The Phoenix Suns Are Responsible For Both The Pacers And Thunder Success

The Phoenix Suns Are Responsible For Both The Pacers And Thunder Success

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we curse at our sports teams because the Phoenix Suns actually be cursed get that stuff out of here it’s Southwest Bias it’s Southwest Bias live from the to be named Later studio glad to have you with us and yeah we curse all the time when it comes to our sports teams in Arizona but could the Phoenix Suns actually be cursed thought a lot about this because I’ve watched a lot of bad Suns basketball over the last three decades and I kind of had been on the fence it was always a fun joke to make that the Phoenix Suns were cursed that oh you know there’s a reason for all the things that have gone wrong with them beyond what uh actually happened within a front office or on the court but then I looked at this year’s NBA finals and I thought back and I thought you know what the biggest proof that the Phoenix Suns are cursed is the fact that they created both of these final teams in the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers and you’re probably wondering how well let me walk you through this because this is a long laundry list that goes all the way back to 2007 when the disgraced former owner decided that it was time to cut salary and he had Steve Kerr yeah that’s Steve Kerr trade Kurt Thomas to the then Seattle SuperSonics with a young general manager named Sam Prey and he sent Kirk Thomas along with two second round picks to get a or excuse me two first round picks to get I believe a second round pick back that may not seem like much but it started an entire domino effect that one of those picks Sam Prey turned into Serge Ibaka who prey later dealt for Victor Oladipo and the 11th pick in the 2016 draft which became Damonte Sabonis so then the Suns could have traded with the Clipper or excuse me uh traded on draft night to get Shay Gildris Alexander and the draft pick that became him but the disgraced former owner nixed that so then the Oklahoma City Thunder decided to trade uh Olad Depot and Sabonis which they got because of the Kurt Thomas deal for Paul George and then a few years later they flipped Paul George for Sha Gildris Alexander and a pick that became Jaylen Williams then the Suns in all their infinite wisdom decide to draft Sticks Jaylen Smith over Tyrese Hallebertton despite needing a point guard the Suns reportedly reject a trade involving Damontis Sabonis for DeAndre Aton with Indiana and then Indiana promptly trades Sabonis for Hallebertton so now the Pacers get the guy that has put them in the finals but that’s not it the Suns supposedly rejected a trade involving Miles Turner and DeAndre Aton so the Pacers then decided to sign DeAndre Aton to a Max Steel but he was a restricted free agent and the Suns matched it if any of those moves go differently on that list I doubt the Pacers or Oklahoma City wind up in these finals but instead because of these little things that the Phoenix Suns decided to do not only did they shoot themselves in the foot but they planted the seeds that led to Oklahoma City winning the West and the Pacers winning the Eastern Conference little decisions have giant impacts in the NBA but stuff like this when you add in the Robert Ory hip check and the Donnagy stuff and the the stuff that happened in ‘ 92 the 9293 season Danny Manning’s injury a few years later when they were the best team in the West all these little things in individually don’t seem like much but when you put them together in aggregate it really starts to feel like the basketball gods or David Stern have been against the Suns for years and I know it sounds crazy and most people don’t want to believe in curses but to me at some point even going back to the the 69 coin toss and letting fans choose whether it was heads or tails and losing Kareem Abdul Jabbar and starting a four five decade long search for an actual center not to mention a title these little things when put together feel like something more than just coincidence or fate or any of the other things that you can explain it it always has felt like something more has held the Suns down is it a curse i don’t know has it been bad management from time to time definitely but something more feels like it’s going on with the Suns but at bare minimum I know that their poor decisions made Oklahoma City in some ways and made the Indiana Pacers in some ways at least led to their superstars being on the their roster rather than on the Suns roster and will that fortune change i don’t know but the little things that Brian Gregory and Matt Ishpia and now Jordan A do will have a big difference in the future of the Phoenix Suns if they’re cursed it’ll probably be a negative one but maybe that’s just my Southwest bias we welcome in the mustache behind the Mac Shane Defbach on a casual Friday that’s why I’m sitting in this chair and not behind the desk we thought you know what why not be a little bit more casual uh because we’re doing a mailbag