“There’s no perfect time to make a change,” Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver said Monday on the local radio program Burns & Gambo. And so it is, with nine days before the first game, that Sarver decided to fire General Manager Ryan McDonough after five years on the job. Nothing to see here. Just another Phoenix Suns season starting with vague inner turmoil and a big question mark.
Sarver sounded apathetic, grasping for answers during the interview, but held firm onto who was responsible for the firing. “The decision was mine alone,” he said, going all-in, remarking after the fact that he consulted with others. I guess last year’s tire fire still has some flames flickering in the rubble.
It was this time last year when Interim Head Coach Earl Watson was fired. He replaced Jeff Hornacek and finished that season, staying on through the next training camp, preseason and the first three games. Granted, the Suns lost two of those three by 48 and 42 points. Watson was gone before Halloween. Jay Triano then held the interim tag for the final 78 games.
“Turnover’s not a good thing,” Sarver said, owning up to his faults in the front office. It seems Sarver lets an idea settle in his brain, then harden without letting anyone else know. Then like an unknown swamp beast, he spews it out on the unsuspecting landscape.
Sarver acknowledged communication has been an issue within the organization. “I gotta do a better job next time around,” he admitted haplessly, as if it amounted to simply having to order more confetti for the next ticketholders’ event. His bad communication has resulted, though not entirely, in the hasty exits of Marcus Morris, Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas, then Markieff Morris and Eric Bledsoe. Remember this? Can’t believe it was only one year ago.
Can only wonder if the out-of-nowhere trade of Marquese Chriss and Brandon Knight followed a similar pattern.
During Monday’s interview, hours after the announced firing, Sarver casually boiled it down to this fault: I’m a bad owner and I know it, but I’m not going to change. Shruggingly taking the blame for his own misguided impatience.
McDonough’s tenure in Phoenix as GM saw him staying aggressive for good or ill. He “worked his butt off,” as Sarver put it. He was hired in 2013 to a listless franchise that only three years previously had squirmed to the Western Conference Finals. In his first year he brought in Coach Hornacek and found flash-in-the-pan success with Dragic and Bledsoe both running the point. Suns barely missed the playoffs that year and so expectations were kept there.
But there was more point guard confusion, “bad communication,” the sloppy trade for Brandon Knight from Milwaukee, draft day gambles. McDonough certainly made some dicey moves. But Sarver felt content enough through all that upheaval to sign him, just last summer, to an extension through 2019-20. Sarver seemed to finally understand that sometimes a rebuild can be messy, but patience is key.
Suns finally hit paydirt this summer and received their franchise-first number one draft pick, some redemption from a lost season. And the pick was a good one. Deandre Ayton is the kind of player that can make this franchise competitive again. It looked like everyone in the front office would finally start off on the same page.
Then came this summer’s mid-August trade with the Rockets: Chriss and Knight for veteran Ryan Anderson and rookie guard De’Anthony Melton. All pros and cons aside, just an unnecessary trade. Afterward, though, it immediately felt like there might be another move in the works and that the trade might only be part one. It’s been weeks and the rumors have gone cold.
The current roster has forced first-time head coach Igor Kokoskov to spend the preseason rotating out point guards to find a clear contributor. It has not been easy with a cast of two rookies, Elie Okobo and Melton; second-year bull Shaq Harrison; and Isaiah Canaan who has worked himself back into playing shape from an ugly injury last year. None of them are incompetent guards, but merely the best on any bench unit. The rumor mill pumped out some raw deals all summer long, none of which would’ve changed the Suns’ win percentage by much. Did McDonough fail to find a good deal or refuse to take a crummy one?
It’s obvious what really irked Sarver was the lack of progress on any meaningful moves for a starting point guard. “I think we’re at the end of a rebuild,” he said. “It’s now time to start figuring out how to win.”
So with all the promise of the number one draft pick to use on a monster like Ayton; Devin Booker‘s inevitable progress; and the bright spots from TJ Warren and Josh Jackson, the Suns still lack a solid playmaker for all this budding talent.
Sure, there is room to justify McDonough’s firing. But, why now? When you still have 82 games to play and your most realistic forecast is to increase your wins from 21 to 35? At best? Maybe the point guard search would’ve taken until February. Did Sarver really think the Suns were playoff-bound this season? In the West? When the top eight teams have been damn near identical the past few years?
Sarver thinking of his next impulse. Photo/YouTube.comSarver said he felt that the target progression of the team had, “started to plateau.” An odd statement when the team had barely started to climb. “We could’ve been farther along today,” he added. Not sure what his expectations are for a team sunk in rebuild mode with extremely high potential, but nothing to yet show. Guess we’ll have to wait for the next knee-jerk move to try and understand, but unless that move is for Kyrie, it’s doubtful.
