The Mike Budenholzer / James Jones problem

[The Bobster]

Thanks for laying this out, Bobster! Thoughts?

The first half of his tenure was pretty good. The second half has been pretty shaky.

Yes, I noticed that trend as well. How much of that is Ishbia influenced I guess would be another question. Is it possible Sarver was better at being hands off with him?

I don't know how "hands off" Sarver was though.

I think another question you can ask is "Is this what it looks like if Jones isn't encumbered by strict budget? Are we seeing the moves he would have made the forst half of his time here too if he could have?

I am willing to consider that Ishbia pushed for the Durant deal (or even that it was his idea to overpay), but no GM in their right might should make that Beal trade. And if your owner isn't letting you do your job, you look elsewhere for a job.

[Superbone]

Dragic? As in the Dragon? I thought he left.

He came and went multiple times.

Lol! I thought he was awesome!

Me too! I was pissed when McD chose Bledsoe over him. Bledsoe was fools gold.

[Mori Chu]

Hits/Total
19/36
53%

Of course, those are my opinion and the stats don't factor in the BIG hits and misses. It's actually a smaller percentage of positive hits than I expected. Thanks for laying this out, Bobster! Thoughts?

I mostly agree with each of your hit/miss decisions on each line of James Jones's tenure here as Suns GM. But not every hit or miss is created equal. I know you've tried to highlight that with uppercase HIT or MISSes. But some of the items are kind of a wash, and some of them IMO were basically mandated by ownership. Examples:

Miss - Aug 2021 - Sign Elfrid Payton - Is this a big miss? Elfrid was fine-ish, and paid almost nothing.
Miss - Feb 2023 - Trade Dario Saric to Darius Bazley - I'm sure this is a cap/Sarver move. Is it a miss?
Miss - Jul 2023 - Trade Cameron Payne for a 2nd round pick - Was this a miss? We owed Payne a gigantic sum of money. I like Payne but we may have needed to do this one.
Miss - Jul 2024 - Sign Mason Plumlee, Monte Morris & Tyus Jones - Are these misses? Plumlee was our starting center for much of the year and played better than he had any right to. Tyus was a good player just in the wrong role, used wrong by Coach Bud. Monte Morris is actually good, but he never got any time.

Anyway, I think that other than the very blatant Stix over Halliburton disaster, which all parties seem to agree was James Jones's call, I think he's mostly done a very nice job. I don't think he is the architect of the KD trade nor the Beal trade, but I wasn't in the room. I don't think he wanted to go "all-in" and throw away our team to chase a title like we've done. I think there are a lot of nice small to medium size "hits" in the list, transactions and signings Jones made that helped improve our team.

[JJ Slim]

Dragic? As in the Dragon? I thought he left.

He came and went multiple times.

Lol! I thought he was awesome!

Me too! I was pissed when McD chose Bledsoe over him. Bledsoe was fools gold.

I remember one game where he just took over. Couldn't miss.Totally unconscious. I think it was against the Spurs and Duncan.

[JJ Slim]

Hits/Total
19/36
53%

Of course, those are my opinion and the stats don't factor in the BIG hits and misses. It's actually a smaller percentage of positive hits than I expected. Thanks for laying this out, Bobster! Thoughts?

I mostly agree with each of your hit/miss decisions on each line of James Jones's tenure here as Suns GM. But not every hit or miss is created equal. I know you've tried to highlight that with uppercase HIT or MISSes. But some of the items are kind of a wash, and some of them IMO were basically mandated by ownership. Examples:

Miss - Aug 2021 - Sign Elfrid Payton - Is this a big miss? Elfrid was fine-ish, and paid almost nothing.
Miss - Feb 2023 - Trade Dario Saric to Darius Bazley - I'm sure this is a cap/Sarver move. Is it a miss?
Miss - Jul 2023 - Trade Cameron Payne for a 2nd round pick - Was this a miss? We owed Payne a gigantic sum of money. I like Payne but we may have needed to do this one.
Miss - Jul 2024 - Sign Mason Plumlee, Monte Morris & Tyus Jones - Are these misses? Plumlee was our starting center for much of the year and played better than he had any right to. Tyus was a good player just in the wrong role, used wrong by Coach Bud. Monte Morris is actually good, but he never got any time.

