I live in SoCal now, but I grew up in Phoenix, and my mom worked with JC, D. Van Arsdale, and several other of the Suns old guard. I don’t know them well, but the Suns have been the cream of the crop as an organization with them at the helm. This is indeed a turning point for the team.

Kerr, I like, and somewhat trust. I can’t give you any hard evidence, but despite his inexperience I’m buying the confidence he is projecting. Sarver…well…I do believe he wants to win, but I think you can say that about all the owners—they all want to win, just not all of them know how to. I think he’s been more or less his own worst enemy at every turn, from chicken-flapping at the Spurs, to the allegations of employee, err, bullying, in “his” arena, to not knowing when to write checks and when not to. Still, most of this has seemingly been about him wanting things done his way by his people, so if Kerr can find the right guy, that tiny crack in the window might still be enough to sneak through, although truth be told, I’ll be happy if we can just stay competitive.

Sarver did what many of us long-time fans would’ve loved to have done: Bought the Phoenix Suns. I can relate. He and I are a lot alike—except he’s much richer and obviously has better business savvy. Our wardrobes, though (at least at the games), are similar. Also, we both grew up Suns’ fans. I lived in Tucson for 7 years going to school. So I’m going with this …

He’s a fan with limited basketball experience and made some bad moves—especially in hindsight. Be honest. If you had bought a ball team a few years ago, you may not have done much better.

He’s proven that he wants to win. He’s also made some mistakes. No one can legitimately say that he’s been cheap. Sure, we would’ve liked him to shell out a little more here and there, but it’s not our money. Also, he does have an obligation to his partners/investors to exercise good judgment. While he may simply be giddy to have a team, there are probably some partners who want some cash out of this deal.

Until he does something outright Bidwell-esque, I’m not going to give him too hard of a time.

That being said, it will be quite an accomplishment to keep up the legacy that Colangelo has created. The biggest counterpoint to the above arguments (and that nagging feeling in my stomach) is that JC’s input would have been invaluable. I wonder why JC seems so distant in this whole thing? I hope it is not because of Sarver, because that would evidence poor judgment and an unwillingness to continue the legacy of the Suns (if, however, JC just wanted out and does not want to be involved at all, that is something different—remember, he was lobbying for the NY GM position a while back).

If I was Sarver, I would have given Jerry the keys until he wanted to quit, but that’s me. I wonder if Sarver thought JC would pull a Dback type of thing on him with his money.

Hey, don’t forget, Jerry was also the coach for a while, too!

Jerry took over twice for fired coaches, Johnny “Red” Kerr, and Bill Van Breda Kolff. He actually did pretty good. In 1969 he led them to a 24-20 record and the playoffs. I am confident that Jerry could have eventually won a title in Phoenix. But Sarver wanted to run things.

With the exception of the most recent Piston team, every single title team for the last 25+ years has not only had a hall-of famer(s) on the roster, but have been led by players who legitimately could be considered in the top 5 all-time at their respective positions—i.e., Shaq, Duncan, Jordan, Hakeem, Isiah, Magic, Bird. The luck involved there is the team’s good fortune to be in a position to acquire those special players when they are available. Other than Shaq, those other players all were drafted by the teams they won titles with.

What should our goal be as a franchise?

(Now that we have established that few can win an elusive title)

To be profitable for the owner
To be healthy for the city’s economy
To be entertaining for the fans
To bring people together in a common diversion
To give fans something to identify with and to be proud of
To give sports junkies like us who don’t have a life something to talk about

The Suns have done all of that.

I’ve been thinking about this too. Well done, PS. I’m very curious about the tack that Sarver is going to take. I have a feeling the coming Suns squads are going to look an awful lot like the post-Nellie Mavericks: an offensive machine getting outfitted with some defensive parts.

I don’t know what this means in terms of legacy, but Suns fans are sure to be living in interesting times for the next few seasons.