DAVE BURNS

It’s up to new Suns GM to find the next Steph Curry

May 6, 2013, 11:12 PM | Updated: 11:34 pm

Watching Steph Curry in these playoffs has been a whole lot of bitter and just a little bit of sweet for Suns fans.

The Warriors guard has emerged as one of the best players during these playoffs. A tier-one NBA star? No, but certainly one of the top players in the second tier and a guy Suns fans will forever recognize as the one who got away.

That’s what makes his emergence this spring as bitter as a piece of dark chocolate served with an IPA. The night of the 2009 NBA Draft, it was the whoop heard round the world, the one that burst from the Suns draft room thinking they had just acquired Curry.

They didn’t.

Steve Kerr told Gambo and I months ago that, yes, they thought they nabbed him that night. And Bob Young of azcentral did a nice job playing the what-if card regarding Curry and the Suns.

The Suns could have had him. The good news is that they could again. Well, kinda/sorta.

Sometime this week (that’s a guess, but I think a good one) the Suns will hire a GM. On May 21, we’ll watch the lottery to see what pick that new talent evaluator will have at his disposal. On June 27, that man gets the chance to put his stamp on this franchise using a premium pick — something that hasn’t happened in decades.

This is the part where you have to remind yourself that Curry wasn’t a top pick. He wasn’t a top-five pick. He was the seventh pick, a guy who came into the league with a whole lot of talent and a whole lot of question marks. Sound familiar? Sure sounds to me like, oh I don’t know, just about every player in this year’s draft.

The point is, that franchise-changer is out there. Somewhere in this draft is a guy who can alter your fortunes. And it’s up to Ryan McDonough or Jeff Weltman or whomever to find him.

Maybe, just maybe, he’ll be good enough to allow you to forget the night the Suns found, and lost, their franchise-changer.

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It’s up to new Suns GM to find the next Steph Curry