this isn’t serious heavy lifting outside of talking about a curse so we’re having a little bit of a casual Friday uh Shane how are you i’m great are you cursed a little bit aren’t we all i played with a I played with some stones when I was a kid that I found in this like pyramid structure oh all right near the ocean and they were they they glowed a bright purple yeah i hung out in a pet cemetery so you hung out in one yeah well why not i mean isn’t that the kind of place that kids of the 80s hung out we had no supervision i’m in that Gen X millennial area uh you know kind of couch cushion and uh we had no supervision we did crazy things that uh would make people blush now and since this is casual let’s break down some barriers Espo okay let’s do it do you actually believe in in curses aside from the whole bit you just did you know not in real life like in in in nonports Yeah things like in sports it feels like it could be real because there’s so many things that can can go against a team but I don’t I don’t necessarily believe an individual could could be cursed like I I think I think it’s supernatural yeah I believe in the supernal but you don’t believe in curses no i It’s weird because you know do I think the supernatural exists yeah because there’s a lot of things I think we can’t explain that our mind can’t quite grasp so yeah there’s probably supernatural everybody’s like “Isn’t this a sports show and now he’s pontificating on the supernatural?” Yeah it’s a casual Friday like the Luca trade supernatural can’t explain that that was stupid it was rigged is what that was that do I believe in the NBA being rigged yeah I believe in conspiracy theories probably more than curses or the supernatural in a in a lot of ways but I could see I could see sports teams being cursed one way or another i think that Desert Financial Arena is cursed i could see that i mean I think there are bones under the stadium and and powerful bones like like um Egyptian bones egyptian uh Egyptian but they they somebody raided the pyramids and buried them in Tempe pharaoh bones pharaoh bones all right i I think it’s just been some poor coaching hires and uh and other things and that place is a dump but you know uh maybe that’s why it’s cursed i think that that the Pharaoh to be named later um uh was the was the reason for the the water shutting off and ASU not being able to play Florida Atlantic no Florida&M was it FAMU yeah yes i look man there’s probably something uh and I bring this up because there was a question because today is a a voicemail bag Friday uh that one one of our listeners viewers asked about curses essentially saying “How can we break the one here?” I don’t know i’ve thought about this a long time like if there were some kind of sacrifice or something that could be done uh I would be the first in line to figure out how we could do it but I really don’t know that there is because we can’t even pinpoint what the start of a curse is here maybe it was the fact that somebody a hundred some odd years ago looked at this and went “Why don’t we build a city in the middle of the desert where it’s 110 degrees in July and figure out how to do and there are pharaoh bones underneath?” Oh yeah yeah i mean you know the the old Arizona Pharaohs that sounds like a bad like next UFFL team that’s coming to Arizona the Arizona Pharaohs maybe we’ve got our hot shot helmet here maybe the Pharaohs are next and and then much like the Romans exchange with the Egyptians there would probably be a pharaoh to be named later in a trade and cash considerations there’s always cash considerations like look if there is a curse like I said I I could it be the coin toss in ‘ 69 because that was really our first foray into professional sports and disappointment maybe but I don’t think we’re you know I don’t think we’re tracking down uh the coin that they used as much as I’d like to imagine I could and we could melt it and I could commit a felony while breaking the curse but I just don’t see any any real way of determining if there was where it started but God I hope it ends sometime soon because I don’t want to be like my grandfather who was a Red Sox fan in Boston uh go my entire life and pass away without seeing a title for my favorite team i don’t think uh I I think that would be torture quite frankly so that’s fair but maybe that’s my Southwest bias maybe it is uh on the other side we got your questions lots of them and there’s been a rumor that I might have to rank people in the office all that coming up after the break you know who’s not cursed our friends at Mountain America Credit Union because everybody needs a checking account and our friends at Mountain America have you covered they’ve got over a million members and a 100 branches throughout the West so when it comes to banking they know what they’re doing there’s not a better credit union in the West than our friends at Mountain America and right now you’re going to get two times the points on rewards with their credit card purchases through July 31st so you got a month 