Bickley Blast: The Phoenix Suns are the worst kind of failure
and Mara mornings Arizona Sports the local sports leader bigley blast the suns are the worst kind of failure they are half effort and zero heart they are jaded and aloof their great players refuse to be leaders instead preferring to roll their eyes at their overwhelmed head coach in a league that rewards cohesion and connectivity and sincerity the Suns have built a way for thin culture of players who either Sher or deflect accountability so yes you must blame Frank vogle and you must fire Frank vogle there really is no other path forward but the big three all have blood on their hands Devin Booker acts like he’s Above This collapse when he should have been the one demanding more from everybody informing everyone else that he is the culture that this is his team this is his City and this garbage will not be tolerated Now Kevin Durant reportedly unhappy with how the Suns used him and guess what Suns aren’t exactly tickled with him either KD is lucky there is not a plus minus rating for overall effect on team culture and Bradley Beal arguing with the coach in game two slapping his hand away in game four and saving his very worst for last I guess 50 mil a year doesn’t get you what it used to get you what a disaster what a disgrace it wasn’t that long ago that Suns and four was our rallying cry in the valley but after Sunday night it was sunset in four as in 1 2 3 Cabo so Championship or Bust at the very least the Suns can say they checked one of those boxes all right today’s Bley blast brought to you by my great friends at Chapman BMW who make luxury attainable find them online at Chapman bmw.com you know I mean you spoke to a little bit of it um you know I think we I think we jelled and and played some really good basketball down the stretch you know um getting the playoff spot in this you know bloodbath of a western conference was a positive um you know in light of the injuries and you know uh roster experimentation early in the season when we’re looking at you know which which minimum guys fit for our group but you know ultimately uh you know we played some really good basketball down the stretch we just ran into a team that playing better than us right now uh that’s Frank vogle on why the team wasn’t able to click this season um man remember having the discussions during the season about what would Define a successful year for the Phoenix Suns and I never really got off the anything less than a championship you could have swayed me hey Western Conference Finals appearance after everything this team went through would have been a would have been a nice consolation uh would have been something to get get behind we never considered the possibility of a first round exit without winning a game no no no no so the big three didn’t even get you a single playoff victory for all of the mortgaging of the future for the fact that they’ve got a 22nd um overall first round pick this year and then they don’t have another first rounder to like 2030 and then they don’t have a second rounder from like 2025 to 2030 and they they’re already into the second apron so where do they go from here it is going to take a it is going to take some magic to kind of reshape this into something that even comes close to meeting what we thought it was going to meet um and and as we talked about earlier it didn’t take long for the athletic to post a story with a lot of details and and I’ll bet you this is just getting started Vinnie and the athletic story basically says that after that home loss to the Clippers the 35-4 game that Frank vogle was heard screaming at the basketball team and the effect of it was in inside the reports are that it was viewed as clownish as a desperate move from a coach who had never tried to be that assertive or authoritative in the past and now suddenly is trying to be something he’s not like late career Cliff kingsburry exactly when he all of a sudden tried to change his coaching style and nobody bought it and no one’s going no one’s going to buy that either so so and again for the room to be that jaded and the reports are that somebody had to hold old back laughing at Frank vogle um we have heard stories of a midseason dressing down from a from a player who wasn’t even active getting into this team for showing so little passion we’ve seen any number of games where Kevin Durant’s been disengaged from the Huddle game three on Friday night Frank vogle was in the midst of talking to the team they were all sitting on the bench book got up and just walk right out of the Huddle and then the stuff with Bradley Beal last night that looked really weird maybe he didn’t mean to be that dismissive of a head coach who’s putting out his hand to you know dap him up a little bit but it sure looked bad yeah and I’ll go back to that and I think that bleeds into what what Bradley Beal was feeling last night and he was in his feelings last night from from the beginning from the beginning of the game things were not going his way he was frustrated and you didn’t have to wonder about whether or not he was frustrated cuz he was wearing it he let you know he was absolutely wearing it the whole game there was a point where he got a foul and was going to the bench and I thought the suns were going to get a delay of game because he was just taking so he was just moping off the court yeah and it took him forever to get to the bench and you’re like okay you’re not a second-year dude in your first playoff game right you’ve been around the block right you were the guy that was rallying this group at the end of the year that was the guy who rekindled the flame of the fan base in last two games of the year not by only playing the way that he played by saying what he said it’s time I’m hyped as hell it’s playoff time let’s go we want to win a championship and that’s what you put out there in an I’ve never been swept before damn sure not going to happen now find a way when when you when when your shots not falling and you’ve missed a second dunk in the span of three games find some other way to contribute but not not not with that body language yeah but then he just let it Fester I mean that fourth quarter and I’m not pinning the loss on Bradley Beal stret but that fourth quarter was nightmar it was terrible I looked at the stat line afterwards and I saw six turnovers six fouls I halfway expected to see six points because he had the game from Hell honestly that’s funny that’s pretty good that’s pretty good um yeah this is uh this is going to be a long off season for this basketball team and started very very early yeah he uh I got a it’s too long to play right now I was going to play Frank vogel’s overall assessment of the series um I I can assess it in a couple of seconds the Minnesota Timberwolves are one connected that’s what a connected dialed in basketball team looks like which on the heels of those three losses to the suns in the regular season nobody expected I said earlier going into the playoffs Minnesota just had some goofiness about it that I didn’t think would be able to be overcome and I don’t know if this what we just saw over these four games I don’t know if it was a product of Minnesota being that good the Suns being that little of a roadblock to a series win or if it’s somewhere in the middle but if that team duplicates that performance in upcoming series they could go to the Western they could go to the finals Jamal Murray’s not healthy yeah listen yeah I’m not putting it again I’m not putting it past them but but I don’t know how much of it is this Suns team just being exposed in a series format versus the vagrancies of one game yeah whatever happened to Bradley Beal as Anthony Edwards Kryptonite I’ll tell you this I’ll bet you there’ll be a lot of people cheering for Minnesota to to beat Denver I’m sure there will be I don’t know if I’m one of them thanks for watching big and marada click to see the latest Bley blast and hit the button in the middle to subscribe to Arizona Sports
After the Phoenix Suns were swept in the first round of the NBA playoffs by the Minnesota Timberwolves, Dan Bickley explains why this run was the worst kind of failure after paying up in the offseason to get a Big 3 in Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal.
