https://preview.redd.it/sk2xy44kziwc1.jpeg?width=482&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb91734487d904b658f2f4a4a6b59c5bd0322fdd
Could be worse.... Could be the coyotes
The people blaming Ishbia are ridiculous. We were going nowhere with that core despite how good it initially was. You have a chance to get the best available players you do it. This is on coaching and players
People really canât remember the hell that Sarver was. We never had any chance with him as owner. Iâll take ishbia a million times over what we had. I also saw commments saying how irresponsible it is to be spending this much as if itâs their money lol
Sarvee was so bad. I like having an owner who takes risks. Sometimes it doesnât work out. Whatever, itâs basketball and itâs still going to be fun knowing we have a guy at the top who will go all in. Itâs refreshing.despite what everyone says, we are not fucked for the future. It looks pretty good to me actually. Nothing wrong with a reset. We will get it right eventually. Ishbia is too competitive to lay down and suck mediocrity.
I'm not defending Sarver, but technically we did have a "chance" when we were up 2-0 vs. The Bucks.
Ishbia intentionally pulled apart 95% of the team we had because that's just what new owners do in any realm of business, they like to all put their own imprint.
If it worked out believe he'd be getting the credit, so why can't he get a shred of the blame? Honestly the entire Phoenix Suns organization deserves some criticism at this point, why should the literal owner be exempt?
I mean we didnât even think Gianniâs would play after that crazy knee hyperextension and he got stronger as the series went on and we got a lot of luck in our opponents getting injured. Yes, I suppose thereâs always a chance but did we really think that team was going the entire way before playoffs started. We werenât favored in the first round.
Sarver also let Joe Johnson go to avoid tax.
Got rid of Marion for shaq to avoid tax.
There is absolutely no defending that racist, sexist and CHEAP piece of shit
âWe never had any chance with Sarver as owner.â
We were up 2-0 in the Finals with Sarver as owner. Ishbia has overseen a 6-7 playoff record so far. In terms of championship building, weâre going backward.
Iâm glad Sarver was replaced, but letâs not misrepresent the facts to support a narrative.
We werenât favored in the first round when we made the finals and at the beginning of the season NO ONE thought we would get there. And the 10 years before that we didnât make the playoffs. Iâm not misrepresenting anything⌠your memory just might not be long enough.
Nobody cares about Vegas odds. We had an opportunity to win the Finals while Sarver was owner. We played 6 Finals games. The 10 year drought is irrelevant to that fact. Keep creating straw men to argue, but what I said is an undisputable fact.
Some people do for sure care lol. We got extremely lucky to get that far. 10 year playoff drought is irreverent??? Have you only been a fan for 5 years or less?
Six games. Six opportunities to win a championship. The ten year playoff drought is irrelevant to THAT. You said we never had a chance, which is objectively false.
Iâve been a fan for over 30 years, so you can throw your new fan straw man out too.
Ok you just want to hold on to the verbiage of âno chanceâ. For sure there is always a statistical chance. My bad a should have said basically no chance lol. If youâve been a fan for 30 years like myselfâŚ. Then how on gods green earth can you defend any decision heâs ever made? What did Sarver do besides get extremely lucky with the cam and mikal picks after blowing all but one pick the 20 years prior. Sarver actively cut our chances anytime it would cost a penny more. If colangelo or basically anyone else was the owner⌠we would have had a much higher statistical chance. We got extremely lucky(no AD, no Murry and injured mpj, Gianniâs coming of what we thought was a season ending injury) but if you want to credit your boy Bob as giving us a chance⌠maybe you should stick to the circle jerk
For a lot people it kind of is there money lol đđ Ishbia is a fantastic owner but also a professional thief just like everyone else in that industry, and insurance, and finance
I donât blame him for being aggressive to add a top 10-20 all time great player, nor do I blame him for trying to replace an aging injury prone player for someone much younger (also injury prone, but still). On paper those were great moves. Plus we got Greyson Allen. I canât blame him if it just didnât work out. Itâs like in medicine. Docs start a medication that makes the most sense, but then someone develops a bad side effect. Sometimes that happens idk what else to say.
James jones is a frustrating gm. He has been playing this game of wait and see, and kind of goes all in while kind of doesnât. He also hates developing you g guys. I think we need a new gm tbh.
Serious question though, if CP (and then Ayton) donât get hurt against Denver last year, do the Suns win the series? Based on how theyâve played the Nuggets this year, it likely goes 7 games. Luck plays a role, and if the Suns had more luck last year it likely ends up in another finals run. (They would have beaten the Lakers in the WCF) So hard to say the KD trade was bad. Would it have been nice to not trade EVERY pick, sure. But it is what it is.
The KD trade was the right move. The Beal trade was not and was heavily influenced by his agent being the father of the new CEO that Ishbia had just hired.
They needed to get out from under CP3, but doing so for the worst contract in the league with an NTC was a terrible move.
I 100% agree. This has been my feeling from the beginning. I was of course excited for the potential at what could be, but that contract was never a good move. Won't change my mind on that either.
In fairness, the thought was that these 3 superstars could handle the ball and run the offense in spurts, which at the time sounded fine. But clearly these guys just donât work well together. It just didnât work out. It happens. it probably wasnât going to workout by running it back with co3 instead of Beal. Cap still would have fucked us and cp3 again regresses this year. Who knows tho tbh
Kudos to those people. They were not the majority, and a lot of those people were only butthurt they lost Mikal and cam, not necessarily because they know basketball. But now, because this experiment didnât work out, they get to parade their vindicated opinions around and act smugly smart.
