Slim Charless wrote:Revived wrote:James Jones has been with the Suns either as GM or Director of Player Personnel for 2 of the worst decisions the franchise has maybe ever made in drafting Luka over Ayton and drafting Jalen Smith over Tyrese Haliburton.
For him to keep his GM job while there are actual experienced GMs who have built title winning dynasties available like Bob Myers is just insane.
I get it that James Jones isn’t at fault for the KD/Beal trade. Matt Ishbia stupid dumass forced those moves. However, James Jones is not the guy to get us out of this mess we’re in.
....Sarver forced the Ayton over Luka move at the draft. It's amazing how little that geta brought up. I'm no fan of JJ either, but this isn't his fault he had pushy bosses.
What is his fault is not doing a better job of handling these trades.
I'm actually glad that someone else here has the objective clarity to see through this aside from me. Not to rehash old sour grapes scenarios, because I didn't really want Luka anyways, not only because of his whiny self serving, petulant diva attitude. But moreover because I knew that much like you're seeing now, You just can't have multiple ball dominant volume scoring "me first" alpha options trying to share one ball effectively. And there was no way that Booker was going to concede his role as the face of the franchise to Donkeydic. But back to the subject of the discussion. Sarver in multiple interviews and also through statements from NBA pundits and former front office staff always made the final call on decisions. Sarver also had U of A alumni and boosters that were pushing him to choose Ayton due to his U of A ties himself and Aytons' being an Arizona Wildcat product! It was just good business promotion for the university to have a #1 pick come from there.
However, as it pertains to Jones, it was his own self admitted not valuing the draft that has allowed him to perennially leave us without any young talent. And despite having complete and total leverage over the Washington (Beal) trade, He aggressively/willingly gave up too much value in the deal considering the glaring implied risks, well documented and extensive injury history, and cap killing contract salary. Not to mention the publically known intent of the Wizards ownership and front offices' aggressive intent to move him. All those considerations (implied risks for recieving team) along with the clear and absolute leverage in this situation, means that Beals' value estimate should've easily been capped at 2-3 first in total or maybe two firsts and then two 2nds........FULL STOP! Not 3 1sts and then 6-7 2nds (at .50% value of a first) equating to another 3 1sts in cumulative value. Especially in correlation of compounding value under the new CBA. But I can't ever trust Jones to make good decisions much less that he'll someday understand the value of the draft after he puts out articles such as this:
https://www.si.com/nba/suns/news/phoenix-suns-james-jones-devin-booker-espn
Jones is just a terrible and useless puppet Gm for ignorant self engrandizing, clout chasing rich boy meddling owners that need a shield/ scapegoat for their horrible impulse ego driven decisions. NO legitimate or professional self respecting GM would tolerate such workplace conditions! And Jones had a dismally pathetic body of work even beyond that as well. It's Jones decisions to eagerly attach every last asset we had in lopsided losing trades that have put us in this hopeless situation just as much as the ownership! And again, I track that careless willingness to do so back to his own admission in those articles. Jones absolutely has to go regardless of potential azz hat 2.0 for our new owner!