Video: Felisa Cárdenas and Jeremy Schnell/Arizona Sports
Photos: Jeremy Schnell/Arizona Sports; Christian Petersen/Getty Images
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31 Comments
The Matrix Curse in full effect!!!!! At least he won a championship!!
You are spot on with everything you said…Booker should have said these losses are on me for not demanding more effort from his teammates. Kobe would have tore his teammates a new asshole if they played like that.
That’s right, unfortunately, we can now say Booker is no Ant
Bol Bol would have changed the Series!😢
Aloof and heartless are perfect adjectives bick thank you
Coach fault he had KD out there with 4 guards who don’t have the size to rebound. Bol Bol could have helped big time smh
bradley beal laughing during game 3 with isaih thomas in the final minutes reminded me of nick van exel in 1998 after lakers got swept by the jazz an he was dancing and laughing. i cant stand immature players like beal. not only that, booker isnt a 1st or 2nd option on a championship team. booker is basically ray allen and ray was the 3rd best player at best on the celtics 2008 squad
please dont run this bs back
Damn we got swept 😂
Dang bro 😂 went to the gym they started clowing on my suns What happened to your suns Dawg 😢 i said next year They started to laugh yeah right bro sure next year 😢😢
Zero leadership
I dont think anybody individually really failed!
Who ever put this team together and ignored PG missing, as well as no size, no bench is guilty.
Vogel should go!!
They should’ve tried more adjustments. Should’ve started all the 7’ footers with KD and Book. Should’ve brought Beal off the bench. Never even threw a big team at them 🤷♂️ Coach sucked and Beal sucked!
Anyone who really truly thought that D-Book is on the same level as Tatum, SGA, Luka, etc…. either lives in Phoenix or is just delusional. He is a soft as Charmin stat padder. This team is a joke.
It sounds like three losers Doing what losers do when things go bad instead of excepting responsibility find someone else to blame and A Scape Goat and that's the coach as usual for spoiled athletes guess what in real life it does not work like that but Pro Athletes for the most part have been coddled and told there always right and never your fault from the age of 14
The new billionaire owner started this trainwreck & this is on him, for thinking big money gets a championship team!!!!
We should have better players not cry babies
Ishbia has done more damage than Sarver
Devin Booker has not won a single playoff game without Chris Paul as his point guard. Facts
suns were luckily not to be in the play-in game , but then faced a real TEAM ,beal is 150 million $$ of worthless garbage . durant held up his end , no adjustments by vogel to play bol vs twin towers .embarrassed to be a suns fan .losing best 3 point shooter in nba grayson allen did set us back but no excuses as every team has injuries
Vogel didn’t attempt to play IT at point and or have bol bol, nurk/eubanks and kd in at the same time. He literally watched them struggle to get a defensive rebound for 4 straight games. He watched them turn over the ball countless times, didn’t play IT at point. Not even to just see what would happen, not even in garbage time.
Who is responsible for all this mess??? No one is talking about the GM.
Why is it when i say they suck and will always suck, suns fans jump my shit? But this guy can say it into a mic?
“Yeah hi, is this Phil Jackson?”
Booker isn’t a winner. He proved that during the finals run. Blow it up and start over.
Frank Vogel has GOT to GO!~ I said this when they hired Vogel, "HE IS NOT THE COACH WE NEED"! The Suns were out coached all year and to hear his comments afterward saying, "I thought we gelled", is pathetic to say the least. I love DBook, and he is PHOENIX SUNS, but he isn't above criticism either and in game 3 him joking and smiling when he committed a foul and laughing really made me sick to see and definitely draws a huge comparison to the broken nose do-or-die playoff intensity of a Steve Nash or the diving, sweating, and scraping, Thunder Dan Majerle!~ Here in the Valley of the SUN if you give everything you have, and you're willing to hustle we as fans will love you win or lose but if we feel like you are just going through the motions, and you don't care then be careful that uncaring attitude you put out might come back to bite you later.
Trade trade trade!!!!
Bookers culture is choking
Most disappointing season ever.💔
Bickley liked their every move from getting beal to trading ayton because he couldn’t dribble, then throws the team built by the moves he supported 100% under the bus when they got swept, a result predicted by half of the base who had realized long before bickley that matt ishbia was a reckless owner making impulsive moves that were disastrous.
Suns could have been champions if they only did these things, kept payne, biz, craig and ayton, and sign kelly oubre and eric gordon, a move every knowledgeable suns fan wanted jones to make. Beal booker oubre kd ayton would have all the defense, skill athleticism and speed to counter every style possible, with gordon payne craig and biz that’s already a very reliable bench out there.