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Concepts can help you do just that their awnings their shades for your windows everything that they have can make your backyard or home better and they have quality materials and even better service so right now what I want you to do after the program I I want you to stay here and then you can do this i want you to call our friends at AllProshade Concepts at 623204-1476 or visit allproshadeconcepts.com and get a free estimate today tell them Aspo sent you they’ll say who but then they’ll still give you a free estimate i mentioned it is a casual Friday here on Southwest buys thus the change in setting but it also means we’re going to take your questions the voicemail bag we got texts we got DMs we got Discord messages no voicemails this time apparently everybody doesn’t want their voice heard on this program because they’re too intimidated by mine but Shane why don’t you throw out our first question here and I’m going to answer all of them that we have today are you excited i am i I I honestly I clipped a lot of them didn’t read them so I’m excited for kind of the surprise of what we’ve got going on that’s good um all right all right well we’ll start with a softball from Jim Rose Circus One on Twitter saying “If your car can go the speed of light would you still need headlights?” No I don’t believe you would because I believe everything’s a streak if you’re going at the speed of light and uh I don’t think it matters at that point because you have no control over what’s going on anyways if you had your headlights on to see something you’re not going to have time to react you’re just going to smash through that person or that thing or whatever is in your way so at the speed of light who the hell cares about headlights uh you’re just going to be going so fast you’re going to get where you’re going in the blink of an eye i’ve always wondered what if light’s going at the speed of light well light is going at the speed of light i know but like what if you’re accelerating light at the speed of light i don’t know Shane i didn’t go to uh a a scientific college i went to UVA at least the portion of of it that I went to wasn’t scientific i watch freaking movies if a car is in motion isn’t light technically traveling faster than the speed of light already i don’t know Shane if the headlights are on you know what I’m saying i I get what you’re saying i just don’t know how to answer it well can you try no I don’t have any edibles right now so no I can’t try we Shane we can one one night after work you and I can go out get a few drinks maybe uh partake in an edible and we can have that discussion when I can think about it more i don’t think I want to do that you don’t want to hang out with me i see how it is what’s next shane see if I show up at your birthday party at the pool at the D we got to keep a tight schedule we got to move on this is from Patrick Luren uh I hope I said that right from our Discord how can we identify and remove the curse that was seemingly put on every sports team well I discussed that you can’t okay we don’t know what it is right you can’t I think it’s the feral bones i I think we need to get like a like maybe sacrifice a scarab maybe maybe move the arena that the Suns are in but they’ve been in two now i I don’t know there’s a lot of there’s a lot of things that I have halfbaked ideas but none I’m really willing to pitch i mean maybe Kareem himself is the curse well let me ask you this there are many ways that people try to get rid of curses mhm what’s would be your first are you sacrificing something i’m a big fan of the the sacrificing something not not something living necessarily but we saw the Cubs blow up the Bartman ball we’ve seen things like that i find those kind of things entertaining uh and and that would probably be my first time not talking about entertaining us but we’re talking about what’s going to work uh saging saging is the uh exorcism maybe I did grow up Catholic that could be on the table maybe we do need to exercise the demons over at PHX Arena okay I’ll try anything yeah I think sacrifice is the best call because if you’re like you know you you have to be willing to get rid of something i mean get something i’ve sacrificed years of my life with these teams with no real reward i’ve sacrificed years of my life with this company i mean but you’ve gotten plenty of reward you get to work with me every day now that’s true i you know I I look at Arizona sports like insurance you keep putting in and putting in and when you need it usually it doesn’t cover what you want but sometimes it does sometimes if you sacrifice something this is true so let’s let’s run this this sports car right into a wall and and try to try to claim some insurance fraud some would argue that ownership in this town of most teams have run it into the wall already but what’s next in the voicemail bag this comes from Albert from our Discord saying “Is there anything the Sun’s new regime can learn from from the Mercury side or are the NBA and WNBA ecosystems too