Are The Suns Cursed? Book it!

[1tinsoldier]

Here’s a question, how many teams do you think you could slide Booker in place of their SG and be a contender?

Here’s who I think

OKC with Booker instead of Jalen Williams
Houston with Booker instead of Jalen Green
Lakers with Booker instead of Austin Reaves
Nuggets with Booker instead of Murray
Warriors with Booker instead of Podz(this one probably isn’t fair)

That’s probably it in the West.

Cavs with Booker instead of Mitchell
Celtics with Booker instead of Brown or White
Knicks with Booker instead of Bridges
Bucks with Booker instead of Trent


That’s 9 teams Book would fit right in on and be a championship contender with. Lots of other teams he’d make a good team.

I think it’s hard to build a contender with him as your best player, but it’s quite easy with him as your 2nd best.

you're talking mostly about current championship contenders without Booker. With Booker i believe their chances go down. Like the other Booker lovers, you keep forgetting that OTHER side of the court. Booker is a defensive liability and the teams you're talking about already have enough offensive firepower.

the only team that might work with Booker as a 3rd option is OKC because they have enough defensive prowess to compensate

[Split T]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

[1tinsoldier]

I will not continue to discuss this with you. It is pointless. Ishbia is in control. Not you nor I. Hate away.

if it is pointless to discuss Booker's value because Ishbia is in control, why engage in a Suns discussion forum at all? I'd be delighted to let you cop out of THE critical question regarding the Suns future if you had not ended your post with a personal attack insinuating my opinion is based on "hate."

so. Simple question:

Do you believe building around Booker with a 70 mil per year deal is in the Suns best interest?

Since I was gone from the site, three posters have answered your question pretty eloquently. And you must admit that a lot of this thread appears to be "hating", if you're honest with yourself. There are better ways to present your arguments. Especially when you label all posters that don't agree with you. That is a conversation ender right there.

i don't see any post that answers my question about whether Booker will ever be worth 70 mil. There's nothing indicating he's worth 50 mil now. Some formula one guy came up with that doesn't even take into account defensive stats is crap. IT'S JUST AS IMPORTANT IF NOT MORE-SO. Booker led the +/- again tonight with -32 and the team is 9 games under 500. Throw that into your tariff, uh, i mean bball formula.

and i don't give a damn if you say my posts are "hating" because they ARE! I'm HATING this effing season and i hate Booker the same way i hate Russell Westbrook. I don't know whether they're good guys or bad guys off the court. All i can say is that on the court, i hate that they're both losers with impressive offensive stats.

[1tinsoldier]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

sure you can. just try imagining he's me

[Superbone]

So your theory is that if you can convince every single Suns' fan that we should move on from Booker that Ishbia will trade him?! LOL! Good luck with that!

... I'm a Suns fan through and through. I have never in my life followed a player to another team.

i don't understand your logic:

why would i have to convince "every single Sun's fan?"

why would a "Suns fan through and through" put fandom for 1 player above the future interest of the Suns without presenting one valid reason for paying him 70 million per season.

You said:

"actually, it's only because Ishbia believes local fans have been indoctrinated with the Booker myth, that he won't let Booker go. So...if you let go, Booker could go."

Either you are saying, I alone have the power to get Ishbia to trade Booker or all the fans do. The logic is based on what you said.

Well logic would say he needs to convince a majority of the fans, not necessarily all.

Good enough.

[JJ Slim]

i don't see any post that answers my question about whether Booker will ever be worth 70 mil. There's nothing indicating he's worth 50 mil now.

I've got a slightly different take. IF Booker really loves the Suns and not just his salary and knows that his salary is ham stringing the Suns ability to surround him with the players that will allow him and the Suns to succeed why wouldn't he consider renegotiating his contract either down or extended with a lower yearly rate? I believe back when Barkley was trying to be brought to the team that other players took pay cuts or lesser terms in order to allow the trade to succeed. I don't know if mutually agreeing to renegotiating a contract is even allowed but if it is that should be considered. The same goes for both Durant and especially Beal with his NTC. I know they all "earned" it but remember the old saying "What have you done for me lately?"

[Split T]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

sure you can. just try imagining he's me

I’m sorry if you think I hate you…I just don’t understand you

[ShelC]

i don't see any post that answers my question about whether Booker will ever be worth 70 mil. There's nothing indicating he's worth 50 mil now.

I've got a slightly different take. IF Booker really loves the Suns and not just his salary and knows that his salary is ham stringing the Suns ability to surround him with the players that will allow him and the Suns to succeed why wouldn't he consider renegotiating his contract either down or extended with a lower yearly rate? I believe back when Barkley was trying to be brought to the team that other players took pay cuts or lesser terms in order to allow the trade to succeed. I don't know if mutually agreeing to renegotiating a contract is even allowed but if it is that should be considered. The same goes for both Durant and especially Beal with his NTC. I know they all "earned" it but remember the old saying "What have you done for me lately?"

His salary won't hamstring the Suns. It's not hamstringing the Suns now. It's having 2 other stars making $50mil that's hamstringing us, making up too top heavy and reliant on 3 players while trying to fill out a bulk of the roster with minimum contracts.

