The NBA All-Star Break is a time in which NBA fans can take a brief reprieve from their team’s season and look forward to the final stretch of games. Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver should do just the same, and use the time off to reach out to Suns fans.
The Phoenix Suns were once a crown jewel of the NBA, a team who could be written in pen in preseason playoff predictions as a guaranteed Western Conference participant.
While they were once counted on to have win streaks of ten or so, they are now counted on to have multiple double-digit losing streaks in one season.
The Phoenix Suns entered the All-Star break on one of those such streaks which currently sits at 15, tying the franchise’s worst losing streak in it’s history, which they set only ten months ago.
Phoenix too currently sits at 11-48 in the standings, well on their way to losing 60+ games for the second consecutive season, for only the third time in franchise history.
Since the start of the 2015-16 season, the Suns are 79-226 and management has neither made a trade for or signed a single star player to help bolster the young roster and turn the losing around.
For a fanbase that has been used to winning far more than losing, and particularly those diehards that still watch every game, will always support the franchise, and who will not disappear until the team is finally good again, this has been the hardest stretch of Phoenix Suns fandom in their lives, and they deserve something for their loyalty.
At the very least, they deserve an apology.
Phoenix Suns
Remember on October 16, 2014 when, with about 2 minutes remaining, Robert Sarver came down onto the court, took a mic, and apologized to the few thousand fans in attendance because the San Antonio Spurs didn’t “show up” during a preseason game?
The Spurs had left Tim Duncan Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard, Patty Mills, and Tiago Splitter back in San Antonio (Leonard, Mills, and Splitter in particular had all been reported with the league as injured), and near the end of a meaningless Suns blowout victory, Sarver decided to thank the fans who attended (again, a preseason game), apologized for the opponents not bringing and playing their entire squad (again, for a preseason game), and offered credit towards a future ticket to those fans with a ticket.
In a way, Sarver put his money where his mouth was. What his motivation was for that, who knows. It did not appear that any fans really cared anyway as the game was not a sell out and according to the AZCentral story from that evening, many of the tickets that were sold were not even used as the stadium was generally empty.
If Sarver was willing then to give vouchers to a few thousand fans to apologize for the Spurs leaving a number of players behind for a preseason game, why wouldn’t Sarver be willing now, in a much broader way, offer the fans of the Phoenix Suns a much needed olive branch by offering an apology?
An apology for what?
For leaving a good team behind, somewhere. Just not here in Phoenix.
The Phoenix Suns have been one of if not the worst team in the NBA for the better part of four seasons now, with no fewer than two of those seasons having been the supposed end of the losing as stated by Sarver and staff prior to multiple opening nights.
And yet here we are, with 23 merciless games remaining in 2018-19, and the team is on a 15 game losing streak, which even if they break the streak with a victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers to start the final stretch, will still have been tied for the longest losing streak in franchise history.
Phoenix Suns fans deserve an apology. They deserve an apology for poor ownership. They deserve an apology for a lack of direction and consistency. They deserve an apology for even the rumor that Sarver threatened to move the franchise if he didn’t get stadium funding. They deserve an apology for a lack of moves over multiple offseasons to acquire help to make the team competitive. They deserve an apology for key players demanding trades. They deserve an apology for the tanking. They deserve an apology for all the losing. They deserve an apology for the obvious and blatantly bad management and coaching hires that have been permeated throughout the last decade. They deserve an apology for no serious actions taken to amend any of the aforementioned issues.
They deserve an apology for all of that and so much more.
Robert Sarver should precede the opening of the second half of the regular season with a full page ad in the Arizona Republic apologizing for this season, last season, and the two before it, and beg the fanbase for forgiveness. Then follow that ad up with a local sports radio tour and explain all the things that he can and will do to make the franchise better this coming offseason.
Not try, but accomplish.
Like the meaningless preseason game, Sarver should then offer something tangible to the fans: free tickets galore so maybe the last 12 home games will have an air of excitement and the arena might actually be full and loud (he should really do that for the players as much as the fans as there is no doubt that Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton, Josh Jackson, et al. would love to play in front of a packed home crowd at least a couple of times this season.
He should too offer a voucher for a new shirt or hat. Even a trade-in program in which fans bring in a tshirt of an opposing team (or maybe just a clean, lightly-used generic shirt), which the franchise will swap out for a brand new Suns shirt (the New England Patriots did something like that after Aaron Hernandez was arrested for murder in which they offered a brand new jersey for anyone with a Hernandez one).
If Phoenix chose the non-sports related shirt swap, the Suns could even then run a program where fans who bring in lightly-used clothing for the swap, those accepted articles would be donated to a number of shelters around the Valley.
An apology, free tickets, and a shirt swap program would go a long way to help mend some fences within the fanbase.
Of course winning would truly cure most ills (or Sarver selling the franchise – I’m going to be fully honest about that), but in the meantime, the fans of the Phoenix Suns deserve an apology – a real one – and this elongated All-Star Break would be the perfect time to issue it.