Suns Future Is Bleak - ESPN Tells Us The Way It Is

Do you really think Nash will play another 4 years, counting this one?

Is such that we probably won’t gotta wear shades.

Suns never get any respect, I am used to it now.

We know what this kind of talk does to the team anyway, so just smile, laugh, sit back and enjoy some Suns basketball!

Gladly I’m not an “insider” so I can’t read these idiots’ sophisticated crappy articles.

The Suns will perennially be drafting in the top 5 of the lottery.

I am guessing that player development is not taken in consideration here and their entire article is based on Sarvers so called myth of taking bad decisions and being a cheapskate. To top it off they have you pay for this piece of crap analytical reporting where if you argue based on actual player development/improvement, the future does not entirely look anywhere close to bleak, they will come up with the douchebag answer, “But we got numbers and you dont, NA na NA na NA”

Nash can’t play D. Childress sucks. Dragic is a flash in the pan. Dudley wants to be a NY or LA celebrity. Hedo will haunt us. Lon Babby is Gozer the Destructor. We’ve been Sarver’d.
Blow it all up. The WCF appearance was stupid and pointless. It wasn’t even much fun in the first place.
Basketball is lame. It’s like lacrosse without the netted sticks and the goal is raised. Big deal.
ESPN is the most credible source in the universe. Colin Cowherd is a genius. Alvin Gentry is a moron.

Josh Childress (who plays the same position as Turkoglu), Channing Frye and Hakim Warrick.

I can understand this, but do they not realize that the Suns have played undersized for years? Do they not realize that Josh’s natural position is actually the 2 which he will play? Do they not realize that Frye plays the Center? Do they not realize that Warrick has always played PF? The only thing they got right is Turk.

Well, will just have to prove them wrong and if they’re right we’re still in a pretty darn good position because we can easily fix it. We have plenty of pieces, a trade exception, expiring contract which we could use to make the necessary move to make us better. That’s just talking about this season though. A few years from now we will have Dragic, Dudley, Lopez, Josh, Frye and hopefully a good PF.

I’m a big Suns fan, but I also tend to temper my expectations quite a bit. However, I agree whole heartedly with Alex on this one. To put the 4th best franchise in NBA history at the bottom of the this list is to ignore a pattern of success that has followed decades. While the Suns have yet to win an NBA Championship, they are perennially one of the better teams in the league because good players want to play here. The reason Minnesota, Memphis, Cleveland, Charlotte, and New Orleans stink on a general level is because they have to fight to get decent players there. Phoenix is a desirable destination. (see Hedo waiving is trade bonus, Childress taking less money to play here, Warrick commenting on playing in Phoenix). This is a “my bad” on the part of Chad Ford and Hollinger. An anomaly in the statistical analysis.

Have you guys ever heard Chad Ford or John Hollinger in interviews? The only thing they can spit off are PER, win shares, plus-minus, and salaries. They fail to realize the effect that Nash can have on any warm-body in the league (Tim Thomas, James Jones, etc). Guys like Hedo, Childress, and Warrick are able to maximize their potential with Nash. I expect some young guys to contribute way more than these ESPN talking heads can anticipate.

Other then that there is nothing that ESPN offers that isn’t vastly surpassed by other more specific sports web sites. Oh yeah, that 30for30 series is sweet too, but it took 30 years for them to get to that point.

Predictions, opinions, humor, insight, fantasy games, breaking news … ESPN is waaay behind the curve. So behind in fact that they are getting sucked into the tabloid side of journalism just to compete.

The other point I want to bring up is that journalists are never held accountable for their predictions. It is just a cheap way to get mouse clicks.

ESPN=BSPN

No matter how good the Suns are or could be, ESPN and the rest of the sports world will always look down on us. It’s a sad shame that we always have to work to prove ourselves. We have one of the highest winning percentages as an organization in league history even though we don’t have a championship to show for it. The media just looks at our high scoring, lack of defense, and dry facts and puts it down. I don’t listen to them at all because the Suns have been able to surpass expecations almost every year in recent history. Suns fans should not be dismayed by the people who don’t even watch our team’s every game analyze every single move by our organization. We know them better and we believe in our team through thick and thin.

