Our spiral downwards started when they let go of Joe Johnson. I like to see the heart the suns have now. But we just don't have the talent. I'll ride with them thru the good and bad. GO SUNS!!!!
Johnson left because his ego didn't want to be the 4th wheel and Amare had absolutley no intention of staying with the Suns, there was 40 million dollar difference in the offers between Phoenix an NY. NY's was straight up money, the Suns offer was laced with incentives and performance based factors. We had no shot at keeping either of those players.
Are you kidding? Yeah, lets pay the guy 100 million dollars for one season on the off chance that we could have won an championship and thats a very off chance. That team had pleanty of opertunities when they were younger and more healthy and couldn't get it done. Max money for 5 years for a chump who never played defense and now can not play offense... you sir are a fool.
His knees were "uninsurable" and the Suns medical staff (arguably the best medical staff in all of sports) stated that his knees would be shot in 2-3 years. The Suns offered him a guaranteed 3 year contract, and up to 5 years he would get paid if he stayed healthy (which is EXACTLY what they should've offered him). It's not worth $100 million for him to play 2-3 seasons. He is Amare, not Kobe. Where they went wrong was giving all that money to Frye, Warrick, and Childress to make up for losing STAT.
I'll add this to those who feel like Amare would just be dead weight at the end of the contract and not worth that money: Frye, Warrick and Childress will cost the same as Amare and, while not injured, could be just as useless (Childress already is). At least with Amar'e the Suns had a shot at greatness.