It's very rare a guy will turn down money and I think the CBA prohibits negotiating an existing contract. We could maybe frontload the contract and make it descending so that he makes less annually as gets older and we need to fill in gaps on the roster. He could take a bit less than the max extension of $350m or whatever it is if it helps with some of the apron stuff but expecting some bigger discount isn't realistic IMO.

[The Bobster]

It's against the rules of the collective bargaining agreement to negotiate down an existing salary. And I don't see him asking for less than a maximum contract extension. Thinking he's going to give the Suns a discount is a fairy tale.

[JJ Slim]

It's against the rules of the collective bargaining agreement to negotiate down an existing salary. And I don't see him asking for less than a maximum contract extension. Thinking he's going to give the Suns a discount is a fairy tale.

I was afraid of that. Wishful thinking then. At this point we don't have much else.

[JeremyG]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

Then it seems you must have missed the 5 years of Hayton on this board.

[Split T]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

Then it seems you must have missed the 5 years of Hayton on this board.

Well I was talking about myself…Ayton certainly got a lot of hate…I never hated him, though I understood that one more.

[Superbone]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

Then it seems you must have missed the 5 years of Hayton on this board.

Well I was talking about myself…Ayton certainly got a lot of hate…I never hated him, though I understood that one more.

More disappointment and what could have been for me.

[The Bobster]

Exasperation is more like it.

[1tinsoldier]

His salary won't hamstring the Suns. It's not hamstringing the Suns now. It's having 2 other stars making $50mil that's hamstringing us, making up too top heavy and reliant on 3 players while trying to fill out a bulk of the roster with minimum contracts.

it didn't hamstring us this year only because of our new owner's temporary, irrational exuberance. Ishbia is not Sarver, but he's not an idiot.

is this going to be the best arguments going forward?"

1. that Booker will negotiate his contract DOWN?
extremely unlikely! Even if it happened it wouldn't be low enough to compensate for his defensive deficiencies as the guy on the court the most.

2. that we can do without 2 other superstar salaries?
Two other superstars is precisely what we'd need to compete for a championship with Booker.

[1tinsoldier]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

Then it seems you must have missed the 5 years of Hayton on this board.

and, this season, Nurkic (our highest rated defender this season. Booker is worst rated of any player averaging over 5 minutes).

[Wally_West]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

Then it seems you must have missed the 5 years of Hayton on this board.

and, this season, Nurkic (our highest rated defender this season. Booker is worst rated of any player averaging over 5 minutes).

1tinsolder is just secretly JeremyG’s burner to finally unleash his darkest inner Book feelings cuz he last guy on the team to hurt Ayton’s baby feelings. Jeremy won’t root for this team until everyone who betrayed Ayton is gone.

[Split T]

What are we even doing here? Nurkic? He was awful this year.

No one thinks Booker is some great defensive player. I do have concerns on how he played defense this year, but I have bigger concerns about some of our other guys who have less offensive responsibility. The problem is we ran way too many lineups asking Booker to be our best perimeter defender. That’s lunacy.

This season just needs to be flushed…I honestly don’t think anything can be gleaned from it. The past tells a better story. Booker showed he could be either 1a or 1b on a team that went to the finals. He followed that up by being the best player on the clear best regular season team(and franchise best regular season). Those both tell me more than this mess of a year.

I’ve said before that I get wanting to move off Booker…I would even seriously consider it because I doubt we can make the necessary moves to build a true contender again in the short term, but all this talk that you’d need 2 superstars better than him is just factually not true. The opposite has already been proven.

Also 3 years in a row our defense ranked 9th, 3rd, and 7th…all with Booker on it, so that tells me you can build a good defense around Booker if you have the right guys.

[iLLmatic]

You guys are hilarious sometimes. I can’t imagine hating a player as much as you guys seem to hate Booker.

Then it seems you must have missed the 5 years of Hayton on this board.

and, this season, Nurkic (our highest rated defender this season. Booker is worst rated of any player averaging over 5 minutes).

1tinsolder is just secretly JeremyG’s burner to finally unleash his darkest inner Book feelings cuz he last guy on the team to hurt Ayton’s baby feelings. Jeremy won’t root for this team until everyone who betrayed Ayton is gone.

I know you're probably joking but 1tin has been around for a minute lol...that's a super long play if true haha

[The Bobster]

Yeah, I do think it's a bit too much when there's a lot of vitriol toward a player because they're not performing well - Beal is getting it now, Nurkic got it, so did Ayton. That's always the case on forums.

I try to limit myself to being critical of a player's play and not make it personal unless it's something like the Morris boys or Jerrod Mustaf. Sometimes they's assholes and it's okay to call them on that. And players like Draymond Green or Dillon Brooks who cross the line into dirty play too often deserve to be called out on it too. It's while also okay to criticize a player who doesn't show up in shape, mocking a player who may have a real problem (like the Gorilla did to Oliver Miller) just isn't acceptable.

We just need to police ourselves a little better and keep in mind what is really approriate criticism and what is out of line. A lot of the criticism of this year's team is justified, and I will be the first to call them out for lack of effort, but the vitriol towards them sometimes is a little much.