Jerry Colangelo offers advice for struggling teams

Former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo never really presided over a level of on-court failure the team is seeing these days.

Sure, his Suns had some down years — 29 wins in 2003-04, 36 wins in 2001-02, 28 victories in 1987-88 — but they were rarely consecutive and rarely this bad.

The Suns, who have the third-worst record in the NBA at 24-55, are on pace for the second-worst mark in franchise history, and this is after failing to reach the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.

However, if Colangelo feels there have been some mis-steps along the way by the team’s current management group, or if he feels like he knows how to fix the team, he’s not really saying.

When asked by Arizona Sports 620’s Doug and Wolf Thursday about what the best way for a once-proud but struggling franchise to get back on track, Colangelo was admittedly vague.

“I’m going to give you a general statement answer, which is this,” he said. “There are no shortcuts in life, it’s only hard work, you roll up your sleeves, you go to work every day, you do the best you can, you analyze what you have, you analyze your options and you try to make the right decisions.

“But there’s no easy fix, there just isn’t.”

Colangelo, though, said “it’s difficult” for a team to make a quick comeback without the benefit of some luck.

“Unless you get hit by lightning or you hit a pot of gold, but that’s few and far between,” he said, before adding a bit of optimism. “The good news is, in basketball, you can do it with two or three players.

“They can come back that fast.”

Colangelo said it’s one of the benefits of basketball compared to other sports, and then he offered advice to any team in that type of situation.

“Stick together, bust your hump, don’t be afraid to take risks, don’t be afraid to fail,” he said. “And be a little opportunistic.”

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