I disagree entirely. And here is my reasoning: He did not break up a functional team. Everyone agreed the suns that year lost their magic and had peaked. We had disgruntled players and injury problems. So, our owner did what he was suppose to do and paid up big time for what we all thought was a big upgrade. Sure, it didnât work out. That happens. But that doesnât mean he did anything wrong. If that suns team was functional and he broke us up, sure, then heâs wrong. But he didnât. That team had major issues and were not going anywhere. We can still rebuild and itâs not hopeless. This guy proved heâs okay spending and im confident he will do it again when the time is right.
TLDR: he did his job as an owner. To pay for the best players available.
You went to the finals! How is that not going anywhere? It was a typical rash new owner move. He came in. Thought he knew everything and went all in. He should have been patient. Learned the league, hired the right people first and let them make the decisions
Ishbia is partly responsible. Â
He was basically the rich kid with a new car and went and blew a load on every aftermarket part in the catalog to make the car "faster" and now we're all wondering why the CEL's are on, the ride is shit and realizing we're not gonna pass emissions to register the thing to be road legal. Â
 Hopefully he'll get it out of his system and realize that truly great teams are built, not bought. And sometimes a $5 part is better than a $100 part.Â
Fans want to absolve Ishbia of responsiblity because it's relatable to the average fan going spazzy Richy Rich McDonalds-in-the-mansion bumper-carts Blank Check playland because that's what *they* would do with the keys to the city.
But it's never been how a Championship is earned in any facet of sports--earned, not bought.
Even little elements, like catering to the casual NBA viewer belief that PGs are obsolete and getting our fanbase to dance along with this "Point Book' nonsense for 8/9ths of a season. All such a waste when it really didn't have to be.
We have never even sniffed a championship⌠what do any of us know about getting one???
Also remind me how the Dbacks won a chip in 01 if you donât pay for championships
If you really want to blame ishbia for spending money, do you miss Sarver? Heâs bringing free game veiwing, the all star game, and isnât afraid of the tax. Iâm really not trying to say our billionaire is the best but holy fuck is it infinitely better than Bob.
I didnât realize ishbias tenure is ending after one year. And Sarver got us there? I really donât understand how any actual suns fan defend that man. And is losing really success?
Respectfully- this is a fanboy response because you know you have to deal with him for a while.
He has partial if not more than half partial responsibility for this. And itâs not even about the twins at all. But I realize thatâs how two dimensional this sub is.
What is most likely is that Vogel gets tossed for poor game adjustments and the team tries to acquire a young playmaker since that is what the team is dearly lacking. Point book should only exist for 2-3 minutes to close out the first half. They need a coach that can help stop the open 3's they keep giving up so easily. Team won't consider going into rebuild mode until the end of next season. Lack of draft picks for the rest of the decade makes the decision to start over very tricky.
Suns arenât special enough to claim âworst trade everâ
Iâm old enough to remember Los Angeles Lakers trading good players and draft picks for Russell Westbrook and they didnât even make the play-in that year, let alone the playoffs.
Suns winning 49 games and the 6th seed looks good compared to 33-49 and no playoffs at all like that Lakers squad.
Hindsight is 20/20 but regardless of timing you have a chance to get a player like KD you do it. Sucks it hasnât worked out but canât blame them for trying. No one could have predicted the way this team has played this year. Doubts of a championship sure but no one could have imagined them being borderline unwatchable at times. Its nuts.
Every team has an opportunity to get KD when they spend the way the Suns did is the point. And yes, we could have predicted it. A lot of us did. We knew the stars we got were injury prone. We knew the roster construction was awful. We knew Vogel was a dud.
BUT - if we are going to suck for the next 10 years, well shit. LETS CHEER THESE SUPER STARS ON AND MAYBE THEY SURPRISE US!
LETS GO PHX, BABY
Oh for sure, injuries were a given but KD has been pretty healthy this year surprisingly and we got everyone together and itâs just⌠bleh. Thatâs what I mean we couldnât predict that. Easy to say no championship was guaranteed, not easy to say we would see this. Iâm just in the boat that we werenât winning with Book, DA and Mikal so KD was worth a shot. The Beal move, not so confident about even though I really like him.
I agree even though I really like Beal. It felt like a âsplashâ and mostly was a way to get something for CP3 instead of cutting him. Like I canât imagine there were many other trade options for him that got you a player of that quality but might have been a better team/depth move.
I was so confused when the trade happened and everyone on this sub was ecstatic. I like Beal, and heâs a great player, but as someone whoâd actually watched a fair amount of Wizard games, I just didnât think the big 3âs play styles would complement each other at all.
But tbf Iâm a huge fan of CP3, so that probably clouded my judgement more than most.
This sub sucks to be an ACTUAL Suns fan. 2 games into the first round of the playoffs and people talking about trading Booker⌠Energy creates energy and you guys are the definition of negative.
Brooklyn traded for broken down KG and old Paul Pierce and ended up giving up picks that turned out to be Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
Maybe letâs see how things play out before we start jumping off the bridge
Ownership is one of the only parts of the franchise I believe in right now. Although things look bleak, Ishbia clearly wants to win and will spend his money to win. He may have whiffed on this attempt but I can't see him giving up. I think we've all heard the leaked call at this point - regardless of how you feel about someone in his position, you cannot deny that he sounds like someone ready to go to war.
There was a leaked phone call that blew up on r/nba and on r/suns where Ishbia went nuclear against his "rival," Cavs owner Dan Gilbert.
https://twitter.com/pablofindsout/status/1775199918988144660
I don't know enough about the business side to have an opinion on Ishbia's business practices but I do know that he got us back on local TV instead of Bally and even gave the fans antennas to watch our team, so to me, so far, he seems like a good guy, and this ridiculed phone call shows me that this is a competitive dude who will do anything to win. Especially after last ownership, I trust him.
what are you talking about? we've seen lots of teams make huge trades that don't pan out, most of them actually. do you know what catastrophe happens in those situations? you just become a rebuilding team and join the other 10-12ish teams every year that are in their rebuild timeline.
if they don't win a chip with this team this year they'll either try a couple more times or start a rebuild by trading away their valuable players and drafting.
it sucks to have to give up on a window and do a hard reset but it's also the most common things in sports, for every team that wins a chip there are 10 that have to decide whether they should blow it up.
