Typically when you have franchises struggling to win, players want out. Seasons of bad rosters and results can make an athlete want a change of scenery but also want to go somewhere they’ll be on a competitive team (i.e. Lebron James).
That’s why it came as no surprise to me when the Phoenix Suns guard, Eric Bledsoe, tweeted “I don’t wanna be here.”
This tweet came just hours before the Suns fired head coach Earl Watson, their fourth coach in four years.
They are one of the most non-static franchises in the NBA. Coaching, general management and ownership are regularly changing faces, which is a great strategy if you want to be unproductive.
I’m not the first to say this and I certainly won’t be the last: the Phoenix Suns are an awful franchise. They are absurdly young, suffer from poor management and consistently fail to even succeed in the postseason of their respective division.
Year after year, this franchise performs at a level below what is watchable. The team is in a class of professional sports franchises that are laughably bad. This is why I‘ve deemed the Phoenix Suns comparable garbage.
The reason I use “comparable” is because there are other dreadful sports franchises. This category of sports teams includes the Sacramento Kings, the New York Jets and the Buffalo Sabres (it does not, however, include the Cleveland Browns, who are so bad they are in their own category which I have deemed incomparable garbage).
When I thought about how I would characterize the Suns franchise, I thought about what exactly made them so bad and who they resemble best. In my mind, the team that parallels them the most would be the NFL’s Los Angeles (formerly San Diego) Chargers.
Think about it: the best part of each of these franchises is the weather. Their locations have warm temperatures and little rain. The dry, arid climate is the perfect metaphor for their boring teams.
The ownership is also problematic. Suns owner Robert Sarver has gone through coaches as quick as opposing teams go through the Suns defense (they’ve allowed more than 120 points through four games this season). Meanwhile, the Spanos family is despised by Chargers fans, who are only more resentful that the team was moved to Los Angeles this past season.
The Suns and the Chargers, at their very best, have only been moderately good in short spurts. Both franchises were relatively competitive in the 2000s. The Chargers had a young Philip Rivers, Antonio Gates and LaDainian Tomlinson lead them to multiple playoff appearances.
At the same time, the Suns had Steve Nash in his prime and head coach and offensive savant Mike D’Antoni champion of the 7-second offense. The success of the team didn’t garner any championships but did get Nash back-to-back MVP trophies.
As we’ve seen most recently with Phoenix, both the Suns and Chargers have a history of players not wanting to play for their teams. Super Bowl-winning quarterback Eli Manning refused to play for the Chargers prior to the draft.
Now Eric Bledsoe has taken to Twitter to express his disdain for staying in Phoenix. The incident is just a drop in the bucket, and that bucket is just one in the dumpster fire that is the Phoenix Suns organization, or lack thereof.