Anyway, I think that other than the very blatant Stix over Halliburton disaster, which all parties seem to agree was James Jones's call, I think he's mostly done a very nice job. I don't think he is the architect of the KD trade nor the Beal trade, but I wasn't in the room. I don't think he wanted to go "all-in" and throw away our team to chase a title like we've done. I think there are a lot of nice small to medium size "hits" in the list, transactions and signings Jones made that helped improve our team.

Here's another:

MISS - Jun 2023 - Trade Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, 5 2nd round picks (& the right to swap 4 1st round picks 2024, 2026, 2028, 2030) for Bradley Beal, Jordan Goodwin and Isaiah Todd

We did get un-Shamet'd so there's that

[Superbone]

Hits/Total
19/36
53%

Of course, those are my opinion and the stats don't factor in the BIG hits and misses. It's actually a smaller percentage of positive hits than I expected. Thanks for laying this out, Bobster! Thoughts?

I mostly agree with each of your hit/miss decisions on each line of James Jones's tenure here as Suns GM. But not every hit or miss is created equal. I know you've tried to highlight that with uppercase HIT or MISSes. But some of the items are kind of a wash, and some of them IMO were basically mandated by ownership. Examples:

Miss - Aug 2021 - Sign Elfrid Payton - Is this a big miss? Elfrid was fine-ish, and paid almost nothing.
Miss - Feb 2023 - Trade Dario Saric to Darius Bazley - I'm sure this is a cap/Sarver move. Is it a miss?
Miss - Jul 2023 - Trade Cameron Payne for a 2nd round pick - Was this a miss? We owed Payne a gigantic sum of money. I like Payne but we may have needed to do this one.
Miss - Jul 2024 - Sign Mason Plumlee, Monte Morris & Tyus Jones - Are these misses? Plumlee was our starting center for much of the year and played better than he had any right to. Tyus was a good player just in the wrong role, used wrong by Coach Bud. Monte Morris is actually good, but he never got any time.

Anyway, I think that other than the very blatant Stix over Halliburton disaster, which all parties seem to agree was James Jones's call, I think he's mostly done a very nice job. I don't think he is the architect of the KD trade nor the Beal trade, but I wasn't in the room. I don't think he wanted to go "all-in" and throw away our team to chase a title like we've done. I think there are a lot of nice small to medium size "hits" in the list, transactions and signings Jones made that helped improve our team.

I think that's a pretty good assessment. It's why I'm on the fence with Jones. The hardest part is knowing what influences were at play. I'm not sure about the Bobster stance that it's on JJ to quit if he's not able to do his job absolutely. How many here have had jobs that weren't perfect and you had to deal with crap in order to keep them? On the other hand, he has enough money to walk away if he wanted to. Tough call.

[Superbone]

Dragic? As in the Dragon? I thought he left.

He came and went multiple times.

Lol! I thought he was awesome!

Me too! I was pissed when McD chose Bledsoe over him. Bledsoe was fools gold.

I remember one game where he just took over. Couldn't miss.Totally unconscious. I think it was against the Spurs and Duncan.

Yep, game 4 blowout/sweep in the playoffs.

[JeremyG]

He has some huge whiffs, like Smith over Haliburton, but any GM who has held the post more than a few years will have some whoppers like that.

Ayton over Doncic?

Yea... That was a tough one but it's hard to not look back and see our infatuation with finally get a franchise big man(child) and where our depth chart was with the roster. It just made sense at the time.

He was not the GM.

Sorry... I was just stating in regards to the pick, regardless of the GM, it's who the majority thought was the best pick for the team.

Yeah, I was mainly correcting JJ Slim putting it on Jones. He was part of the front office, but not the one making the ultimate decision. McDonough was still GM (until the preseason lol).

[TOO]

Ayton over Doncic?

Yea... That was a tough one but it's hard to not look back and see our infatuation with finally get a franchise big man(child) and where our depth chart was with the roster. It just made sense at the time.

He was not the GM.