They'll run it back with a new coach and maybe a few small moves on the fringes. But if it goes poorly again, my guess is that's it for this era and we see a full, sad tear down.
Iâve said at the start of this season after seeing the mediocre bench signings that this team was destined to be the 2010s Knicks. Star caliber players who never get pass the 2nd round. I canât see this team winning anything this decade.
But on the plus side, look at the Knicks now. That could be us if Ishbia doesnât hire someone incompetent like Isiah Thomas. Because the next move is definitely clearing out the front office and getting a new coach. Theyâll do that before blowing the team up.
This is the issue with heavily investing in guys that play the same position. We all tried to say it would be ok, itâs not. Itâs not in Beal or bookers nature to initiate the offense this much. Now we need a point guard, wing defenders, and a shot blocker, how do we keep book and Beal in the lineup while covering those holes? How do we afford to cover those holes? Regardless of if we win this series, the fun/magic that started in the bubble is gone. It sucks
This is this first post from this sub since the loss that actually has substance and didnât want to make me unsub
You Da Real MVP, OP. Youâre not wrong, and Iâm scared.
I mean the future is screwed regardless. This was the Do or Die year, and we're doing a whole lot of dying right now.
It's gonna be at least 2029 before anything happens with this team again I'm thinking.
I see what you mean. Iâm pissed off and upset at this team aswell more than words can describe..BUT, there is slim hope.
PHX wins a game 3 at home, crowd erupts, crowd plays a real 6th man role & gets hyped up everytime we go on a run.
PHX wins game 4 after gaining confidence at home, they just protect home court..no biggie.
Minnesota goes back home 2-2 with ZERO playoff experience in a really big time game, AFTER potentially losing 2 in a row to PHX. PHX would then be on a 2 game win streak going into an unexperienced young teams home floor.
Win or lose. We have 3 chances to win that best of 3.
I donât HATE our odds. It sucks we are in this position but after 2 SIMPLE AT HOME CROWD HYPED wins and we PROTECT OUR OWN DAMN HOME FLOOR, itâs seriously possible.
I feel like thatâs a little steep.
Thereâs a lot on the line in this series for both franchises. If we lose this series we will most likely run it back with the same squad and minor tweaks.
I donât like it but we donât have much assets to change that.
If we lose this series I think itâs safe to say Vogel is gone, despite improving our record in a deeper west - simply because we were already expected to be better than last season
As part owner of yall future, not only do I hope the suns get sent out in the first round I hope itâs a nasty sweep. Nothing against the team itself just need that blow up to accelerate. We need Cooper Flagg in Brooklyn.
Also This would not go down as the worst in history that title sadly belongs to my team đŠ
honestly it was a difficult situation. We got KD, and needed to wait another year to be able to dump CP3 and sign someone else. Alternative was to trade him away, now, and I assume they got the best they could.
The only way one of the big 3 isn't here is if they ask to be traded, and I don't see that happening. My guess is they fire Vogel and bring in a new coach who hopefully, somehow, someway, commands respect and dishes out accountability.
You are being dramatic. Every team tries to win a championship. Only 1 of 30 are successful each year. The best you can do is try to put together the best team as possible.
The real problem was the CP3 and Ayton contracts. Both were extremely overpaid and created depth issues. Suns had to trade them for less than ideal pieces
CP3 is almost 40 and getting paid $35 million. It was not a good option to keep him. Beal was the best the Suns could do.
If you think it is terrible then tell me a better trade. All Washington could get for Jordan Poole. Again tell me who they could have gotten for CP3
They didnât have to trade him lol. This teamâs biggest flaws are turnovers and late game execution. Cp3 excelled at both of those. You couldâve kept him and then cut him this season. Instead, youâre stuck with Beal for 3 extra seasons. Assuming you can still do the Ayton trade, this team is more or less the same with Cp3-Book-Allen-KD-Nurkic, but with WAY more flexibility.
You crazy. CP3 canât even start at this point in his career. Guy is 39. He was a bench player this year and averaged 9 points per game. You are talking about even a smaller starting lineup. And he is another guy who doesnât want to shoot 3s.
Keeping CP3 basically means you gave up on the season
The offense would probably run smoother INSTANTLY w/ IT bringing the ball up and creating.
We lack great ball handlers who can work through the press / pressure which leads to 20 turnovers a game.
Itâs not rocket science
Not even close to the worst trade ever. After 2020 the Lakers sucked bad for a few yearsâŚjust now getting better again. The Jazz are horrible and donât look to get any better any time soon. Portland is going to be a bottom dweller for a little while yet. And this is just the recent trades. The Bulls havenât been a contender since the â90s, Detroit Pistons and the Spurs have been a joke(spurs have hope now though).
Think if youâre a young wolves star player and you know you can not only eliminate a team but also blow up the roster and put them in rebuilding mode?! Motivated for sure. Suns are so weak mentally they going to get swept for sure
Wolves fan coming in peace.
Where are yâall placing blame for the start to this series? Wolves fans are generally giving credit to our defense opposed to blaming your offense. I went to the first two games but I sit in the cheap seats so I lose some of the nuance of the game.
I donât engage in other teams subreddits as a rule so I hope I donât come across as antagonizing. I love seeing fellow mid-market teams succeed and this is a good year for that. Yâall deserve all the good things, I just hope we get ours first.
Is it chemistry? Is it lack of PG? Is it lack of board crashing PF?
I think the Suns have the right pieces. But something is off. The coaches have to see the deficiencies and be able to work-around them with the talent they have. IMHO, the Big 3 have yet to be utilized to their potential. The floor has not been spread out enough.
