now almost probably the norm for the lay person across all industries. Don't blame the real problem, look inward, and blame yourself.
But since $arver is a banker, and everything revolves around playing the bankers games' these days, I guess I shouldn't be so shocked how much at this point its permeated everything. Because in one way you really can say The Suns are the Economy, and the Economy's problems are the same as the Suns problems. 4 years from now, things will be different, and seeing what those 2 variables become will be interesting.
I'll end with one of my favorite quotes from 'Weird Science' via Bill Paxton..aka Chet.
"For Christ's sake, will you cover yourself" - taking off his bath towel (naked underneath) to cover up his brother (wearing women's underwear).
In this instance I play the role of chet, the person who blames themselves is the brother (wyatt) wearing women's underwear. It's so bad, that Chet has to get naked just to cover you up....because it's so obvious what wyatt is doing is wrong.
