Free Ballin’

Bill Simmons posted a great email exchange he had with Malcolm Gladwell, in which they discuss the NBA’s deeply flawed (league-damaging) draft.  Both make good (though imperfect) suggestions for how to improve it—I’ll write about how to fix NBA draft, in the near future—but at one point, Simmons, noting how the draft could be used to revitalize former contenders, uses the Phoenix Suns as an example:

“Look at poor Phoenix, which won 46 games in 2008-09 and barely missed the playoffs. If the Suns had the same odds as everyone else to land Blake Griffin in June, and they did, wouldn’t this be good for the league? They’d be an instant contender again!”

Here, Simmons mistakes the Suns for a team worthy of sympathy.  I’ve posted about this before, but below is a concise summary of why the Suns deserve no sympathy whatsoever for their slide from contention.

Immediately after signing Steve Nash, in 2004, new owner Robert Sarver became the stingiest owner in the league.  Consider the 2004 to 2007 stretch.

2004: Drafted Luol Deng 7th overall, but didn’t want to pay his rookie-scale $2.2 million contract, so they traded him to the Bulls for their second round pick (Jackson Vroman) a future first round-pick, and…cash.

2005: Drafted Nate Robinson ($900K) 21st overall and traded him in the package for Kurt Thomas, to replace the injured Amare Stoudemire. (We’ll come back to this.)

2006: Drafted Rajon Rondo ($1.1M) 21st overall, but used him to dump Brian Grant’s salary, trading them for Cleveland’s 2007 first-round pick (via Boston) and…cash.

Six picks after Rondo, they drafted Sergio Rodríguez ($900 thousand) and traded him to the Trailblazers for…cash.

2007: Used the first round-pick, acquired in Rondo deal, to draft Rudy Fernandez ($1M), but used him to dump James Jones’ $2.9 million salary, trading them to the Trailblazers for…cash.

A few weeks later, the Suns dumped Kurt Thomas’ salary by trading him and TWO FIRST-ROUND PICKS to the Sonics, for a FUTURE CONDITIONAL SECOND-ROUND PICK.

2008: Fittingly, Thomas helped the Spurs whup the Suns in the First Round, in 5 games.

To summarize, poor Phoenix had an owner worth $550 million who wouldn’t put a few more bucks into a contending team to put them over the top. By the time Steve Kerr hypnotized Sarver into spending some dough (trading for Shaq) the Suns’ window had already closed.

Look, at least Clippers fans know their team is going to disappoint them, year after year.  The 7-seconds-or-less Suns, on the other hand, flirting with greatness, were ultimately just a big tease.