Suns News: Week 1 (10/17/22 - 10/23/22)

[Indy]

I am not looking down on the job at all. It is hard to fill that many hours every day. It takes a special kind of person to do that. And I never said he makes up his sources. I said he doesn't follow journalistic standards where you don't report on something until you have two independent sources.

He is just Flex but with 25 more years of practice.

[JeremyG]

I am not looking down on the job at all. It is hard to fill that many hours every day. It takes a special kind of person to do that. And I never said he makes up his sources. I said he doesn't follow journalistic standards where you don't report on something until you have two independent sources.

He is just Flex but with 25 more years of practice.

Find me any sports reporter who holds to that practice today. Some of them may be more careful to specify when it's only one source, but I don't know of anyone who holds off on reporting the info.

[Drewsprocket]

Sports Journalism is a joke and it’s incredible when we’re given an actual piece of journalism. Beneath sport writing is just sports talk radio which borders on evangelizing fandom and expansive chatter on weekly occurrences and rumors and what ifs. It’s more than reasonable to question the integrity of these dudes’ sources. We’re only debating opinions based on questionable sources anyway. Enjoy!

[ShelC]

[Indy]

I am not looking down on the job at all. It is hard to fill that many hours every day. It takes a special kind of person to do that. And I never said he makes up his sources. I said he doesn't follow journalistic standards where you don't report on something until you have two independent sources.

He is just Flex but with 25 more years of practice.

Find me any sports reporter who holds to that practice today. Some of them may be more careful to specify when it's only one source, but I don't know of anyone who holds off on reporting the info.

When it is their speculation based on things they have heard, they say so. Gambo reports that stuff as fact. He just blurts things out and tries to make it sound factual, and the louder he gets the more obvious it is he is just taking out of his ass. But thousands of people listen to him still, I guess. So it works for him.

[Superbone]

I am not looking down on the job at all. It is hard to fill that many hours every day. It takes a special kind of person to do that. And I never said he makes up his sources. I said he doesn't follow journalistic standards where you don't report on something until you have two independent sources.

He is just Flex but with 25 more years of practice.

Find me any sports reporter who holds to that practice today. Some of them may be more careful to specify when it's only one source, but I don't know of anyone who holds off on reporting the info.

When it is their speculation based on things they have heard, they say so. Gambo reports that stuff as fact. He just blurts things out and tries to make it sound factual, and the louder he gets the more obvious it is he is just taking out of his ass. But thousands of people listen to him still, I guess. So it works for him.

But Indy is not fooled!

[Indy]

lol. It is Gambo. Nobody takes him seriously.

[Superbone]

What does everybody here think? The decision not to extend Jalen Smith was by all accounts very foolish. Was this outgoing Sarver's decision or James Joneses? I sure hope it was our stupid owner's as there was pretty much no good reason to let him go for nothing. What a waste of a draft pick.

[Indy]

We can all agree that it was stupid and a poor use of assets. And I would LOVE to say it was all Sarver. But I can see a world where James Jones wants to prove to himself/the world/his team/sarver/whomever that he doesn't over-value his draft picks, so he doesn't pick up his option. That is the worst-case realistic option I can think of where it was primarily Jones's fault.

[Shabazz]

We can all agree that it was stupid and a poor use of assets. And I would LOVE to say it was all Sarver. But I can see a world where James Jones wants to prove to himself/the world/his team/sarver/whomever that he doesn't over-value his draft picks, so he doesn't pick up his option. That is the worst-case realistic option I can think of where it was primarily Jones's fault.

Maybe they’re just the perfect match between owner and GM. One doesn’t value draft picks and young players for financial reasons. The other for basketball reasons.

Neither makes sense.

[Indy]

We can all agree that it was stupid and a poor use of assets. And I would LOVE to say it was all Sarver. But I can see a world where James Jones wants to prove to himself/the world/his team/sarver/whomever that he doesn't over-value his draft picks, so he doesn't pick up his option. That is the worst-case realistic option I can think of where it was primarily Jones's fault.

Maybe they’re just the perfect match between owner and GM. One doesn’t value draft picks and young players for financial reasons. The other for basketball reasons.

Neither makes sense.

I get what you are saying, but I don't think Sarver dislikes young players for financial reasons. He seems so penny-wise/pound-foolish that he would rather not pay 2M to a young player that isn't good enough to play yet, even if they show promise. He would rather pay 10M to a player that is currently at the mid-point of the young player's potential because they can do it now. He doesn't get how important it is to do both.

