Charles Barkley
There isn’t any bigger a name nor any more popular a figure in Phoenix Suns history than Charles Barkley,.
He has been speculated by fans for many years as a potential future General Manager, a position he thought that he was going to have last season with the Orlando Magic.
Charles Barkley would be perfect as General Manager for the Phoenix Suns.
His press conferences alone would make any failings acceptable by the fanbase.
His personality would hang over the team like an umbrella shielding the young players from any criticism, allowing them to grow in relative peace while he draws away all the attention.
Like Dave Griffin, he has a brilliant basketball mind, probably the most underrated in basketball simply because of his occasional poor presentation of information. But while sometimes inarticulate, his perspective and logic is often perfectly spot on and indisputable.
Barkley taking the reins would actually big a bigger deal than bringing back the Colangelos as the spectacle alone would hearken the fan base back to his original acquisition as a player in 1992, with his face plastered all over banners and buses taking the entire limelight away from Robert Sarver, while the owner slowly slowly and quietly re-grows his legacy under Barkley’s successes.
Sir Charles would almost undoubtedly answer the phone should Sarver call, but would have one particular demand: “if you really want me, then you’ll stay the hell out of my way.”
Barkley stated on Bickley and Marotta on October 9th that in order to consider the position he would have to have complete autonomy with Sarver never interfering with his daily job.
Barkley said that if Robert Sarver and the Phoenix #Suns were to offer him the GM job now, he’d only take it if he had 100% autonomy and Sarver left him completely alone. #TimeToRise https://t.co/NlFtlqOkrl
— Valley of the Suns (@ValleyoftheSuns) October 9, 2018
There in lies the rub, though. As I asked before, would Sarver ever do that? Would he ever stay 100% away from the team’s daily operations and accept the perception of his own success and failure as an owner rest entirely on a man who has never held an executive position in the NBA before?
But let’s be honest here: Sarver could do worse though than hiring Barkley.
Who better to groom to potential future superstars in Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton than Charles Barkley?
Who better to brush off any dysfunction during the rebuilding process than a man who will answer any and every question with complete, total, and often brutal honesty?
Who better to be more competitive in the General Manager chair than someone who hates the idea of artificially built super teams, when he would have to compete against two of them in the same division every year?
Barkley absolutely loathes analytics and would look for the absolute best players he could possibly acquire. The moves he would make would be simple and fun as he would build around his two homegrown stars by finding the best possible role players to put around them.
Players and their agents around the league would listen when he called as the prospect of working for one of the greatest of all-time, someone who unlike Michael Jordan wouldn’t have any problem saying it how it is, making Phoenix an immediate destination.
Hiring Charles Barkley as the next General Manager would be the kind of move that would get the basketball world talking and focused on the Phoenix Suns for all the right reasons.
If he were to succeed, much like Jerry Colangelo in 1992, Robert Sarver would be making the kind of hire that absolutely everybody would love, and that even if he failed, absolutely no one would give him grief for.