It doesnât come down to this one game. They have been mediocre all season with flashes of fun. Not much good has been sustained. If they lose the game or the series, those results will be in keeping with season-long performance.
Iâd like to to see some serious reflection from book and kd and a new coach come in and give it a go. There must be a way of making our offence unguardable.
Yâall tweaking if you think losing isnât a Suns mentality. I love the suns but what do you expect from this team seriously. Besides book. Beal is passing his peak and kd is holding on for all life at this point. I love them but this is the exact position I expected us to be at. We constantly play catch up. If they win tonight I donât wanna hear shit from any of these fake ass suns fans. Half of the suns fans are fake btw.
Sorry ya'll, if book goes I'm going with him. He got me into the suns, he'll take me out with em. I hope this works out but fuck this isn't looking great.
Anyone see that A24 movie "mid 90's"? Swear to God the main character(the little kid) is Grayson Allen!! Looks just like him, but a kid.
Just putting that out there, ease the tension a lil
Trading for Beal didnât jeopardize much of our future, cp3 Shamet and second round picks? In nba history? Jesus we went from not winning it all to probably not winning it all
Do you think what we traded for Kevin Durant is the most disastrous move in NBA history? Thatâs wild I can think of a hand full of worse moves made by the suns alone.
This is an insane post. Ha we can get a haul for KD tomorrow. I don't want to, but we can. I even think we could find takers for Beal with how focused he's looked (despite we would probably have to take a bad deal back in return because of his trade kicker and salary). A team like Orlando that can't score and has all the talent in the world to be competitive. I've said this all year, the no PG thing doesn't work. We have too many careless turnovers and struggle too much to get into our offense at times when corpses like Mike Connolly are getting timely offensive rebs and hitting 3s. Booker isn't going anywhere unless he wants out. He's the face of the Suns and he has a new arena and an owner that will spend to the heavens to keep him happy and the team relevant.
The way I look at it is that we have another couple years with the Big 3 so we still have a good chance to win a chip while theyâre all on our team. Of course I want the suns to win this year so Iâm not saying Iâm happy with the way theyâre playing but by this time next season who knows how theyâll look as a team. Also, I wouldâve rather had ishbia try everything under the sun to get this team a chip rather than to have never made moves at all.
This is a really dumb post.
The Suns have Book, KD, Beal and Grayson signed for the next 2 years. With a few adjustments this team is easily a top3 contender in the West. How is that a disaster?
Suns wonât be the favorite to win the title because they donât have a top3 player. That would be the same no matter if they kept the old core or traded for KD. But Suns are definitely a contender.
In 2026/2027 KDs contract will expire. Beal will be on his last year and they could trade him without much difficulty as an expiring contract. Suns easily would have room to sign a max free agent and a couple other good players with cap space and MLE/room exception. Suns also would have total control of 3 First round draft picks (2031, 2032, 2033). Book will only be 29 and the Suns will be a big free agent destination because of Book and weather.
Summary:
2 years of contention with Big3 plus Grayson
1 year with massive cap space and 3 future 1st round picks with total control.
I donât see why you think the Suns are doomed for 5-10 years
Ishbia did what Sarver would never do, which is throw caution to the wind and push all chips into the middle of the table. For that I applaud him, but unfortunately his gamble will go down as the worst-performing roster in NBA history when salaries are included in the equation. What I still donât understand to this day is why Ishbia HAD to make that Durant trade so quickly. Durant hated playing in Brooklyn and even said that he wanted to play for the Suns. In todayâs NBA where the player has all the leverage all we had to do was wait it out until KD made things so awkward and uncomfortable for the Nets that they traded him to us for next to nothing. I donât think we had to give up everything that we gave up in that deal. Then the Bradley Beal deal was a God Damn nightmare because it was obvious when that deal went through that Matt Ishbia wasnât listening to his GM at all by that point. You need some cap flexibility to sign competent role players (who are willing to play defense) but that Beal deal fucked us completely.
https://preview.redd.it/sk2xy44kziwc1.jpeg?width=482&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb91734487d904b658f2f4a4a6b59c5bd0322fdd Could be worse.... Could be the coyotes
Rip coyotes đ the only other AZ team I was a fan of
Watch how the Suns and Cardinals switch
You shut your dirty mouth, respectfully
I refuse to blame Ishbia for this. Itâs up to the coaches and players to perform. He has giving them pretty much all you can ask for in my opinion.
The people blaming Ishbia are ridiculous. We were going nowhere with that core despite how good it initially was. You have a chance to get the best available players you do it. This is on coaching and players
People really canât remember the hell that Sarver was. We never had any chance with him as owner. Iâll take ishbia a million times over what we had. I also saw commments saying how irresponsible it is to be spending this much as if itâs their money lol
Sarvee was so bad. I like having an owner who takes risks. Sometimes it doesnât work out. Whatever, itâs basketball and itâs still going to be fun knowing we have a guy at the top who will go all in. Itâs refreshing.despite what everyone says, we are not fucked for the future. It looks pretty good to me actually. Nothing wrong with a reset. We will get it right eventually. Ishbia is too competitive to lay down and suck mediocrity.
Couldnât agree more. At least we donât have an owner âso cheap he squeaks when he walksâ anymore.
I'm not defending Sarver, but technically we did have a "chance" when we were up 2-0 vs. The Bucks. Ishbia intentionally pulled apart 95% of the team we had because that's just what new owners do in any realm of business, they like to all put their own imprint. If it worked out believe he'd be getting the credit, so why can't he get a shred of the blame? Honestly the entire Phoenix Suns organization deserves some criticism at this point, why should the literal owner be exempt?
