Former Sun Matt Barnes Has The Perfect Idea On How To Save The Franchise

So by now you probably heard that in the middle of the night the Suns decided to part ways with Igor Kokoškov after just one season. The details are pretty crazy and perfectly Suns if we’re being honest

I know that all of the sudden Monty Williams is a hot name in the league to fill some open spots, but let’s remember he’s 173-221 all time as a head coach so it’s not exactly as if he’s some sort of savant or anything. He did have three years of Anthony Davis and was under .500 for two of those three and he’s 2-8 all time in the playoffs. So if you’re the Suns, and you’re probably not even his first choice, going this route is rather confusing. In fact, the whole thing makes little sense and obviously that’s nothing new for this franchise. You can just look at the last two years to get a good idea of just how awful things have been

– Last year they fired their head coach 3 games into the season

– They brought in Luka’s old coach to be their head coach over the summer only to then not take Luka

– They allowed their GM Ryan McDonough to go through the Draft process and make a selection only to then fire him right before the season

– They bought out Tyson Chandler in November  instead of waiting and trading him to actually get a return

– They threatened to move the team out of Phoenix if they didn’t get money for upgrades to their arena

Everything points back to one man, and that’s their owner Robert Sarver. Now it’s one thing for us on the outside to talk about how terrible he is as an owner, but it’s another thing for someone who has first hand experience to say it and that’s exactly what Matt Barnes did last night

Listen if there’s an NBA player out there that knows about playing for bad owners, it’s Barnes. He has first hand experience with both James Dolan and Robert Sarver and to call them basically the same level of terrible is all you need to know. That’s one of the meanest things you can ever say about a person in my opinion, but I can’t find the lie. This is now the 6th fired coach this decade, the Suns have had 1 winning season and zero playoff appearances. We’re looking at 3 coaches and 2 GMs in the last two seasons and 7 in the last 8! How is that even possible? When they say franchises start at the top that couldn’t be more true.

Barnes is right too by the way, Sarver is absolutely wasting Devin Booker’s career and that stinks. His 5/158M extension hasn’t even kicked in yet and he’s stuck with this franchise until his age 26 season. He could always demand a trade towards the end of it, but his salary is going to be over $33M so it’s not as if that’s an easy contract to move. I can’t think of any other star player that has had to deal with 5 coaches in 5 years, which is what makes what he does on the floor so impressive. Unless something really shady went down behind the scenes with Kokoškov it really makes no sense. Why even hire him in the first place if you were

A) not going to draft Luka

B) fire him after one year, especially after the Suns showed some signs late in the year

any owner with a brain would know that you have to build some consistency with young talent and build off that positive end to the season, but Sarver will never get it. It’s almost like he enjoys being a complete dickhead and ruining this franchise. For a guy who is notoriously cheap, he’s paying all these coaches millions of dollars to NOT coach, which seems backwards.