Colangelo knew basketball, and was always the final say on BBall decisions. Very few owners will be like him.
Sarver doesn't need to be a hoops guy, but he does need to be a good business guy. He needs to know how to hire and manage leaders, recognize value, and lead toward the big picture without getting distracted. He's terrible at all of those things.
Colangelo had been a college and semi-pro player, a Business Manager for the Bulls, and the General Manager for the Suns, building the organization from the ground up. By the time he became the owner he had been Executive of the Year a couple of times. His basketball knowledge and Sarver's are about as far apart as you could ever want to find.
Sarver's main problem is that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. He thinks that he knows talent and how a coach should run his team, but he really doesn't have that kind of knowledge. Those sorts of things need to be left to people qualified to make those decisions. Colangelo could wear all of those hats because he had been through it all.
As for Colangelo's two stints as interim coach, this is from a totally different era, when the coach was fired and there was no assistant coach to take over. Colangelo was probably the most qualified person in the organization to fill in as interim coach at those times, so he did.
Author of The Basketball Draft Fact Book: A History of Professional Basketball's College Drafts
Available from Scarecrow Press at - https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810890695
I’m Lukewarm on McDonough, but we also have to acknowledge that a lot of his decisions are strongly influenced by either Sarver’s directive or his budget.
Sarver is largely regarded as trash to work for around the league and is disliked by players. I have little angst with McD other than him chasing off Dragic. I think suns mgt have to make due when it comes to Sarver. I really think McD and Igor were over ruled by Sarver who is holding onto the 90s b-ball era. Ayton likely will be in the least a top 10 center.
Had it been my pick, I would have drafted Doncic and let Igor ran the offense off him and Booker and traded for Whiteside who’s still available.
You are right, but I've seen some extremes in my working career and in this case think that Sarver is not someone that can be managed, period.
They may be the case, and I have seen it too. But wouldn't that support the case that McD hasn't been good in his job? The root cause doesn't matter.
I don't think it supports either case. If we quantify this, let's say a team is at 0 with no personnel in place. Sarver puts the team -100, deeply behind the curve. A crappy GM may make it worse, say -150, or make it slightly better, say -75. If all the other teams are at 0 or above, then we can't really tell the difference. I am not able to judge how bad McD is because I cannot find any evidence to judge him independently on those personnel decisions. If anything, maybe the Knight decision was his alone (unless Sarver also wanted to dictate the on court product and insisted on two "near all star" caliber starting pgs on the team, which isn't outside the realm of possibility either). If that was due to him then that's really awful and I would say McD has done much more bad than good, but I don't know that for certain.
I’m Lukewarm on McDonough, but we also have to acknowledge that a lot of his decisions are strongly influenced by either Sarver’s directive or his budget.
Sarver is largely regarded as trash to work for around the league and is disliked by players. I have little angst with McD other than him chasing off Dragic. I think suns mgt have to make due when it comes to Sarver. I really think McD and Igor were over ruled by Sarver who is holding onto the 90s b-ball era. Ayton likely will be in the least a top 10 center.
Had it been my pick, I would have drafted Doncic and let Igor ran the offense off him and Booker and traded for Whiteside who’s still available.
I love Doncic and wish we had the foresight to trade down, say to #3 and get an asset from the Hawks, or at least to dump some salary on them, and pick up Doncic. But I have almost 0 interest in Whiteside. Wouldn't have minded throwing that 4 year 90 mil contract at Capela though.