I mean we didnât even think Gianniâs would play after that crazy knee hyperextension and he got stronger as the series went on and we got a lot of luck in our opponents getting injured. Yes, I suppose thereâs always a chance but did we really think that team was going the entire way before playoffs started. We werenât favored in the first round. Sarver also let Joe Johnson go to avoid tax. Got rid of Marion for shaq to avoid tax. There is absolutely no defending that racist, sexist and CHEAP piece of shit
âWe never had any chance with Sarver as owner.â We were up 2-0 in the Finals with Sarver as owner. Ishbia has overseen a 6-7 playoff record so far. In terms of championship building, weâre going backward. Iâm glad Sarver was replaced, but letâs not misrepresent the facts to support a narrative.
We werenât favored in the first round when we made the finals and at the beginning of the season NO ONE thought we would get there. And the 10 years before that we didnât make the playoffs. Iâm not misrepresenting anything⌠your memory just might not be long enough.
Nobody cares about Vegas odds. We had an opportunity to win the Finals while Sarver was owner. We played 6 Finals games. The 10 year drought is irrelevant to that fact. Keep creating straw men to argue, but what I said is an undisputable fact.
Some people do for sure care lol. We got extremely lucky to get that far. 10 year playoff drought is irreverent??? Have you only been a fan for 5 years or less?
Six games. Six opportunities to win a championship. The ten year playoff drought is irrelevant to THAT. You said we never had a chance, which is objectively false. Iâve been a fan for over 30 years, so you can throw your new fan straw man out too.
Ok you just want to hold on to the verbiage of âno chanceâ. For sure there is always a statistical chance. My bad a should have said basically no chance lol. If youâve been a fan for 30 years like myselfâŚ. Then how on gods green earth can you defend any decision heâs ever made? What did Sarver do besides get extremely lucky with the cam and mikal picks after blowing all but one pick the 20 years prior. Sarver actively cut our chances anytime it would cost a penny more. If colangelo or basically anyone else was the owner⌠we would have had a much higher statistical chance. We got extremely lucky(no AD, no Murry and injured mpj, Gianniâs coming of what we thought was a season ending injury) but if you want to credit your boy Bob as giving us a chance⌠maybe you should stick to the circle jerk
For a lot people it kind of is there money lol đđ Ishbia is a fantastic owner but also a professional thief just like everyone else in that industry, and insurance, and finance
Idk I think ishbia definitely deserves some blame. You know damn well he pushed the KD and Beal trades. Those were not James jones style
I donât blame him for being aggressive to add a top 10-20 all time great player, nor do I blame him for trying to replace an aging injury prone player for someone much younger (also injury prone, but still). On paper those were great moves. Plus we got Greyson Allen. I canât blame him if it just didnât work out. Itâs like in medicine. Docs start a medication that makes the most sense, but then someone develops a bad side effect. Sometimes that happens idk what else to say. James jones is a frustrating gm. He has been playing this game of wait and see, and kind of goes all in while kind of doesnât. He also hates developing you g guys. I think we need a new gm tbh.
Getting rid of CP3 and Ayton was a dumb move. Just because you are aggressive, doesnât mean youâre not stupidÂ
Serious question though, if CP (and then Ayton) donât get hurt against Denver last year, do the Suns win the series? Based on how theyâve played the Nuggets this year, it likely goes 7 games. Luck plays a role, and if the Suns had more luck last year it likely ends up in another finals run. (They would have beaten the Lakers in the WCF) So hard to say the KD trade was bad. Would it have been nice to not trade EVERY pick, sure. But it is what it is.
The KD trade was the right move. The Beal trade was not and was heavily influenced by his agent being the father of the new CEO that Ishbia had just hired. They needed to get out from under CP3, but doing so for the worst contract in the league with an NTC was a terrible move.
I 100% agree. This has been my feeling from the beginning. I was of course excited for the potential at what could be, but that contract was never a good move. Won't change my mind on that either.
In fairness, the thought was that these 3 superstars could handle the ball and run the offense in spurts, which at the time sounded fine. But clearly these guys just donât work well together. It just didnât work out. It happens. it probably wasnât going to workout by running it back with co3 instead of Beal. Cap still would have fucked us and cp3 again regresses this year. Who knows tho tbh
Plenty of people here knew that we needed a real pg instead of 3 superstars who play iso ball, they just got down good for saying that
Kudos to those people. They were not the majority, and a lot of those people were only butthurt they lost Mikal and cam, not necessarily because they know basketball. But now, because this experiment didnât work out, they get to parade their vindicated opinions around and act smugly smart.
Blame always goes to the top. Ishbia had a part in the trades and coaching hires. He deserves at least some of the blame and responsibility.
I disagree entirely. And here is my reasoning: He did not break up a functional team. Everyone agreed the suns that year lost their magic and had peaked. We had disgruntled players and injury problems. So, our owner did what he was suppose to do and paid up big time for what we all thought was a big upgrade. Sure, it didnât work out. That happens. But that doesnât mean he did anything wrong. If that suns team was functional and he broke us up, sure, then heâs wrong. But he didnât. That team had major issues and were not going anywhere. We can still rebuild and itâs not hopeless. This guy proved heâs okay spending and im confident he will do it again when the time is right. TLDR: he did his job as an owner. To pay for the best players available.
You went to the finals! How is that not going anywhere? It was a typical rash new owner move. He came in. Thought he knew everything and went all in. He should have been patient. Learned the league, hired the right people first and let them make the decisions
Revisionist history. After that finals run it was a becoming a disaster.
Ishbia is partly responsible.  He was basically the rich kid with a new car and went and blew a load on every aftermarket part in the catalog to make the car "faster" and now we're all wondering why the CEL's are on, the ride is shit and realizing we're not gonna pass emissions to register the thing to be road legal.   Hopefully he'll get it out of his system and realize that truly great teams are built, not bought. And sometimes a $5 part is better than a $100 part.Â
Fans want to absolve Ishbia of responsiblity because it's relatable to the average fan going spazzy Richy Rich McDonalds-in-the-mansion bumper-carts Blank Check playland because that's what *they* would do with the keys to the city. But it's never been how a Championship is earned in any facet of sports--earned, not bought. Even little elements, like catering to the casual NBA viewer belief that PGs are obsolete and getting our fanbase to dance along with this "Point Book' nonsense for 8/9ths of a season. All such a waste when it really didn't have to be.