[Shabazz]

We can all agree that it was stupid and a poor use of assets. And I would LOVE to say it was all Sarver. But I can see a world where James Jones wants to prove to himself/the world/his team/sarver/whomever that he doesn't over-value his draft picks, so he doesn't pick up his option. That is the worst-case realistic option I can think of where it was primarily Jones's fault.

Maybe they’re just the perfect match between owner and GM. One doesn’t value draft picks and young players for financial reasons. The other for basketball reasons.

Neither makes sense.

I get what you are saying, but I don't think Sarver dislikes young players for financial reasons. He seems so penny-wise/pound-foolish that he would rather not pay 2M to a young player that isn't good enough to play yet, even if they show promise. He would rather pay 10M to a player that is currently at the mid-point of the young player's potential because they can do it now. He doesn't get how important it is to do both.

I’m kind of saying the same thing. NBA offsets a portion of vet min contracts. Not the case with with rookie scale deals. Cheaper to fill your bench with washed vets than promising rookies.

[ShelC]

I think it was a combo of Jones and Monty. I get the feeling Monty wants a specific type of player and personality in the lockerroom and I don't think Stix fit in. He seemed too quiet and reserved. On the court, he's still a tweener and wasn't going to help at PF. Pacers are seeing that now when Stix played next to Turner (he's at the 5 now with Turner out).

I also think, as a coach with such an advanced team that's winning, it's hard to work in a young player who might be a step slow. Not as many teaching moments in practice, not as willing to tolerate mistakes in games, tough for the rest of the team moving at one speed to slow it down for a young guy trying to keep up. The Pacers roster is more or less in line with Stix in terms of young guys developing learning to play and win together.

Jones was probably OK cutting the loss for a win-now veteran they knew and already had in the mix. The issue now is that we've got nothing to show for the last 3 drafts - drafting and trading Stix, dealing for Landry (who's been meh) and then sitting out this past one because of the Paul trade. It's not so much that we're old, we just don't have any talent coming up at key positions (PG and PF).

[Indy]

Also hard to keep a guy like that when you don't even have a g-league team.

[Superbone]

Jones was probably OK cutting the loss for a win-now veteran they knew and already had in the mix. The issue now is that we've got nothing to show for the last 3 drafts - drafting and trading Stix, dealing for Landry (who's been meh) and then sitting out this past one because of the Paul trade. It's not so much that we're old, we just don't have any talent coming up at key positions (PG and PF).

That part sounds very familiar to the Nash years. Sarver is the only thing in common. Just saying. Anyway, I hope it was Sarver versus Jones/Williams but hopefully we'll find out after the new ownership takes over assuming they don't clean house.

[JeremyG]

I thought Sarver learned his lesson from the D’Antoni years. But I guess not.

[Mori Chu]

I think Jones deserves his share of the blame for Stix. I think he felt embarrassed, that he'd failed in his decision to draft Smith, and he felt like the best way to make it right was to trade him away rather than doubling down on his "mistake" by extending him. I think he wanted to show a savvy and a ruthlessness rather than throwing more money at a sunk cost. But I think he overthought it and didn't manage the asset properly.

[Split T]

Trading him was not a mistake…we already made the mistake in not picking up his 3rd year option. Craig didn’t do much for us, but I don’t think Smith was going to play for us either in the playoffs.

All of that is inconsequential to the massive mistake passing on Haliburton was. He was just so obviously the pick and he fell into our laps and we botched it. It makes me ill thinking about how perfect he was…we’d probably have a championship already and we’d have a Haliburton/Booker/Bridges/Johnson/Ayton young core moving forward…It’s definitely a top 3 all time suns blunder and honestly might be 1st. That or not giving Joe Johnson his 5 million more over 6 years.

[Indy]

People keep saying we didn't extend him. That wasn't it; we didn't pick up his rookie option. It was basically free to do, and we said nope.

[Shabazz]

Trading him was not a mistake…we already made the mistake in not picking up his 3rd year option. Craig didn’t do much for us, but I don’t think Smith was going to play for us either in the playoffs.

All of that is inconsequential to the massive mistake passing on Haliburton was. He was just so obviously the pick and he fell into our laps and we botched it. It makes me ill thinking about how perfect he was…we’d probably have a championship already and we’d have a Haliburton/Booker/Bridges/Johnson/Ayton young core moving forward…It’s definitely a top 3 all time suns blunder and honestly might be 1st. That or not giving Joe Johnson his 5 million more over 6 years.

Either that could have been our young core or he could have been the piece in a KD trade.