Former Phoenix Suns players need to shut up

The Phoenix Suns have fired Ryan McDonough, and several former players just can’t shut up about it.

When the news that Phoenix Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough had been fired just over a week before the start of the regular season, the NBA world was shocked. Such a move just isn’t commonplace in the Association, especially when McDonough had been allowed to accomplish so much over the summer setting up for 2018-19.

But while the news was shocking in it’s timing, it wasn’t necessarily shocking in it’s form or function: Ryan McDonough apparently had a problem communicating with his players, and Owner Robert Sarver is desperate to change the perception of his franchise in this regard, most notably by keeping his star player happy.

Several instances of unfortunate mis-, or non-, communication, can immediately come to mind when you think of the issues that McDonough had had in his tenure as General Manager:

• The acquisition of Isaiah Thomas at point guard giving Phoenix three potential starting point guards, quickly boiling over when their roles were not clearly defined to the point where at least two of the three players became unhappy in Phoenix and two, Thomas and Goran Dragic, bitterly demanding trades.
• Trading Marcus Morris without telling twin brother Markieff Morris, who until that point in his time with Phoenix had been the best power forward on the roster and had still been considered an up-and-comer.
• Not working with Eric Bledsoe on a trade to the star point guard’s liking, eventually ending in Bledsoe’s infamous tweet, and McDonough publicly calling out Bledsoe’s inner-circle as the perpetrators of the entire mess.
• Not telling Devin Booker that he was waiving Booker’s best friend, Tyler Ulis, leading to an infamous Shams Charania tweet noting Booker’s unhappiness with the franchise for not having been given a head’s up.

It is more than apparent that McDonough was poor at communicating with his players, especially those who had a vested interest in the movement of one other player on the roster. And while one incident might be an honest mistake or that simply of a disgruntled player who just wasn’t going to be happy anyway, by the fourth incident – one involving the franchise’s growing superstar player – the pattern had become glaringly evident, and the fear in Sarver’s mind that he might lose Devin Booker like all the others, must weigh heavily upon him.

Phoenix Suns

And yet: each of those men listed above are all professionals doing a job, and player movement should be entirely out of their control.

Athletes are well aware that movement happens on a roster and sometimes when management has an opportunity to change the team on a moment’s notice, there isn’t always time to inform concerned parties until the news is released in other means.

Then there are those athletes who just don’t care about the process and are going to make a big deal of it anyway because acting childish and unprofessional is part of their natural disposition.

Which leads me back to the firing of McDonough as General Manager.

When Ryan McDonough was fired, several former Phoenix Suns players took to social media to celebrate the move, essentially stating that the team is better off for it and that they might now finally be happy with Phoenix again.

Most specifically, Markieff and Marcus Morris, and Mike James.

Those players just need to shut up.

I have no problem with their opinions. In fact, based on the bullet points above, I believe that they are probably right. McDonough had some major issues connecting and communicating with players, and while some of that falls on Sarver as well, no one wants to know that the Phoenix Suns franchise is so poorly run that players can’t wait for the opportunity to leave.

But like McDonough, these players are professionals.  They might play a boy’s game, but they play in a man’s world. Going public with statements like these, and doing so flippantly, shows both a continued lack of maturity but also ethics, a combination of some of the most annoying traits of so many entertainers today.

Nothing could be more obnoxious to their new (current) franchise’s than players who can’t let go of the past and keep rehashing old heartaches about their former teams.

Attacks on McDonough prove these former player’s gross immaturity, and are especially nauseating knowing than that they can – and will – happily walk away from this with zero remorse.

Comments disparaging McDonough are immature and childish but what is worse is that McDonough will never respond in kind. No one will ever hear from him publicly about how awful it was to have to work with players who caused so many problems in the locker room and in the community.

McDonough will keep his mouth shut, as he should, while these players blather on, head’s high like children who avoided getting a spanking from their Mother.

The Ryan McDonough era has ended with the Phoenix Suns and there is plenty of interest in what the franchise is going to do to move forward.

Hopefully with McDonough gone progress can continue to be made to move the franchise in the right direction and before we know it, the Phoenix Suns are great again.

Hopefully too the Suns can continue to at least make the Morrii happy since obviously they care enough about Phoenix still to comment on what the franchise is doing.

Then again, who cares.