different to apply what works one or the other?” I think it probably is too different uh to apply but I do think they took a few notes because the way the Sun started uh under Matt SBS tenure was going after the flashy hires uh in terms of uh the the coaching staff and trusting a a quote unquote seasoned front office veteran but uh Nick Ur was an upand cominging guy that didn’t have WNBA experience he’d been in in the NBA in the Golden State Warriors uh building and then came over to be the general manager of the Mercury brian Gregory not a lot of NBA experience came over uh to be the Sun’s general manager and then you look at uh Nate Tibbitz was an a longtime assistant coach a guy who had earned his stripes uh and then came in to be head coach which I think they followed that pattern with Jordan so I think maybe they are learning things roster construction the Mercury put together a big three very much like the Suns did so I don’t think roster construction is necessarily where you’re going to do that and I I do think the Mercury have a more balanced roster than than the Suns did uh but I think from that that front office and coaching staff they did learn some lessons uh from what they did with the Mercury and tried to apply them somewhat with the Suns yeah this is this is it’s a hard one because they’re two not only different games but different leagues by the way they operate and the culture in them um so it’s it’s a it’s a hard question but I definitely think there are things to learn from everything it doesn’t have to apply to what you’re actually doing like like I take inspiration from things that aren’t in our field at all and I think that’s important yeah i mean I take inspiration from your mustache every day uh but what does it tell you yeah to be to be better is what it tells me uh but I I the other thing is this iteration of the Mercury hasn’t had any success so you want to base it off the old Mercury the the winning formula is get two number one picks that are alltime great and have them play together yeah right and continuity yeah yeah continuity so I don’t think you’re going to be able to replicate that if that’s what you’re talking because if you’re if if you want to take uh take this iterations of Mercury’s thing um timeline they’re either ahead or or um behind you because they’re in their super buil super team building phase right now so is this Super Team 2.0 to to be fair the Mercury off to a good start but they could backslide like last year’s Suns team too exactly and they could be just a mirror image of what we saw to your point Shane exactly diehard mainstay Psycho Blue asking “What’s your favorite NBA Jam entry?” This would include Showtime Hang Time the Reboot etc it is the original because it is the the game I fell in love with i there had never been a video game before that i didn’t get into Mario i I I wasn’t allowed to have a video game system uh until around when NBA Jam came out but it started with my dad letting us rent a a Sega like you used to be able to rent them in this giant case and we’d rent it on the weekend and I get NBA Jam uh and maybe like NFL 909 94 and and I just fell in love with that i remember going to the arcade before that in the summer there was one right around from my house and I would I’d spend every quarter I could find on that game like I fell in love in part with the NBA because of that original NBA Jam you hear Tim Kitro’s voice uh in in the intro of this show he was the voice of NBA Jam like it obviously has had a massive impact on me and the original was that so Psycho Blue that is that is my answer i enjoy the others but the original is the best yeah I’ve I’ve only actually played the original and the the newer one the on fire one that came out in what 2012 or whatever we’ve got the the whole cabinet over there you can play all of them oh wow i didn’t know they had the rest of them on there they’re all on there all right um this ain’t Mike asked a question that I’m not sure if we’re allowed to answer because of Max but it’s free on Friday so who cares uh best breakfast burrito in the valley i believe I am required to say Wendy’s breakfast burrito is the best uh but since Max isn’t an earshot and I outrank him here in the company I’m gonna I’m gonna use my power for a free ad Friday uh Karolinas is one of my favorite breakfast burritos here in the valley uh that is a free ad uh and if they want to send me a free breakfast burrito I won’t complain but that is my favorite yeah just one just for me uh not for anybody else i’ll just take one i had my best breakfast burrito of all time in New Mexico great yeah from from uh New Mexican New Mexico Beef Jerky Company nice there there’s a really good one in if you’re in the Carl’sbad San Diego area place named Swamies that’s really good too uh not to be confused with Swampies not Yeah which is which is totally different than what happens when I go to the Midwest with all the humidity so when we were in New Orleans there was a place called The Swamp it’s a pretty famous bar I think um and and there’s