Sorry... I was just stating in regards to the pick, regardless of the GM, it's who the majority thought was the best pick for the team.

Yeah, I was mainly correcting JJ Slim putting it on Jones. He was part of the front office, but not the one making the ultimate decision. McDonough was still GM (until the preseason lol).

Ayton was a Sarver pick, no doubt in my mind.

[Superbone]

Yea... That was a tough one but it's hard to not look back and see our infatuation with finally get a franchise big man(child) and where our depth chart was with the roster. It just made sense at the time.

He was not the GM.

Sorry... I was just stating in regards to the pick, regardless of the GM, it's who the majority thought was the best pick for the team.

Yeah, I was mainly correcting JJ Slim putting it on Jones. He was part of the front office, but not the one making the ultimate decision. McDonough was still GM (until the preseason lol).

Ayton was a Sarver pick, no doubt in my mind.

No doubt he signed off on it but McD was giddy in the draft room when we got it and if I remember right, basically said we were taking Ayton.

[JJ Slim]

Ayton over Doncic?

Yea... That was a tough one but it's hard to not look back and see our infatuation with finally get a franchise big man(child) and where our depth chart was with the roster. It just made sense at the time.

He was not the GM.

Sorry... I was just stating in regards to the pick, regardless of the GM, it's who the majority thought was the best pick for the team.

Yeah, I was mainly correcting JJ Slim putting it on Jones. He was part of the front office, but not the one making the ultimate decision. McDonough was still GM (until the preseason lol).

And I stand corrected. Like I said that was at the end of one of my absent years. I thought Jones had been here longer and I had no idea who McD was. Heck at that time I barely knew who Booker was lol.

[JeremyG]

He has some huge whiffs, like Smith over Haliburton, but any GM who has held the post more than a few years will have some whoppers like that.

Ayton over Doncic?

Yea... That was a tough one but it's hard to not look back and see our infatuation with finally get a franchise big man(child) and where our depth chart was with the roster. It just made sense at the time.

I mean, our board was 50/50. It was up to the Suns to do the background checks and to discover that Ayton was all about that next contract while Doncic was a stone cold killer. So, I still put it on the Suns.

They did do background checks and they discovered that scouting report on Doncic that Gambo reported, saying pretty much the same things back then that Dallas concluded recently.

[Split T]

Luka likes beer a little too much and Ayton likes video games too much…only one of them made all-nba 1st team each of the last 5 years.

[JeremyG]

Miss - Feb 2023 - Trade Dario Saric to Darius Bazley - I'm sure this is a cap/Sarver move. Is it a miss?

This was right after the Durant trade. It was an Ishbia money-saving move.

[INFORMER]

JJ was a patient and thoughtful GM; he didn't chase after short-term gratification and stupid ass trades

"Jalen Smith is better than JaVale McGee."

-James Jones

I thought you would like Jones. He has been mostly a savvy drafter, picking several interesting and talented players in the mid-to-late 1st round, and generally valuing and utilizing the draft to improve our team. He has some huge whiffs, like Smith over Haliburton, but any GM who has held the post more than a few years will have some whoppers like that.

Anyway, regardless of whether we agree on that, who would you prefer to see as Suns GM? Bob Myers? Who do you like?

I'm not campaigning for Jones to be ousted, because ultimately Ishbia is the problem.

But I think Jones's drafting prowess is being romanticized to the point of exaggeration. I don't value GMs who completely close the door on any one particular avenue of improving the team. I don't like knowing I can't land an SGA because of dogmatic narrowmindedness.

[INFORMER]

Miss - Feb 2023 - Trade Dario Saric to Darius Bazley - I'm sure this is a cap/Sarver move. Is it a miss?

This was right after the Durant trade. It was an Ishbia money-saving move.

Too many of James Jones's blunders are scapegoated on Robert Sarver.

[Uncle_Gene]

Okay, so coach Bud gets fired.

They're paying Gentry, Vogel, and Budenholzer. That's three head coaches they have to pay that are no longer with the team. Ishbia has to make the right decision and get the right coach to do the job.

Gentry?

My bad. I meant coach Monty.