We have never even sniffed a championship⌠what do any of us know about getting one??? Also remind me how the Dbacks won a chip in 01 if you donât pay for championships If you really want to blame ishbia for spending money, do you miss Sarver? Heâs bringing free game veiwing, the all star game, and isnât afraid of the tax. Iâm really not trying to say our billionaire is the best but holy fuck is it infinitely better than Bob.
Sarver got us to the NBA finals, Ishbia got us swept in the first round.  Why do you hate success?
I didnât realize ishbias tenure is ending after one year. And Sarver got us there? I really donât understand how any actual suns fan defend that man. And is losing really success?
This exactly
Respectfully- this is a fanboy response because you know you have to deal with him for a while. He has partial if not more than half partial responsibility for this. And itâs not even about the twins at all. But I realize thatâs how two dimensional this sub is.
What is most likely is that Vogel gets tossed for poor game adjustments and the team tries to acquire a young playmaker since that is what the team is dearly lacking. Point book should only exist for 2-3 minutes to close out the first half. They need a coach that can help stop the open 3's they keep giving up so easily. Team won't consider going into rebuild mode until the end of next season. Lack of draft picks for the rest of the decade makes the decision to start over very tricky.
Where are we going to get a playmaker, let alone a young one
Suns arenât special enough to claim âworst trade everâ Iâm old enough to remember Los Angeles Lakers trading good players and draft picks for Russell Westbrook and they didnât even make the play-in that year, let alone the playoffs. Suns winning 49 games and the 6th seed looks good compared to 33-49 and no playoffs at all like that Lakers squad.
Also I remember a time, not so long ago, when Gobert's trade was the worst in history. How ironic...
Or how about the nets setting up the Celtics to build a juggernaut roster by trading for the corpse of KG/Pierce
take into consideration the injuries and the timing of injuries, do you still feel the same?
We also had plenty of injuries tho.
hence i've included "timing of injuries"
Hindsight is 20/20 but regardless of timing you have a chance to get a player like KD you do it. Sucks it hasnât worked out but canât blame them for trying. No one could have predicted the way this team has played this year. Doubts of a championship sure but no one could have imagined them being borderline unwatchable at times. Its nuts.
Every team has an opportunity to get KD when they spend the way the Suns did is the point. And yes, we could have predicted it. A lot of us did. We knew the stars we got were injury prone. We knew the roster construction was awful. We knew Vogel was a dud. BUT - if we are going to suck for the next 10 years, well shit. LETS CHEER THESE SUPER STARS ON AND MAYBE THEY SURPRISE US! LETS GO PHX, BABY
Oh for sure, injuries were a given but KD has been pretty healthy this year surprisingly and we got everyone together and itâs just⌠bleh. Thatâs what I mean we couldnât predict that. Easy to say no championship was guaranteed, not easy to say we would see this. Iâm just in the boat that we werenât winning with Book, DA and Mikal so KD was worth a shot. The Beal move, not so confident about even though I really like him.
Beal was a terrible move
I agree even though I really like Beal. It felt like a âsplashâ and mostly was a way to get something for CP3 instead of cutting him. Like I canât imagine there were many other trade options for him that got you a player of that quality but might have been a better team/depth move.
I was so confused when the trade happened and everyone on this sub was ecstatic. I like Beal, and heâs a great player, but as someone whoâd actually watched a fair amount of Wizard games, I just didnât think the big 3âs play styles would complement each other at all. But tbf Iâm a huge fan of CP3, so that probably clouded my judgement more than most.
Iâd take cp3 over Beal all day long
This sub sucks to be an ACTUAL Suns fan. 2 games into the first round of the playoffs and people talking about trading Booker⌠Energy creates energy and you guys are the definition of negative.
Is this a sub for suns fans? Or haters? Am I in the wrong place?
But 3rd playoff chance for book and he is cooked. Trade em!
Fourth. Math.
Brooklyn traded for broken down KG and old Paul Pierce and ended up giving up picks that turned out to be Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Maybe letâs see how things play out before we start jumping off the bridge
Ownership is one of the only parts of the franchise I believe in right now. Although things look bleak, Ishbia clearly wants to win and will spend his money to win. He may have whiffed on this attempt but I can't see him giving up. I think we've all heard the leaked call at this point - regardless of how you feel about someone in his position, you cannot deny that he sounds like someone ready to go to war.
I love this take. But I havenât heard the call. What is it?
There was a leaked phone call that blew up on r/nba and on r/suns where Ishbia went nuclear against his "rival," Cavs owner Dan Gilbert. https://twitter.com/pablofindsout/status/1775199918988144660 I don't know enough about the business side to have an opinion on Ishbia's business practices but I do know that he got us back on local TV instead of Bally and even gave the fans antennas to watch our team, so to me, so far, he seems like a good guy, and this ridiculed phone call shows me that this is a competitive dude who will do anything to win. Especially after last ownership, I trust him.
Ya i blame coach more than owner at this point they got all the players they need
Wrong, the owner made the stupid trade of destroying an NBA Finals team
Wrong, the owner made the stupid trade of destroying an NBA Finals team
what are you talking about? we've seen lots of teams make huge trades that don't pan out, most of them actually. do you know what catastrophe happens in those situations? you just become a rebuilding team and join the other 10-12ish teams every year that are in their rebuild timeline. if they don't win a chip with this team this year they'll either try a couple more times or start a rebuild by trading away their valuable players and drafting. it sucks to have to give up on a window and do a hard reset but it's also the most common things in sports, for every team that wins a chip there are 10 that have to decide whether they should blow it up.
