Phoenix Suns Have Struggled Since Colangelo's Have Left

Jerry Colangelo sold the Phoenix Suns (among other teams) to Robert Sarver in the spring of 2004. 

Colangelo is without question the preeminent figure in Arizona sports history.  He ran the Suns for nearly 40 years, and brought the Diamondbacks into existence, along with the first championship Arizona has ever seen in 2001.

Bryan Colangelo was the teams GM when Sarver bought the Suns, and remained in that position until leaving for the Toronto Raptors in February of 2006. 

Bryan had been the Suns GM for 11 years, and in 2005 won the NBA Executive of the Year award. 

On a side note, while researching Bryan Colangelo I discovered he went to Cornell University.  As one of my favorite characters from the TV show “The Office”, Andy Bernard would say, “I went to Cornell, ever heard of it?”  So not only are the Suns losing out on a Colangelo, but also a Cornell grad.

What would happen now to the Suns who were without a Colangelo making decisions for the first time in nearly 40 years? 

Well the Suns didn’t panic, and Coach Mike D’Antoni assumed the role of the General Manager and he and other high ranking officials made the personnel decisions. 

Let’s take a look at some of these decisions and see how they turned out.  First of all, the draft of 2006 was a complete and utter disaster. 

The Suns had the 21^st and 27^th picks in the first round.  In desperate need of a point guard to back up Steve Nash, it appeared the Suns had lucked out with three appealing options available. 

Not wanting to pay the money to a first round pick, the Suns traded both picks and passed on Rajon Rondo—who I think has turned out well for Boston—Marcus Williams and Jordan Farmar among others. 

They also could have taken European star Sergio Rodriguez and left him in Europe for awhile, and not had to worry about his cap number.

Instead the Suns traded both picks and made a bold move.  By bold, I mean horrific.  The Suns signed Marcus Banks to a five year deal at over $21 million.  Now I consider myself a pretty intense NBA fan, and I’m not kidding, I had no idea who Marcus Banks was.

I figured it was a shrewd move by the Suns and didn’t really worry because I figured the “Nash Effect” would take over. 

Every player that Steve Nash has played with since the second grade has turned into an All Star and had their best years while playing with him.  Sadly enough though, not even the great Steve Nash could make Marcus Banks an NBA-caliber point guard.

Later in the ’06 off-season they felt the need to lock up Boris (Doris) Diaw to a long term deal.  Diaw had a huge first year for the Suns; however, this was the same year that Amare Stoudemire missed due to his knee surgery.

Instead of waiting to see if the two could play together, the Suns gave Diaw a five-year deal worth $45 million and quickly found out that they can’t play together. 

Both players are “back to the basket” type players and need the ball to be effective.  It doesn’t help that Diaw is the softest player in the league and is as aggressive as a girl scout (that’s kind of mean to girl scouts, I take it back). 

The Suns had a very bad week in May of 2007.  After losing to the Spurs in the “Robert Horry cheap shot/Steve Nash bloody nose/Tim Donaghy throwing games” series; the Suns also lost out on the Hawks draft pick. 

The pick would stay with the Hawks if it went into the top three picks, and of course it did.

Instead of getting a player like Al Horford or Mike Conley, the Suns added Alando Tucker and Darryl Strawberry’s son.   

Shortly after the draft the Suns introduced Steve Kerr as the new GM.  Kerr’s qualifications were that he knew Michael Jordan, was from Tucson(so is Sarver), and worked for TNT. 

Kerr made a splash with one of his first moves, and this is arguably the single worst trade in the history of the NBA.  Kerr traded Kurt Thomas, the only low post defender the Suns had, who had just given Tim Duncan fits in the playoffs, to Seattle. 

What did the Suns get you ask?  Wait a second; they also included two future first round picks in the deal.  WOW!  They must have pulled off a blockbuster! 

Well, Mr. Kerr is pretty shrewd, and he was able to get a second round pick out of Seattle.

Let’s recap this one.  Kurt Thomas, first round picks in ’08 and ’10 to Seattle for a second round pick. 

What makes this trade worse is that Seattle traded Thomas to the Spurs for a first round pick in the middle of the season and Thomas was instrumental in sending the Suns home in the first round this past year. 

The Sonics received three first round picks, and Kurt Thomas for half the season for a second round pick.  This was obviously a money saving move by the Suns, but how much did it end up costing them?

In February of 2008 Kerr pulled off the blockbuster move by acquiring Shaq for Shawn Marion and dumping the Marcus Banks contract on the Heat. 

Kerr said if the Shaq move didn’t work out that he’d be out of a job and he would be labeled a moron.  Well he is right on one of the counts.

Kerr ran off Mike D’Antoni at the end of the season and the Suns run appears to be over, and that bright future looks really cloudy now. 

Kerr says the Suns need to become better on defense and focus more time on the defensive end.  This is a great idea in theory, but I have a question.

There is only one defensive player in the mix, and that is Raja Bell.  Nash can’t stay in front of the quicker point guards, Shaq will get pick and rolled to death, Amare still makes silly decisions, and Doris is afraid he’ll break a nail. 

At least with the run-and-gun style, Suns fans knew what they were getting: an up and down team that was as exciting as any. 

Now with Terry Porter and Kerr at the helms, who knows what will happen, but I sure miss the glory days of...two years ago.