Bickley Blast: The Phoenix Suns have a credibility crisis

Bickley Blast: The Phoenix Suns have a credibility crisis

and Marada boardings. Arizona sports, the local sports leader, Biggley Blast. The Suns have more than a bad basketball team. They have a credibility crisis in the Valley. Fans are angry and angsty. And things are so bad that our NBA franchise has turned a word into a meme, a source of mockery. Alignment. You will never hear that word the same way again. But the problem with this whole concept is that you can be in perfect alignment and still be going in the wrong direction. And that is the prevailing fear in Arizona that the Suns are traveling south when they should be heading north. And the worst is yet to come. And guess what? It’s coming as we speak. It’s because male Bridges has been a playoff hero for the Knicks, which is reopening old wounds and making fans even angrier at Matt Ishbia. Tyrese Hallebertton has also played a starring role in the postseason, which makes fans angry at James Jones. And circle next Monday on your calendar, folks. That’s the day of the NBA draft lottery. and pray the Rockets don’t look out and walk away with Cooper flag, adding to all the other red flags on Planet Orange. A dicey time indeed for an owner who only a year ago defiantly claimed 26 of 29 other teams would trade their teams for his sons. An owner who now has a giant Target on his back. All right, today’s Vickley Blast brought to you by my great friends at Chapman BMW. Make luxury attainable. You’ll find them online at chapmanbmw.com. One other area that Matt and I are extremely aligned in is our competitiveness. So, you’re going to throw that challenge out there. All right, let’s go. Let’s go. And no one’s going to outwork me. I think that’s, you know, that’s a skill. That’s a talent. Don’t let anybody fool you. That’s a talent. Um, and we’re going to think differently. Uh, we’re going to be unified in our approach on a daily basis. And when you do that, then the the results are going to speak for themselves. I have all the confidence in the world that under my leadership with the alignment of Matt uh with Josh, with our great staff that we have in every area that we have that uh those changes are going to result in some great results. That’s Brian Gregory, the general manager of the Suns at his introductory press conference earlier this week. I don’t know if you saw it, Cam Cox. our guy from from 12 News put together a compilation video. It’s a minute 29 seconds long where he uh he put his buzzwords counter on. He counted 23 alignments and then a handful of identities and visions. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. As I said to you, Nick King had 26, but maybe I think Nick uh had it as aligned or alignment. Yes. Yeah. So, maybe that’s where the extra extra three came from. How many times did you say alignment or aligned in the Johnny Cash song, Jared? Well, I made a I said it a bunch of times, but I made a one of the sound bites had a montage of several of them. It’s quite silly. I am to the point now already. Um I’m not going to call this people are pointing at it. People are laughing at it. I think there’s a lot of people that are very comfortable laughing at the Phoenix Suns right now, even before that press conference. But they’ll look at the the use of the buzzwords and it’ll just continue to go down that road. I am really looking forward to the first thing and I’m glad you pointed it out. Look, the the Suns are not involved in the draft lottery. Um if if the Cooper flag thing happens, then all bets are it’s chaos. It’ll be Yeah. I I’m I mean I think our collective heads would just go. But I’m looking forward to that because it’s actual like basketball related. looking forward to seeing who the Suns tab as their next head coach because it’s something different to react to that’s tangible. A lot of this stuff that you know was talked about on in Brian Gregory’s press conference, it’s not tangible. It’s just talk. You have to pick it apart because it’s what it’s offered to you. But I really want to see what the first moves basketball-wise are for this franchise with Brian Gregory at the helm. Yeah. I think listen it’s unfortunate again that that you word has been used so much in the span of two different press conferences because again people are mocking the Suns and Brian Gregory there were moments in that press conference where I was encouraged by what Brian Gregory said and you you played a clip and one of the three or four things that I really did like that Brian Gregory said was that one right there where he said um all right you going to doubt us okay fine we’re competitors we’ll take come on bring it on and that to me sounded real. That sounded authentic. That sounded like a guy who knows that