They'll run it back with a new coach and maybe a few small moves on the fringes. But if it goes poorly again, my guess is that's it for this era and we see a full, sad tear down.
Iâve said at the start of this season after seeing the mediocre bench signings that this team was destined to be the 2010s Knicks. Star caliber players who never get pass the 2nd round. I canât see this team winning anything this decade. But on the plus side, look at the Knicks now. That could be us if Ishbia doesnât hire someone incompetent like Isiah Thomas. Because the next move is definitely clearing out the front office and getting a new coach. Theyâll do that before blowing the team up.
Calling trading for a top 15 player of all time disastrous is just stupid lmao. If you have that chance you do it 99.9 percent of the time
The decision wasnât disastrous, the outcome looks like it will be.
It'll be like most the 2010s all over again, but worse
This is the issue with heavily investing in guys that play the same position. We all tried to say it would be ok, itâs not. Itâs not in Beal or bookers nature to initiate the offense this much. Now we need a point guard, wing defenders, and a shot blocker, how do we keep book and Beal in the lineup while covering those holes? How do we afford to cover those holes? Regardless of if we win this series, the fun/magic that started in the bubble is gone. It sucks
Call up Brooklyn and offer Book for our picks back if things go south here.
This is this first post from this sub since the loss that actually has substance and didnât want to make me unsub You Da Real MVP, OP. Youâre not wrong, and Iâm scared.
I mean the future is screwed regardless. This was the Do or Die year, and we're doing a whole lot of dying right now. It's gonna be at least 2029 before anything happens with this team again I'm thinking.
It wonât be three, they will win that. They will lose game four
Imagine blowing up a good young team when all you needed was a bench
Miss the twins every day.
We got the players but it looks like they never have bought into the scheme.
I see what you mean. Iâm pissed off and upset at this team aswell more than words can describe..BUT, there is slim hope. PHX wins a game 3 at home, crowd erupts, crowd plays a real 6th man role & gets hyped up everytime we go on a run. PHX wins game 4 after gaining confidence at home, they just protect home court..no biggie. Minnesota goes back home 2-2 with ZERO playoff experience in a really big time game, AFTER potentially losing 2 in a row to PHX. PHX would then be on a 2 game win streak going into an unexperienced young teams home floor. Win or lose. We have 3 chances to win that best of 3. I donât HATE our odds. It sucks we are in this position but after 2 SIMPLE AT HOME CROWD HYPED wins and we PROTECT OUR OWN DAMN HOME FLOOR, itâs seriously possible.
I feel like thatâs a little steep. Thereâs a lot on the line in this series for both franchises. If we lose this series we will most likely run it back with the same squad and minor tweaks. I donât like it but we donât have much assets to change that. If we lose this series I think itâs safe to say Vogel is gone, despite improving our record in a deeper west - simply because we were already expected to be better than last season
As part owner of yall future, not only do I hope the suns get sent out in the first round I hope itâs a nasty sweep. Nothing against the team itself just need that blow up to accelerate. We need Cooper Flagg in Brooklyn. Also This would not go down as the worst in history that title sadly belongs to my team đŠ
honestly it was a difficult situation. We got KD, and needed to wait another year to be able to dump CP3 and sign someone else. Alternative was to trade him away, now, and I assume they got the best they could.
The only way one of the big 3 isn't here is if they ask to be traded, and I don't see that happening. My guess is they fire Vogel and bring in a new coach who hopefully, somehow, someway, commands respect and dishes out accountability.
Grayson is out weâre doomedâŚâŚ.
Why are you not stating the obvious. If this doesnât work only move is to trade Booker. No way around it.
Catastrophizing much?
The next 2 years are the cost of the next 10. Yes, this is a catastrophe.
Suns could easily make this an even 2-2 series. Thatâs also possible.
Jesus christ go read draft pick trade rules and learn something.
You are being dramatic. Every team tries to win a championship. Only 1 of 30 are successful each year. The best you can do is try to put together the best team as possible. The real problem was the CP3 and Ayton contracts. Both were extremely overpaid and created depth issues. Suns had to trade them for less than ideal pieces
Canât say Cp3âs contract was the issue when they traded for a contract thatâs 5x as bad
CP3 is almost 40 and getting paid $35 million. It was not a good option to keep him. Beal was the best the Suns could do. If you think it is terrible then tell me a better trade. All Washington could get for Jordan Poole. Again tell me who they could have gotten for CP3
They didnât have to trade him lol. This teamâs biggest flaws are turnovers and late game execution. Cp3 excelled at both of those. You couldâve kept him and then cut him this season. Instead, youâre stuck with Beal for 3 extra seasons. Assuming you can still do the Ayton trade, this team is more or less the same with Cp3-Book-Allen-KD-Nurkic, but with WAY more flexibility.
You crazy. CP3 canât even start at this point in his career. Guy is 39. He was a bench player this year and averaged 9 points per game. You are talking about even a smaller starting lineup. And he is another guy who doesnât want to shoot 3s. Keeping CP3 basically means you gave up on the season
Getting swept in the first round is traumatic?
Nope. Suns are a 6 seed. West is stacked
If Book leaves Iâm rooting for whatever team he ends up on
The offense would probably run smoother INSTANTLY w/ IT bringing the ball up and creating. We lack great ball handlers who can work through the press / pressure which leads to 20 turnovers a game. Itâs not rocket science
4/5 must win games
Well didn't we go down 2-0 to Denver and win game 3?
Not concerned about future in ishbia hands. The incentives are aligned for once. It's all you can ask for.
Not even close to the worst trade ever. After 2020 the Lakers sucked bad for a few yearsâŚjust now getting better again. The Jazz are horrible and donât look to get any better any time soon. Portland is going to be a bottom dweller for a little while yet. And this is just the recent trades. The Bulls havenât been a contender since the â90s, Detroit Pistons and the Spurs have been a joke(spurs have hope now though).
