Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver said he thought the team was ready to compete, but that comment looks worse and worse with each passing game.
Not many Phoenix Suns fans have good things to say about owner Robert Sarver. He’s run coaches and general managers out of town, and he’s known to be overbearing. He’s been blamed for many of the team’s bad decisions, and it’s led to the Suns not making the playoffs since 2010.
Robert Sarver has always seemed like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Under Sarver, player evaluation in the draft has been poor, free agent signings have made no sense, and progress hasn’t taken place.
But even the worst owners and executives should be able to properly evaluate their own team. Sarver has the chance to spend every day around this team, and he has his handpicked coaches and executives to tell him their thoughts. So how is it possible that Robert Sarver thought the Phoenix Suns were ready to compete this season?
The Suns are so clearly not ready to compete. They look bad on both sides of the floor, and the way the rest of the Western Conference looks, the Suns would have to be well over .500 for anyone to consider them to be “competing” for anything. And this team isn’t sniffing .500 this season.
It’s understandable that Sarver wants to hype up the team. He needs to sell tickets and keep TV ratings high, and Suns fans are already beyond frustrated with the team. But it wouldn’t make sense for him to lie right before the season, as the product on the court ultimately speaks for itself.
So if Sarver isn’t lying, and he genuinely believed (and possibly still believes) this team is ready to compete, it begs the question: does Robert Sarver have any idea what he’s looking at? Clearly he isn’t very good at running the team, but even someone who isn’t a basketball fan could tell you the Phoenix Suns are bad. That statement, combined with the Suns play, just makes Sarver look clueless.
The Suns roster has great potential, and they’re better than they’ve played so far, but they’re definitely not ready to compete yet. It’s strange the owner thought they were.