Reasons 30-39
30. Robert Sarver traded all-time legend and top-five Phoenix Sun Steve Nash, to the LA Lakers.
31. THE NEW DIRECTION: Winning 199 games in the subsequent seven seasons; not making the playoffs once; being in the lottery every year; five new head coaches; and bottom 10 in attendance every year. Granted the Lakers are probably hurting after that deal too, but let the legend retire in the city he brought back to life…
32. In 2013, If an owner were to barge into a locker room at halftime and start yelling at the team and coaches telling them to start trapping the opposing team’s point guard, who the team listen? Or if after the final buzzer confronting the coaches and questioning his substitution patterns, would the coach pay attention? And finally, what if I told you that as an attempted practical joke, the owner put a goat in his General Manager’s office, which proceeded to leave messy and disgusting goat gifts all over the GM’s carpet – would the goat laugh? Or the GM?
33. The NBA world was in love with the Morris brothers, Marcus, and Markieff. So in love with them that in the 2011 Draft, the Suns and the Rockets picked them 13th and 14th overall. The Suns have had their draft woes but this one seems very appropriate to acknowledge because the pick after the twins was the 2-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. Six picks later, Tobias Harris. 17 picks later, Jimmy Butler. This was the start of a stretch of drafts where the Suns just didn’t draft well.
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34. The three-headed monster: keeping the worst one. A scenario presented itself where the Suns had three budding Point Guards: Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe, and Isaiah Thomas. What sounded great on paper turned into a disaster that drove Goran and Thomas out of town.
35. Thomas was dealt to the Celtics for Marcus Thornton and a Top-10 protected Cavs pick. Over the next three years Thomas would average 24 and 6 a game, leading his team to the playoffs, and finishing 5th in MVP voting in 2017. What is great about this is when former GM of the Suns, Ryan McDonough, was asked about the Isaiah Thomas deal later, he said, “If I could get a mulligan, that’d be it.”
36. Dragic, a 3rd Team All-NBA, and Most Improved Player would be forced out of Phoenix due to the poor relationship with, none other than, Robert Sarver, and traded to the Miami Heat for Danny Granger, Norris Cole, Shawne Williams, Justin Hamilton, and two first round picks. But wait! Remember in 2011 when they traded their future point guard, young Goran Dragic, and a future first round pick (which could have been Jimmy Butler), to Houston for Aaron Brooks, who after one year went to go play basketball in China! That’s right Dragic has been shipped from Phoenix not once but twice…
37. The Band of Brothers: Taylor Griffin, Robin Lopez. The Morris’s, The Dragic’s.
38. The Suns are not a basketball team from Philadelphia, they are based in Phoenix, and although I am all for Brotherly Love, let’s get the correct brother: Blake not Taylor, Brook not Robin, and the Morris’, well they voiced how they did not care to be here at all, and Goran and Zoran we sent to South Beach because our lovely owner and the better brother could not get along.
39. Ladies and Gentlemen I give to you, Brandon Knight. The year is 2015 and 23-year-old Knight was dealt to the Suns in a three-team-deal that former Phoenix Suns first round pick: point guard Kendall Marshall. Meanwhile, in theory trading Goran Dragic, two first round picks, for a pick they already owned.