Suns Videos That Make Me Happy

[3rdside]

Excited or shocked may be a better way to describe it as it was a blockbuster trade, and I do recall having doubts about losing such a core piece in Marion. But in the vein of fanatic optimism I've been guilty of I was definitely focused on the upside.

[Indy]

That pass at 5:40...

That one at 6:00 too.

And we should have won a ring that year. I still can't believe we lost to Dallas. We would have destroyed the Heat.

[In2ition]

In the Rejecting the Screen podcast recently, Marion said that he had requested a trade prior to that season. It's too bad it didn't work out, and it's too bad his feelings for the organization deteriorated so badly that he wanted out of the 7SOL time. In my mind, if Sarver hadn't been so cash poor after purchasing the team and had given Joe Johnson the $5 million over the length of his contract like he asked, we would have had a title and they would have been together at least another 3 yrs.

[ShelC]

I don't think anything would've changed had JJ been re-signed. Those guys, to some extent, were selfish and wanted their own shine. JJ would've asked out just the same IMO and Shawn probably built things up in his own head about being underappreciated so much that nothing would satisfy him. In the 7SOL book it was touched on and the coaches knew they had to baby/tip toe around him but knew he was a good guy overall.

For me tho, I think Shawn's sensitivity was kind of unwarranted because we didn't have any real superstar divas. Nash and Amar'e weren't "me" guys looking for all the credit or media attention. It's not like he was playing with a Jimmy Butler or Kyrie or Melo. We had great teams, he was getting his numbers and had his max money.

[Mori Chu]

Also, didn't we censor Longley on this site?

I turned off all the person-name censorship settings about a month ago. It was kind of funny to have somebody like Longley or Marcus Banks or Hedo Turkoglu get censored out, but I thought ultimately I didn't want the site to block people from typing these names.

[Split T]

I don’t think Marion had a problem with Nash or Amare...it’s just when people talked about the suns in the media, it was Nash’s team. Then Amare. Shawn was always 3rd. Nash was definitely the most important piece, but Shawn was equally as important to our success as Amare was. He did a lot of things that don’t show up in the box score and often go unnoticed. The fact that we were a decent defensive team with Amare at C and Nash at PG is almost all because of Shawn. He should have been a DPOY candidate.

[Mori Chu]

Marion was an amazing player, but he was an idiot for expecting more adulation. He was what he was: a great 2nd or 3rd option on a contender. Everybody acknowledged how great he was and that he was one of our core stars. He was paid handsomely. He made All-Star teams. Any disrespect he felt was just in his own head. He was mad that people didn't rank him ahead of Amare or Nash, but when he left our team he was a role player at best. He was not capable of being the #1 guy on a good team, and I don't know what he wanted everyone to think/say about him when he was deeply dependent on guys like Nash and Amare to be great himself. It'd be like if Draymond Green insisted that he was the reason for the Warriors' titles rather than others like Curry or Thompson.

[O_Gardino]

I sometimes wonder if Marion's feeling underappreciated had to do with Mike D's star-centric coaching style, or with his reduced touches.

That aside, us fans should remember him as one of the Suns greatest. He could stuff the stat sheet and he was always doing something good on the court.

Code: Select all

Season  Points  Rebounds    Steals  Blocks
'00-'01 1st     1st         2nd     1st
02      2nd     1st         1st     1st
03      2nd     1st         1st     1st
04      2nd     1st         1st     2nd
05      2nd     1st         1st     2nd
06      1st     1st         1st     1st
07      4th     1st         1st     1st
08      3rd     1st         1st     2nd

For those who like advanced stats, he also lead the team in win shares 5 of those seasons.

[ShelC]

There's a part of me that thinks if we had a stable and experienced FO, someone could've sat him down and made him feel better, more appreciated or worked to get him more recognition through the marketing team (ie, a hard push/campaign for DPOY). But everything was always in flux, there was the "win now" pressure and everyone pointing to the small lineup not working in the playoffs. Kerr came on and I'm sure wanted to make his mark and inherited an unhappy Shawn. It was like we were winning in spite of our FO shortcomings.

Admittedly, there was a part of me that took a little pleasure seeing him get traded to teams (Heat and Raps) that weren't great fits for him and, like Mori said, made him look more average.

[In2ition]

I think I agree with all of you. Jerry and Bryan leaving hurt the relationships with the FO. Marion did get slighted, but he was one of the best 3rd-4th option type players in the history of the league and he really held things together in his way and was the best at it, but he was more replaceable than Nash was. Grant Hill came in and did a good job replacing what he did. He was also slighted by the National media and should have very well been named to an All-Defensive team multiple times in his career.

[Split T]

Marion was an amazing player, but he was an idiot for expecting more adulation. He was what he was: a great 2nd or 3rd option on a contender. Everybody acknowledged how great he was and that he was one of our core stars. He was paid handsomely. He made All-Star teams. Any disrespect he felt was just in his own head. He was mad that people didn't rank him ahead of Amare or Nash, but when he left our team he was a role player at best. He was not capable of being the #1 guy on a good team, and I don't know what he wanted everyone to think/say about him when he was deeply dependent on guys like Nash and Amare to be great himself. It'd be like if Draymond Green insisted that he was the reason for the Warriors' titles rather than others like Curry or Thompson.

I think Marion would have been fine if he got the praise that Draymond got for what he did for GS

[ShelC]

Draymond also gets noticed because of his personality, his antics, his mouth. Shawn was too low key for all that. We actually had a pretty subdued group of guys overall. Maybe that's part of what cost us too.

[Superbone]

That pass at 5:40...

That one at 6:00 too.

And we should have won a ring that year. I still can't believe we lost to Dallas. We would have destroyed the Heat.

We did absolutely destroy the Heat a couple times during that regular season. I remember one game was one of our best start to end blowouts of all time.

[Superbone]

As good a player as Marion was, he was mentally weak. I just remember that cartoons were his favorite TV programming.

[Split T]

A little strange, but I don’t think liking cartoons made him mentally weak...he craved recognition and not getting as much as he felt he deserved probably played a role in him leaving. I never saw any indication that it ever affected his play or his relationship with his teammates.

[Superbone]

A little strange, but I don’t think liking cartoons made him mentally weak...he craved recognition and not getting as much as he felt he deserved probably played a role in him leaving. I never saw any indication that it ever affected his play or his relationship with his teammates.

Come on. You've got to admit he wasn't the smartest guy, know what I'm sayin'? Did you ever hear anything deep out of him?

[Split T]

No I didn’t, but there’s plenty of players I never heard any deep or intellectual comments from. He was a smart basketball player...that’s what mattered.

[Superbone]

No I didn’t, but there’s plenty of players I never heard any deep or intellectual comments from. He was a smart basketball player...that’s what mattered.

He was a great basketball player. That, I think, we can all agree on.

[Split T]

No I didn’t, but there’s plenty of players I never heard any deep or intellectual comments from. He was a smart basketball player...that’s what mattered.

He was a great basketball player. That, I think, we can all agree on.

Yes we can

[3rdside]

Talking just about his playing not the off court stuff ... I love the underrated, background, doing all the things, glue kind of guys; Andre Kirilenko, Ben Wallace, Lamar Odom, Draymond Green, Boris Diaw and Scottie Pippen even.

Good timing as the guy that wrote 7SOL was on the Locked on Suns pod and talks about Marion - from 23.00 minutes on. Says he was justified in feeling underappreciated on one hand but he dealt with it pretty badly on the other:

https://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2020 ... llum-joins