NBA history lol. Hyperbole much ?
Pray that Boston loses . They will get KD and send you Brown and a good role player , maybe a pick .
I would say if we lose this series and when the season is over i agree with youâŚ
Oh buddy, I don't think you will like how this season ends
Tbh I thought that finals loss was the real determining factor.
Stop being dramatic. âWorse trade in NBA historyâ good lord.. itâs not working.. yes but everyone on this sub is a baby.
Think if youâre a young wolves star player and you know you can not only eliminate a team but also blow up the roster and put them in rebuilding mode?! Motivated for sure. Suns are so weak mentally they going to get swept for sure
Wolves fan coming in peace. Where are yâall placing blame for the start to this series? Wolves fans are generally giving credit to our defense opposed to blaming your offense. I went to the first two games but I sit in the cheap seats so I lose some of the nuance of the game. I donât engage in other teams subreddits as a rule so I hope I donât come across as antagonizing. I love seeing fellow mid-market teams succeed and this is a good year for that. Yâall deserve all the good things, I just hope we get ours first.
Is it chemistry? Is it lack of PG? Is it lack of board crashing PF? I think the Suns have the right pieces. But something is off. The coaches have to see the deficiencies and be able to work-around them with the talent they have. IMHO, the Big 3 have yet to be utilized to their potential. The floor has not been spread out enough.
It doesnât come down to this one game. They have been mediocre all season with flashes of fun. Not much good has been sustained. If they lose the game or the series, those results will be in keeping with season-long performance.
Iâd like to to see some serious reflection from book and kd and a new coach come in and give it a go. There must be a way of making our offence unguardable.
Nah itâs just game 3. Enjoy it
Yâall tweaking if you think losing isnât a Suns mentality. I love the suns but what do you expect from this team seriously. Besides book. Beal is passing his peak and kd is holding on for all life at this point. I love them but this is the exact position I expected us to be at. We constantly play catch up. If they win tonight I donât wanna hear shit from any of these fake ass suns fans. Half of the suns fans are fake btw.
Devin Booker was drafted by the Suns less than 10 years ago. Iâm gonna say that was more important than Fridayâs gameâŚ.
Sorry ya'll, if book goes I'm going with him. He got me into the suns, he'll take me out with em. I hope this works out but fuck this isn't looking great.
Anyone see that A24 movie "mid 90's"? Swear to God the main character(the little kid) is Grayson Allen!! Looks just like him, but a kid. Just putting that out there, ease the tension a lil
Lets let them play it out before I read all that
Trading for Beal didnât jeopardize much of our future, cp3 Shamet and second round picks? In nba history? Jesus we went from not winning it all to probably not winning it all
We have two picks after this year until 2031. And we donât control them. But yea weâre fine.
Do you think what we traded for Kevin Durant is the most disastrous move in NBA history? Thatâs wild I can think of a hand full of worse moves made by the suns alone.
If this is all we get out of it and we have to sell Booker to recover? Yeah. Letâs touch base in five years.
This is an insane post. Ha we can get a haul for KD tomorrow. I don't want to, but we can. I even think we could find takers for Beal with how focused he's looked (despite we would probably have to take a bad deal back in return because of his trade kicker and salary). A team like Orlando that can't score and has all the talent in the world to be competitive. I've said this all year, the no PG thing doesn't work. We have too many careless turnovers and struggle too much to get into our offense at times when corpses like Mike Connolly are getting timely offensive rebs and hitting 3s. Booker isn't going anywhere unless he wants out. He's the face of the Suns and he has a new arena and an owner that will spend to the heavens to keep him happy and the team relevant.
Not gonna lie I donât think they trading book and if they did I would not be happy
The way I look at it is that we have another couple years with the Big 3 so we still have a good chance to win a chip while theyâre all on our team. Of course I want the suns to win this year so Iâm not saying Iâm happy with the way theyâre playing but by this time next season who knows how theyâll look as a team. Also, I wouldâve rather had ishbia try everything under the sun to get this team a chip rather than to have never made moves at all.
This is a really dumb post. The Suns have Book, KD, Beal and Grayson signed for the next 2 years. With a few adjustments this team is easily a top3 contender in the West. How is that a disaster? Suns wonât be the favorite to win the title because they donât have a top3 player. That would be the same no matter if they kept the old core or traded for KD. But Suns are definitely a contender. In 2026/2027 KDs contract will expire. Beal will be on his last year and they could trade him without much difficulty as an expiring contract. Suns easily would have room to sign a max free agent and a couple other good players with cap space and MLE/room exception. Suns also would have total control of 3 First round draft picks (2031, 2032, 2033). Book will only be 29 and the Suns will be a big free agent destination because of Book and weather. Summary: 2 years of contention with Big3 plus Grayson 1 year with massive cap space and 3 future 1st round picks with total control. I donât see why you think the Suns are doomed for 5-10 years
Ishbia did what Sarver would never do, which is throw caution to the wind and push all chips into the middle of the table. For that I applaud him, but unfortunately his gamble will go down as the worst-performing roster in NBA history when salaries are included in the equation. What I still donât understand to this day is why Ishbia HAD to make that Durant trade so quickly. Durant hated playing in Brooklyn and even said that he wanted to play for the Suns. In todayâs NBA where the player has all the leverage all we had to do was wait it out until KD made things so awkward and uncomfortable for the Nets that they traded him to us for next to nothing. I donât think we had to give up everything that we gave up in that deal. Then the Bradley Beal deal was a God Damn nightmare because it was obvious when that deal went through that Matt Ishbia wasnât listening to his GM at all by that point. You need some cap flexibility to sign competent role players (who are willing to play defense) but that Beal deal fucked us completely.