With their talent and skills, I’d say we got those 2 guys at a steal. I think we overpaid Frye a bit but the other 2 guys were steals. ESPN really blows. I guess they’d rather be rewatching the Decision instead of doing actual research on the Suns.

Espn writes some bs, i know its the offseason but come on. Put some research into your article or real fans like over here on bsots gonna tear it up.

I like our future with Goran Dragic and Robin Lopez alone. Not really worried. Even if we did suck for a few years sometimes that’s what it takes to get a couple good draft picks several years in a row. Then your future gets much brighter.

Either way we do much better as the under dog.

Goran gonna be the man!

They are saying we “lost him”, when we actually made a calculation (a smart one, I think) not to pay him max guaranteed for 5 years like the Knicks did. Do they ding the Knicks for overpaying him? They should, because the Knicks did.

That would be great to sit in a section and watch a game with fellow BSOTS members. I have never seen anyone try to set that up. All of us crazy fans together to watch a game. could be interesting…

They last did the rankings in February or March, I believe.

But someone with insider please dig up how they ranked us during the last offseason?

And I think Hollinger is a genius. Most of the work they put out is great.

But this, I don’t understand it. How can you predict the future? I don’t know where to start with this.

Let’s assume Sarver has made a mess of the front office as they depict, let’s assume the Hedo deal is terrible, and let’s assume Nash is as finished as they claim (and he will be in two seasons I think). The Suns still have the up and coming Dragic, and a bunch of useful young players and useful trade chips (the contracts incoming this year so far) to play with.

Don’t the Suns have the 4th highest winning percentage in the entire NBA over history? Aren’t they almost never a lottery team because they rebuild and retool along the way? Didn’t Sarver say, when introducing Lon Babby, that this is the way he envisions to run the franchise (i.e. like the Colangelos did)? And yet ESPN wants to ignore all that, all logic, and simply say the Suns are doomed based on their opinions on the roster the Suns have and will have (to an extent) a year or 3 down the line.

It’s just stupid.

for awhile now has become a channel I turn away from. The E-60 and Outside the lines are decent, but other than that it has become “Not watch TV”.
 Screw them. The Suns should be fine. Turk is the key to this team. If he adjusts, plays hard, and doesn’t bitch, this team will make a deep run into the playoffs.

“i hate john hollinger and all of ESPN” ….DONE.

I think Gentry wrote that article just to pump his team up.
i love articles like this because it serves two purposes.
1. it makes espn, yahoo look like the ignorent asses they are
2. doesnt over hype the suns so they come out cockey.

they do come out cockey because they know the truth that we know and it has set us free from all this mass media bullshit.

bartender, another shot please.

is amar’e going to change his name when he realizes in hebrew there are no commas or other pronounciation marks???

He is going to have to revert back to just plain old Amare.

The jury is out on the new suns .

Can Nash play at this level for another year, and another year, and another year?
Can Tuk play like his old self?
Will Dragic keep getting better?
Will Lopez stay healthy?
Will Grant stay healthy?
Can all the new players play together?

These kinds of questions can only be answered real time, not ESPN time. When we see this team pull together.

insult to the players.

for them WCF appearance is just a luck, maybe they wanted vengeance because their CREDIBILITY were ruined by the suns last postseason.

Since the Suns will suck so bad, why bother…? I think I go out hard and fast by reading Hollinger’s colums till my intestines fester and my brain implodes from lack of substance…..

Mr. Laugan, you say ESPN’s article smacks of “desperation.” I agree that it’s nonsense, but how does it show desperation, and why is ESPN desperate? Is ESPN failing or losing everyone’s respect (possibly because it won’t stop being LeBron James’s lickspittle)?

