Suns fire GM days before season opener
The Phoenix Suns fired general manager Ryan McDonough on Monday, nine days before their season begins. James Jones and Trevor Bukstein will share the GM duties on an interim basis for the Suns. Jones is the team’s vicepresident of basketball operations and Bukstein was assistant GM under McDonough, who had been in Phoenix since 2013 and was under contract through 2020.
Suns owner Robert Sarver said in a statement that he made the decision “after much thought and a long evaluation of our basketball operations.”
“There’s no perfect time to make a change,” Sarver said in an interview on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM radio. “For me it’s just about making consistent progress and with any leader it’s an ongoing evaluation process. And, ultimately, I just decided we needed to make a change.”
Speculation about potential candidates includes Hall of Famer Steve Nash, twice voted NBA MVP as a point guard with the Suns and now a consultant with the Golden State Warriors, but ESPN reported Monday that Nash still has no interest in running a front office.
The Suns took Deandre Ayton with the No.1 overall pick in this year’s draft and gave Devin Booker a $158 million (U.S.) extension during the off-season.
Phoenix has had four straight losing seasons and no playoff berth since 2010. Last year’s 2161 record was the worst in the NBA and second-worst in franchise history.
Sarver said he’d been looking at the last five years, “more recently the last six months,” in an ongoing evaluation of McDonough.
“It culminated when we were heading into the summer,” Sarver said. “We discussed a number of opportunities I felt were realistic in terms of what progress would look like. And, ultimately, to me the rate of progress wasn’t there where I thought it needed to be.”