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.
Agreed - but what followed, bad luck and even more bad decision making, conspired to make sure we definitely weren't getting one:
- JJ's fractured eye socket
- Amare's injury
- The two stupid suspensions against SA
- Trading players - Kurt Thomas, Marcin Gortat - for nothing
- Trading draft picks - Luol Deng, Rajon Rondo - for nothing
Revisiting all the bad trades in all their awful glory it's hard not to get worked up about Robert Sarver:
In 05-06, KT broke his foot late in the season and came back in the playoffs but wasn't in great shape. I think I remember MikeD being hesitant to use him or limiting his minutes because of this. Also Raja injured his calf early in the Mavs series and missed some games which cost us because we had such little depth. The 05-06 was really one of our better teams, even without Amar'e, in terms of skill, IQ, and defense.
Figured I was missing something .. the KT injury - he got a total of 6 minutes in the 05-06 playoffs and that's it. So no Amare, no KT and Nash still got us to the finals on the back of Marion, Diaw, Bell, Tim Thomas and Barbosa.
The more I think about it, the more the Marion-Shaq trade really was a stupid move as it was Nash making us win with mobile guys around him; Shaq changed our whole style and we really didn't need to do that.
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.
Agreed - but what followed, bad luck and even more bad decision making, conspired to make sure we definitely weren't getting one:
- JJ's fractured eye socket
- Amare's injury
- The two stupid suspensions against SA
- Trading players - Kurt Thomas, Marcin Gortat - for nothing
- Trading draft picks - Luol Deng, Rajon Rondo - for nothing
Revisiting all the bad trades in all their awful glory it's hard not to get worked up about Robert Sarver:
Oh I agree. The decisions made based on money and against what was best for the team killed the Suns, along with bad luck and injuries.
"There are 3 rules I live by: never get less than 12 hours sleep, never play cards with a guy with the same first name as a city & never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Everything else is cream cheese."
Figured I was missing something .. the KT injury - he got a total of 6 minutes in the 05-06 playoffs and that's it. So no Amare, no KT and Nash still got us to the finals on the back of Marion, Diaw, Bell, Tim Thomas and Barbosa.
The more I think about it, the more the Marion-Shaq trade really was a stupid move as it was Nash making us win with mobile guys around him; Shaq changed our whole style and we really didn't need to do that.
The funny thing about it to me was that after the '05 season I wrote D'Antoni a hand written letter telling him to not back down from pressure to become more conventional and to double down on what made them special. He never returned with a response, so I hsve no idea if he even read it, haha.
"There are 3 rules I live by: never get less than 12 hours sleep, never play cards with a guy with the same first name as a city & never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Everything else is cream cheese."
I wonder if Ayton will eventually have a career here like Marion's. Finisher, valuable contributor, putting up good numbers, etc. But he's not the engine that makes the train go, so ultimately he is replaceable. And a little underappreciated because he isn't the star folks hoped he would be.
That's certainly how many perceive him now. We will see if DA can eclipse that.
The league needs heroes, villains... and clowns. -- Aztec Sunsfan
I don't think a 7-1 250lb 20/10 center is as replaceable as a 6-7 SF, even as a good or as important as Shawn was to us. And while Ayton may not be "the engine", we may not need him to be. It's also too early to tell on that, tho it'd be nice if it were that obvious as it's what you hope for in a #1 pick. But Pau Gasol made a fine #2 opposite a legit #1 after he left Memphis.
I don't think a 7-1 250lb 20/10 center is as replaceable as a 6-7 SF, even as a good or as important as Shawn was to us. And while Ayton may not be "the engine", we may not need him to be. It's also too early to tell on that, tho it'd be nice if it were that obvious as it's what you hope for in a #1 pick. But Pau Gasol made a fine #2 opposite a legit #1 after he left Memphis.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Booker is “a legit #1” in the same sense as Kobe.
“Are you crazy?! You think I’m going to go for seven years and try to get there? You enjoy the 2030 draft picks that we have holding? I want to try to see the game today.” — Ish 3/13/25
I don't think a 7-1 250lb 20/10 center is as replaceable as a 6-7 SF, even as a good or as important as Shawn was to us. And while Ayton may not be "the engine", we may not need him to be. It's also too early to tell on that, tho it'd be nice if it were that obvious as it's what you hope for in a #1 pick. But Pau Gasol made a fine #2 opposite a legit #1 after he left Memphis.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Booker is “a legit #1” in the same sense as Kobe.
