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In news that can either be described as an anti-collusion effort or simple petty bitterness, the Globe and Mail reports that when the Suns granted Mike D'Antoni permission to speak to other teams about their head coaching positions, they had one condition. He is not allowed to speak with the Toronto Raptors.

Now, if the two teams were division rivals, this would be pretty self-explanatory. If they were conference rivals, even, I could see the inherent value. But as they play in different conferences, there are really only two options. The first is that Suns owner Robert Sarver wanted to make sure D'Antoni's buddy and Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo didn't benefit if he was in any way involved in D'Antoni's decision to ride out of the desert. This is not beyond reason, considering the personal and professional relationship between the two. Likewise, it prevents D'Antoni from hooking back up with Colangelo and re-instituting the "run and gun" which the Suns have decided to abandon, and succeeding with it where the Suns failed, however unlikely that may be. Better to just nip the possibility in the bud than to risk further embarrassment and attention to how quickly the Suns disintegrated when Sarver hired Steve Kerr.

But there's a more likely reason, after the jump.


The more likely option, though, sadly, is good ol' fashioned, plain bitterness. It's no secret that Colangelo's departure from Phoenix wasn't under the best terms, and that Sarver and Colangelo never really got along. Colangelo is the Sun of longtime Suns owner Jerry Colangelo, and the team was long considered a family business. After Colangelo's departure to Toronto, it seems that this move has probably been made just to keep Colangelo from reuniting with D'Antoni in an effort to deny both parties an agreeable ending to this whole fiasco.

It's more than a little startling how fast things can erode in the NBA. Just two and a half years ago the Suns were the toast of the NBA, a title favorite, and the most exciting team in the NBA. They had young players with talent, the Hawks' draft pick as long as it wasn't lottery protected and a future that surely included titles. Now they feature a staggering amount of cap space devoured by aging players who were unable to overcome the Spurs, and their wunderkind GM is in Toronto figuring out how much he can get for TJ Ford. And the Suns are putting restrictions on the coach that got them to this point to limit his ability to join that GM. Funny how things work out.