We’ve been around 42 years. Just off the top of my head I can’t imagine us drafting that high more than maybe five or six times.

Also, why are so many analysts bashing on our signings this past year? I mean, we really didn’t overpay anyone. I mean, sure we might of overpaid Channing a little but I’m sure there was a team out there looking to pay him just as much if not more.

Thirdly, why are they not taking into account how good of shape we are heading into the next CBA? I could see maybe ONE Top five draft pick in the next handful of years, not every year.

I’m just so damn confused, everyone says Amare is a huge risk and was grossly over paid and isn’t a superstar. So what happens? lose him and all of a sudden we’re not even a playoff team next year. Can anyone think of a analyst out there who isn’t a total Sun hater? Marc Stein maybe?

For reasons I don’t understand, Mike Breen irritates me.

apparently, the Knicks are ranked 11th overall for the next 4 years, with their roster ranked 15th (compared to the Suns’ 27th and 24th respectively).

Ridiculous

11. New York Knicks | Future Power Rating: 523

PLAYERS MANAGEMENT MONEY MARKET DRAFT
200 (15th) 97 (15th) 140 (4th) 77 (3rd) 9 (29th)

The Knicks didn’t hit the home run they were hoping for this summer in free agency, but they still significantly improved their roster. In fact, the Knicks moved up a whopping 12 spots in our player ratings, the most of any team this summer. Of course, the fact that they ranked 27th out of 30 in March puts the major move forward into perspective.

Last season, the Knicks didn’t have a lot going for them as they tried to keep the payroll lean in an attempt to lure two superstars to New York. The addition of Amare Stoudemire, Anthony Randolph, Raymond Felton and Ronny Turiaf to holdover Knicks Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Toney Douglas and Bill Walker should make a significant impact in the win column.

But the summer rebuilding effort wasn’t enough to propel the Knicks into the overall top 10 in our future rankings. Knicks fans might have been hoping for more after years of waiting, but ranking fourth in the East (11th overall) means that fans should eventually get to see their team win a playoff series for the first time since 2000.

The good news for the Knicks is that the team will retain some cap flexibility in the future. Once Eddy Curry comes off the books next summer, the Knicks should have enough money to make another significant addition (assuming the new CBA allows it) or could use Curry’s expiring contract as a trading chip at the deadline.

The bad news for the Knicks is that they paid a high price to get Amare and Co. this summer. The team lost All-Star forward David Lee in the Anthony Randolph swap and traded 2009 lottery pick Jordan Hill in February to create cap space (as part of the Tracy McGrady deal). The Rockets now have the right to swap picks with the Knicks in 2011 and own the Knicks’ 2012 first-round pick as well (though it’s top-five protected). That has pushed the Knicks to No. 29 in our draft category.

(Previous rank: 16)

I’m thinking along the lines of “stick and stones may break my bones…..”, “talk is cheap”, that kind of thing. (Although, since this column was an ESPN Insider exclusive, it managed to be both cheap and overpriced at the same time, and that’s not easy.) This isn’t college football. It doesn’t matter where “experts” rank us, we’ll settle it on the court. I actually don’t even think Suns players will use this as any kind of motivation because I bet they simply don’t care.

…for saying “Who’s Lebron James?” LeBron James earned that non-recognition.

I stopped listening after that.

everyone save or copy these reports about the suns so we can rub it in peoples faces next year
I should have done it for this previous season… suns were getting a D+ rating from some magazines and sites.

http://www.nba.com/video/channels/nba_tv/2010/08/03/20100803_schedule_beat_la.nba/?ls=iref:nbahpt1
The suns arent even mentioned in passing as a team that could beat the lakers, even though they got so close this year…

My guess is that a lot of that is predicated on the team falling apart once Nash is done (not that I agree b/c of Dragic 23). But Hollinger is also the only one who predicted the Suns to win it all once the playoffs started and he also predicted the Suns to beat the Lakers in 6.