Agreed, which would be a larger issue for us in that case.
I don't think a 7-1 250lb 20/10 center is as replaceable as a 6-7 SF, even as a good or as important as Shawn was to us. And while Ayton may not be "the engine", we may not need him to be. It's also too early to tell on that, tho it'd be nice if it were that obvious as it's what you hope for in a #1 pick. But Pau Gasol made a fine #2 opposite a legit #1 after he left Memphis.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Booker is “a legit #1” in the same sense as Kobe.
Agreed, which would be a larger issue for us in that case.
I don't think he has to be if we also have another legit 1b/2.
Figured I was missing something .. the KT injury - he got a total of 6 minutes in the 05-06 playoffs and that's it. So no Amare, no KT and Nash still got us to the finals on the back of Marion, Diaw, Bell, Tim Thomas and Barbosa.
The more I think about it, the more the Marion-Shaq trade really was a stupid move as it was Nash making us win with mobile guys around him; Shaq changed our whole style and we really didn't need to do that.
The funny thing about it to me was that after the '05 season I wrote D'Antoni a hand written letter telling him to not back down from pressure to become more conventional and to double down on what made them special. He never returned with a response, so I hsve no idea if he even read it, haha.
Ha - I wrote to skateboard companies for free stickers as a kid, moved onto political emails to representatives as a grown up and am now writing a project plan for my home town (wishful thinking!), but have never written to a sports club.
Might need to start doing that as I find it hard to believe Sarver isn't totally a lost cause after revisiting the Marion trade.
I'm going to pull one out of the past. It was Michael Finley's freshman year, November vs. the Lakers. I was at the arena and we were down 10 points...bummer. Than...Mike in particular pulled a rabbit out of his hat...
I'm going to pull one out of the past. It was Michael Finley's freshman year, November vs. the Lakers. I was at the arena and we were down 10 points...bummer. Than...Mike in particular pulled a rabbit out of his hat...
<redacted video>
Wow, that was an amazing comeback with a minute to go. I was at a similar game, had to be in the 80s. Suns came back against Boston and I think it was Jeff Cook who hit the game winner if I remember right.
I'm going to pull one out of the past. It was Michael Finley's freshman year, November vs. the Lakers. I was at the arena and we were down 10 points...bummer. Than...Mike in particular pulled a rabbit out of his hat...
That's a great memory, Vlad. Finley was easily my favorite player on the Suns that year. I thought he would be the star that kept the Suns competitive as Barkley and KJ aged.
The league needs heroes, villains... and clowns. -- Aztec Sunsfan
I'm going to pull one out of the past. It was Michael Finley's freshman year, November vs. the Lakers. I was at the arena and we were down 10 points...bummer. Than...Mike in particular pulled a rabbit out of his hat...
That's a great memory, Vlad. Finley was easily my favorite player on the Suns that year. I thought he would be the star that kept the Suns competitive as Barkley and KJ aged.
I am still unhappy with the Kidd trade. That basically led to the 'malaise' years. (How sad is it that the malaise years are +25-30 win improvements over our current times?)
I'm going to pull one out of the past. It was Michael Finley's freshman year, November vs. the Lakers. I was at the arena and we were down 10 points...bummer. Than...Mike in particular pulled a rabbit out of his hat...
That's a great memory, Vlad. Finley was easily my favorite player on the Suns that year. I thought he would be the star that kept the Suns competitive as Barkley and KJ aged.
I am still unhappy with the Kidd trade. That basically led to the 'malaise' years. (How sad is it that the malaise years are +25-30 win improvements over our current times?)
I think it had more to do with the McDyess fiasco than the Kidd trade. We wouldn’t have been better off with Finley instead of Kidd.
“Are you crazy?! You think I’m going to go for seven years and try to get there? You enjoy the 2030 draft picks that we have holding? I want to try to see the game today.” — Ish 3/13/25
I'm going to pull one out of the past. It was Michael Finley's freshman year, November vs. the Lakers. I was at the arena and we were down 10 points...bummer. Than...Mike in particular pulled a rabbit out of his hat...
That's a great memory, Vlad. Finley was easily my favorite player on the Suns that year. I thought he would be the star that kept the Suns competitive as Barkley and KJ aged.
I am still unhappy with the Kidd trade. That basically led to the 'malaise' years. (How sad is it that the malaise years are +25-30 win improvements over our current times?)
I think it had more to do with the McDyess fiasco than the Kidd trade. We wouldn’t have been better off with Finley instead of Kidd.