and there’s like an upstairs VIP swamp area that’s pretty great what how do you put a swamp up i don’t even want to know don’t want to know yep um this one comes from Michael Morris Michael MXD Mr dr on Twitter do you really believe this is going to be a quote soft rebuild look uh yes I do like the It’s going to be such a soft rebuild that even Seattle couldn’t help it all right this is not going to be a tear it down to the studs hope you get draft picks try to rebuild like we went through for for a decade in this city and hope you get lottery luck this isn’t this isn’t chasing pingpong balls they are going to go after guys that can help them now and some draft picks to try to fortify the future or at least give them trade assets but when you look at that 26 27 off season where there’s more cap space I think they’re going to go back and and chase guys to pair with Devin Booker as well this is not going to be a full reset tear it down rebuild it’s just not going to happen this next one comes from another mainstay Chris and Phoenix on Twitter chris in on in the Discord uh talking about the duo episode we did mhm so so they say um I thought about a bit more and two other duos we would have included Frank Kush and Danny White and Jake Plamer and Pat Tilman kush is literally responsible for ASU moving from being a teachers college to more of a university and he was incredibly important to ASU’s history and even the state of Arizona history the Kush White combo um basically created the Fiesta Bowl at a time when there were only 10 bull games plumber Tilman’s ASU team was literally one play away from uh beating Ohio State in the Rosebulb and potentially slash a likely national championship both of those duos should be at a minimum ahead of Hawk and Van Arsdale plameumber and centers and Kachchuck and Ronic they both belong in level B i would put Cushian White ahead of Dillian Scat um and would put P plumber and Tilman either before or after Palmer and Fitz cushion White valid point i think that was an over oversight on my part my apologies probably could have gone plumber Tilman uh on on the ASU side rather than plumber centers but I feel like and this is no disrespect but when you’re looking at the full state of Arizona that Cardinals playoff run had a larger impact for the entirety of the state than the ASU Rose Bowl run now if they had won and they had shared that national title uh I think that that would have been a a different uh a different conversation but uh that’s kind of where I stand on that right now uh Carlos Martinez opens it up and says “Never wanted Katie on the Suns i feel like they overpaid.” Um but then correct says “In a KD trade I would like to see a three-team trade that brings back Cam Johnson fixing mistakes from the KD trade.” Look I love Cam Johnson so I’m at a K1 softball tournament talked with him sat down uh with him i’d love to have him back in the valley i don’t think it’s happening as part of this KD uh trade maybe when he’s a free agent in 2027 uh there’s a way but I just do not see it as part of this KD deal how much money is he making right now uh he’s in the 20s I think it’s like four years 80 probably yeah I think he might have been in the the 90 or No I he wound up more than male I think with Brooklyn a good amount yeah he did get a good amount it’s a little too much for me yeah and I just don’t see that I don’t see Brooklyn getting in involved in it right now uh last one um do you remember that scene in Moneyball when the Yankees agreed to pay half of David Justice’s contract the A’s to take him can the Suns do something similar for Bradley Beiel will for Mesa no i actually don’t think the NBA rules allow you to do anything like that which makes it much tougher i think if you’re gonna pay money to get rid of Bradley Beal you’re paying it straight to Bradley Beal to have him walk away as part of a buyout i think that’s probably more likely than a trade happening but I do not believe Bradley Beal will be on this roster at all this year i do not see that uh I think it is done one way or another he is gone from here so that is another edition of Southwest Buy big thanks to the mustache behind the Mac Shane Dembbach thank you to all of you for your questions and remember even if you feel cursed oh well I just we have to say thank you to to the Pharaohs just in case they’re listening and in case they’re the reasons behind the curse thank you to the Thank you Pharaohs thank you to the UFFL’s newest uh football franchise the Arizona Pharaohs as well thank you to you for watching remember you can follow me at Aspo you can follow the show at phnx_ports and remember even if you feel like you’re cursed you might just be having a bad day ohoy hoy [Music] [Applause] like the mayor

Are the Phoenix Suns cursed? Maybe but at the very least they’re good at causing themselves pain and the NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma Thunder are proof of it. The Valley’s team is responsible for both team’s superstars.

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