What Sarver has done wrong – recently
Of course not all 30 teams in the NBA can win every season, some, just based on bad luck and inferior talent will lose, even if they were competitive along the way.
But there in lies the rub: for the majority of the nine seasons since they last made the playoffs, the Phoenix Suns have neither been competitive, nor stable.
Phoenix Suns
With four head coaches in Devin Booker‘s four short seasons in the league, five general managers since 2006, including Ryan McDonough who was unexpectedly fired nine days prior to the start of the 2018-19 regular season (the franchise had only two, Jerry and Bryan, since 1968), the capitulation of the trade or waive demand to no fewer than six key players (Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas, Eric Bledsoe, Markieff Morris, Tyson Chandler, Trevor Ariza), Sarver’s inability to bring about stability that can breed success has stunted the growth of certain players as well as the team as a whole, and potentially lost an entire generation of fans who decided not to support a losing franchise, and turned their love of basketball into the support of other franchises, including the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers whom Phoenix will compete with in perpetuity.
Oh, and it has been reported in the past that the scouting department was severely gutted, and never replenished.
There is zero doubt too that if Devin Booker eventually demands a trade from Phoenix, having never had talent beside him to help bring a team to the playoffs and thus never had the opportunity to appear in the playoffs himself, all fingers to who is at fault for such a travesty in the basketball world should point directly at Sarver and his ownership.
Why Adam Silver should make an All-Star resolution and begin the process of selling the Suns now is because the fans of the franchise should not be forced to suffer through the potential (and some believe inevitable) ordeal of Booker demanding a trade with the franchise once again getting pennies on the dollar in return, on top of all the organizational ineptitude they have suffered through under Sarver’s watch.