they’re getting ripped and who knows that people are going to doubt him as a GM with very very little qualifications for the job. Okay, fine. I’m going to show y’all. I like that attitude. That’s I I would want him to have that attitude. And there were other things he said too that I liked. And like I said, I think I liked the fact that he had the to walk up there on that stage alone and just deal walk it into the breach at a time when there was just lots of angst and lots of anger. But unfortunately, there was just way too much of leaning on that buzzword and going back to the copy points and and that’s what has people kind of like, okay, what are we doing here? There’s got to be alignment. Much more aligned. We are completely aligned. The alignment is the team aligned. Extremely aligned. The alignment. It’s about building that alignment. And to do it with the alignment, if you don’t do that, there’s no way you can build the alignment. That’s right. But again, you can be aligned and be going in the wrong direction. Absolutely. Alignment. Alignment isn’t necessarily It’s a means to an end, but it’s not an end. Tim Ring told us yesterday that weren’t we told that everyone was aligned the last year and two and oh listen oh yeah listen there was at one point in time Matt Ishbia raved about the alignment with Mike Benhoer until he didn’t. Yeah, I I do think that this is really one of the takeaways is that some of what happened behind the scenes was so surprising and so appalling as it related to the head coach that they are um really vibing on that’s the dude who who blew this. Yeah. Well, and look and again he’s he he played a starring role, but there’s a lot of other issues that I hope they are not glossing over. I agree with that. But the possibility is still out there that he was the main problem. One one thing I can never get past Vic is with a lesser roster a year before an underwhelming coaching job by a guy who won a championship. And there were challenges there too. M and I don’t think it was all hunky dory in terms of alignment between coach and player when Frank Vogle was here. That team won 49 games, made the playoffs and avoided the playin. If you’re right, then I’m actually even more disappointed at the ownership and the GM who was in place at the time and the leaders of this team for not for for letting it affect them to the point where they’re sleepwalking through games and and showing no focus and and not being ready to play and rebelling and rebelling through their effort on the floor and thereby penalizing all of us. I I’m just I’m upset that KD and Devin Booker didn’t make this clear to everybody earlier. I’m mad that they didn’t fire Mike Budenhozer earlier if he was really that big of an issue. Yeah. And I think it was pretty telling on April 17th that after the press conference and Matt Ishbia went on with Burns and Gambo and Gambo asked him the question, should you have fired Mike Budenholes, if it was that bad, should you have fired him earlier to try to salvage the season? And the first words out of his mouth were, maybe I should have. But I also think this was past from an optical standpoint. It was past walking on eggshells. It was walking on glass. And I think that was everybody involved around Mike Budenhoer. That was here last year from the ownership to the general manager to Josh Bartlestein to the players involved, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. I mean, they’re aware of what’s going on. They’re aware of what it means if they come out publicly and say, “This coach is not the answer. We got to get rid of this guy.” it’s going to fall back on them at that point. So, I think everybody collectively, and I don’t even know if this was a conscious decision, but they all collectively fell on the sword, waited till the off season. I also find it interesting that the Suns were dragged last year by a lot of national media for firing Frank Vogle where locally I think the the synopsis was, yeah, he probably deserved to to be shown the door. You didn’t hear anybody stepping up for Mike Benhoer nationally after the job that he did and and the way this team underachieved. No, that’s true. Did you hear anybody? No, not a soul. Not even Charles Barkley. Not a soul. No, you’re absolutely right. Yeah. Uh interesting stuff. We’ll see where it goes moving forward. Thanks for watching Bickley and Marada. Click to see the latest Bickley Blast and hit the button in the middle to subscribe to Arizona Sports.

Dan Bickley explains why the hire of Phoenix Suns general manager Brian Gregory has put a target on Mat Ishbia’s back.

James Jones departs as top Suns executive with a complicated legacy: https://arizonasports.com/dan-bickley/james-jones/3583253/

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