carey wrote:Reddit thread on a speech Sarver gave to season ticket holders.
Every year Sarver gives a speech to season ticket holders sharing his thoughts on the team. I've been about as vocal as anyone on this sub in saying his attitude and personality have held the team back but I was impressed with his candor last night and I thought you guys would like to hear some of his thoughts. I was pretty surprised just how similar his views were to the majority of this sub.
-Started with Explanation of the CBA and how hard it will be for vets to move around and those restrictions to bird rights and similar are only going to be tougher after the Durant move. As one of the guys leading this charge in CBA negotiations, he would know.
-"it takes 3 all stars to contend" the goal is to get 3 all-stars, one team has 3 another has 4 we can't contend right now.
-no veteran free agents this summer.
-2020, Repeated several times that the timeline is to have the 3 stars and contend by 2020.
Views on current roster
-Bledsoe is close to being an all-star
-Booker will be an all star
-Chriss and bender could be all stars
-Ullis and Jones Jr are on really good deals for their talent
Recent moves
-PJ was told he was going to a playoff team a few days before to clear minutes, wanted to stay, did not ask to be traded.
-Tyson was given the option of going to a contender, or sitting out the rest of the year, asked to stay and sit. The Bulls did this to Brad Miller and Charles Oakley his rookie year for him and Curry so he thought it was a good idea.
Draft
-the Scouting department thinks this is the best draft since '03 (Lebron, wade, melo)
-Pick will be top 7. pretty conservative guess, right now it is slated as #3.
-didn't mention any prospect by name or position.
Interesting stuff, thanks Carey. It seems fairly reasonable from Sarver, although Bledsoe being nearly an All-Star is debatable at best (and also has unnerving similarities to the Knight "almost an all star in the east"). It's also far too early to make a call on Chriss or Bender.
But it is good that they seem to have a clear plan. Hopefully they stick to it and, of course, execute it properly.
At leadt he recognizes what needs to happen, although I am just not a fan of putting all my eggs in the Bledsoe basket.
"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."
No veteran free agents this summer is reassuring. And that he didn't seem all that attached to knight is a good sign. I'm almost willing to overlook the Bledsoe factor.
pickle wrote:No veteran free agents this summer is reassuring. And that he didn't seem all that attached to knight is a good sign. I'm almost willing to overlook the Bledsoe factor.
I suspect the strategy is to take BPA. The real question is whether the FO can figure out who that is.
“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
When Bender comes back he should get all the minutes Dudley is playing. If we then draft a guard that would take Barbosa's minutes. That would mean besides Bledsoe and possibly Len everyone else getting playing time will be on a rookie contract.
EDC wrote:When Bender comes back he should get all the minutes Dudley is playing. If we then draft a guard that would take Barbosa's minutes. That would mean besides Bledsoe and possibly Len everyone else getting playing time will be on a rookie contract.
Which would be pretty noteworthy and impressive. For all the complaining we have done, that would be a really young and rising team.
Phoenix entered short-handed. With center Alex Len out with a hip issue, Watson started rookie Derrick Jones Jr. (20) for the first time, shifting T.J. Warren (23) to power forward and Chriss (19) at center. Along with Booker (20) and point guard Eric Bledsoe (27), it gave the Suns their youngest starting five in team history at an average age of 22 years, 64 days.
To put that in perspective, Villanova won the Big East tournament on Saturday with a starting lineup averaging 21.6 years. Arizona's starters in the Pac-12 Tournament averaged 20.8. At the same time, this marked the second time this season the Suns have set this mark. The first came Nov. 8 at Portland. The Suns lost that night.
Would love to see us start Ulis(21) Booker(20) Jones Jr (20) Bender (19) Chriss (19) at some point. That's a record young lineup that I don't imagine would ever be broken. Average age of 19.8
pickle wrote:No veteran free agents this summer is reassuring. And that he didn't seem all that attached to knight is a good sign. I'm almost willing to overlook the Bledsoe factor.
What if it (Bledsoe factor) affects our draft?
Let's hope they are not that delusional. Plus I don't mind Josh Jackson. Earlier in the season someone asked what we should do if we got the #1 and I voted for trading down to 3 and 6 (yes lots of hypotheticals) and taking Jackson and the French pg (don't want to murder his last name).
pickle wrote:No veteran free agents this summer is reassuring. And that he didn't seem all that attached to knight is a good sign. I'm almost willing to overlook the Bledsoe factor.
What if it (Bledsoe factor) affects our draft?
Let's hope they are not that delusional. Plus I don't mind Josh Jackson. Earlier in the season someone asked what we should do if we got the #1 and I voted for trading down to 3 and 6 (yes lots of hypotheticals) and taking Jackson and the French pg (don't want to murder his last name).
That's my dream scenario. Jackson and Ntilikina. Well besides the impossible Fultz and Jackson
pickle wrote:Fultz and Jackson seems too much to hope for. We have not had good karma in a while but we aren't the Kings. Don't dream too big.
Haha, that's why its my impossible scenario. We land #1 pick and take Fultz, 2-4 go Ball, Smith Jr. and Monk. Orlando sitting at 5 really wants a PG but doesn't like Fox or Ntilikina. We trade Bledsoe in a package to Orlando for the 5th pick and select Jackson.
Nonsense. If you want to see the Suns contend, you have to dream it, because it ain't happening in reality.
Let's serenade the Larry O'Brien trophy:
[youtube][/youtube]
“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
The Cavaliers didn't have to dream and they got the number 1 pick 3 out of 5 years. Sometimes life isn't fair and that goes for basketball too. We're approaching 0 out of 50.
^ Stuff like that, and the Magic getting Penny when they had Shaq, and the Lakers doing unnaturally well in the lotto, and the 85 Knicks frozen envelope theory, ... I sometimes kind of wonder about the lottery. The fact that they don't just pull the balls out live on TV is really fishy to me. They do it in a locked room. Why would they do that if it were on the level?
Marty [Mori Chu] wrote:^ Stuff like that, and the Magic getting Penny when they had Shaq, and the Lakers doing unnaturally well in the lotto, and the 85 Knicks frozen envelope theory, ... I sometimes kind of wonder about the lottery. The fact that they don't just pull the balls out live on TV is really fishy to me. They do it in a locked room. Why would they do that if it were on the level?
Marty [Mori Chu] wrote:^ Stuff like that, and the Magic getting Penny when they had Shaq, and the Lakers doing unnaturally well in the lotto, and the 85 Knicks frozen envelope theory, ... I sometimes kind of wonder about the lottery. The fact that they don't just pull the balls out live on TV is really fishy to me. They do it in a locked room. Why would they do that if it were on the level?
I'm gonna have to say, because there's not a lot of entertainment value in this... it's not like the mark a ping pong ball with each team's logo... they actually do numbers combinations. Now why they don't do the ping pong ball with a logo thing, that's a different question.
