Robert Sarver: It’s going to take time

July 19, 2012: Suns a team in transition, part I

Suns managing partner Robert Sarver has kept a low profile
since the lockout ended last season. He’s granted only a
handful of interviews either locally or nationally.

Last night, however, he made an appearance on NBA TV at
the start of the second half of the Suns summer league
game against the New Orleans Hornets.

Here are his thoughts on some of the topic that were
addressed:

on trading Steve Nash

“I was spoiled to be affiliated with Steve for the last
eight years. When I bought the team it was the first
signing we did. Obviously, we had a lot of success. It
started to kind of plateau a little bit and we felt we
needed to get a little younger and speed up our transition
as a team; and it was in our best interest to get some
younger players. We met with Steve quite a bit but at the
end of the day I think the Suns weren’t the best fit for
him and he wasn’t the best fit for us given where we were
and given where he was.
“Fortunately, we were able to I think make a deal that got
us some picks and also got him to locate close to where
his kids are and play for a team that can compete for a
championship. At the end of the day I think it kind of
turned out to a win-win for both of us.
“It’s difficult in this sport, in this business, you have
to make a lot of tough decisions and sometimes it’s hard
but you have to try take the emotion out of it. That’s
kind of what, at the end of the day, I had to do in
trading him to the Lakers.”

on moving forward without Nash, Grant Hill

“There’s parts of our business that are a little bit
unique in that sometimes in order to get good you got to
get bad, which doesn’t make a lot of sense but in
basketball sometimes that’s the way the CBA is written and
that’s how the business works with the draft picks.
“I’m not sure we really want to go down that path so we’ve
tried to attempt to transition by having some good
veterans and at the same time bringing in some younger
players.
“I think we have a good basketball operations staff. I
think they’ve drafted very well, watching Markieff
(Morris) play last year and last night into today, he
stands out amongst these guys here. He’s going to be very
good.”

on addition of Goran Dragic, expectations for team

“I was very excited to get Goran. Obviously, we drafted
him and then he ended up in Houston; and he got an
opportunity to take over the team and I think when he got
the reins there he showed really what he could do. He’s
excited to be back in Phoenix and I think he’s going to do
good.
“But at the same time, we’ve got a lot of new bodies and
it’s going to take time to put it all together and we’ll
see how it goes. But I think we added some nice young
players to the team and hopefully we can get to grow with
them.”

on possible more moves ahead

“I think we’re pretty close to done. However, we do have
some cap space; and we will have some cap space next year.
I also think one of the things we saw that was nice this
year in free agency a lot of the top players wanted to
come to Phoenix. The top four, five or six guys out there
in free agency—with the exception of Deron Williams,
they pretty much all wanted to come here.
“I think we’ll be able to be active next year in free
agency too. And that’s the tough thing, trying to balance
spending all of your cap space to get as good as you can
get as this year or kind of being patient—obviously we
lost out on Eric Gordon and so where do you go next?
Trying to balance being good but having a little patience
too to try to get great is very difficult.”

on addition of Michael Beasley

“I think he has some good upside for us. I met with him a
little bit. He’s a nice young man. Listen, he’s had to
grow up and mature like all of us. I sometimes wonder
back, if someone gave me four million dollars when I was
19 what would I have been doing all of the time.
“I think he’s got great talent. One of the things our
players said when we played against him is that they
thought he was one of the toughest covers. I’m real
excited to see how he’s going to do. I think he’s pretty
committed. He’s been working out with Norm Nixon alot. I
think he’s got an opportunity to take a big step forward
this year. Whether he will or not is going to be up to
him. It’s also going to be up to us as an organization to
embrace him and work with him and help development him
too.”

on the future of Sebasitan Telfair

“Sebastian did a really good job or us and he’s coming
back. I’m excited for that. He’s a tough competitor. He
played good defense. He pushed the ball. He scored a lot
when we needed him to. And he was a constant kind of
motor even on the bench when he wasn’t playing. I really
had a lot of respect for him last year. I think he did a
great job.”

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