Suns News: Week 2 10/22-10/28

[TOO]

I hope its Melton, sorry Elie.

[Shabazz]

Currently, they're listing Booker as OUT.

[Superbone]

[Superbone]

The bad news is that Booker is out and Ayton is questionable. The good news is that Anderson is questionable.

[Superbone]

Seriously, I'm not liking that Ayton has already been questionable a couple times this early into his first season. This does not bode well.

[bajanguy008]

Yea was just checking in on my fantasy teams and saw all these Suns Alerts
Speculation that Suns might sit Ayton a couple times to make sure his ankle isn't an issue all season. Things starting to get ugly real fast....

[JeremyG]

Yea was just checking in on my fantasy teams and saw all these Suns Alerts
Speculation that Suns might sit Ayton a couple times to make sure his ankle isn't an issue all season. Things starting to get ugly real fast....

They should never have let him play one day after spraining it.

[UglyTruth]

I don't understand why both can't be active. Make Canaan or Crawford the inactive one.

[Superbone]

About 42,000 shots: How T.J. Warren found long range, improved his game
https://theathletic.com/613378/2018/10/ ... -his-game/

Nice article about the work TJ put in this summer to improve his 3 point shot. I remember a lot were pining all summer long for him to work on it. Well, guess what? He did.

[Superbone]

Suns hit road for back-to-back, will initiate more offense through rookie Ayton
https://theathletic.com/616194/2018/10/ ... kie-ayton/

While​ the Suns​ aren’t​ expecting​ playmaking​ guard​ Devin Booker to miss significant​ time​ because​ of​ a strained​ left hamstring,​ he​ is listed​​ “out” for the club’s Saturday game at Memphis.

The Suns are going to have to initiate their offense through someone else. But even when Booker plays, coach Igor Kokoskov said he wants more of the offense to run through rookie center Deandre Ayton.

“We’re not changing completely what we’re doing,” Kokoskov said. “But we mentioned that the very first day of the training camp: He’s our second-best playmaker. And we play-make through our bigs.

[Flagrant Fowl]

That's great Igor, but you might have noticed, basically no one on the roster can get him the ball in a good position.

I can smell 1-5 from here. No reason to believe OKC won't get their first win of the season against us, even if Booker plays.

[Mori Chu]

That's great Igor, but you might have noticed, basically no one on the roster can get him the ball in a good position.

I can smell 1-5 from here. No reason to believe OKC won't get their first win of the season against us, even if Booker plays.

Even if we do go 1-5, it's a long season. This team is going to grow a lot over the course of 82 games. We essentially won't be the same team at the end of the year.

[UglyTruth]

Every word out of Kokoskov’s mouth makes him look like a hypercrite when compared with his actions (mins distribution).

It sucks that the Suns media reporters are full of geeky blog boys and hardly any with any type of college education or degree in journalism.

Kokoskov should be getting grilled about his minutes distribution and asked of how he keeps preaching defense after each game and yet the worst one in the league is starting for the Suns. That among hundreds of other questions that the blog boys are scared to ask.

[Split T]

What hypocritical thing has he said about minutes distribution?

[ShelC]

Obviously gotta give Igor some time on this. First year head coach, a roster that needs an overhaul, an owner that may or may not be telling him how to coach and who to play...let's see what adjustments he makes. He's still a legit coach with a very good basketball mind.

[specialsauce]

That's great Igor, but you might have noticed, basically no one on the roster can get him the ball in a good position.

I can smell 1-5 from here. No reason to believe OKC won't get their first win of the season against us, even if Booker plays.

Even if we do go 1-5, it's a long season. This team is going to grow a lot over the course of 82 games. We essentially won't be the same team at the end of the year.

That’s no guarantee. Last year would beg to differ

[Split T]

For all the pessimists, how do y’all stay fans if you think there’s no hope. Sure, I have to convince myself sometimes that there is hope when there probably isn’t, but I’d lose interest real quick if I thought our team had no chance to become good. I guess just different minds.

Anyways, I still have hope for this team. Booker and Warren will be good all year. Ayton is also very good right now with some very obvious areas for improvement. I think we’ll see Ayton grow quite a bit as the season progresses. I still like Jackson. I’m not sure what he is going to become, but he’s got a useful skill set and I think he’s been mostly playing within the offense. Shot still needs a lot more consistency, but his handle, passing, defense should start to be helpful at some point. Canaan is Canaan. When his shot is going in, he’ll be ok. When it’s not, we’ll call for his head. Maybe a trade for Trey Burke could help. Same with Anderson as far as the shot. I’m hoping he at least gets his shot back at some point. I have no hope for his defense. Ariza has been hit or miss so far this season. I’m hoping he gets more consistent as the season goes on. He was really good in preseason and game 1. I think bridges will just get more and more comfortable in the offense and he’ll prove to be one of our better role players this year. Lastly, I hope at least one of Okobo/Melton makes themselves useful as a backup pg.

I’m still thinking 33 wins as our barometer. Below that will be disappointing. Above will give me hope for the future. I don’t think the last 3 games were great for setting accurate expectations. Denver and GS are fantastic teams that have also been playing together for awhile. We changed a lot in the offseason and are still learning Igor’s system. There will be speed bumps. The laker game was more discouraging as they hadn’t looked very good and added a whole bunch of new parts as well. Still, they do have Lebron and they beat Denver? Right after us. Tonight’s game would have been a better litmus test, but unfortunately without booker, we’ll probably struggle. But, I’ll give us 15 games. If we’re still looking completely lost on defense and TJ Warren is our only above 33% 3 pt shooter, I’ll start thinking maybe the season is lost.

[The Bobster]

Top 5 2018 Draft choices -

Ayton - 0.5 WS, 5.2 BPM, 0.2 VORP
Bagley - 0.2 WS, -0.5 BPM, 0.1 VORP
Doncic - -0.1 WS, -0.5 BPM, -0.1 VORP
Jackson - 0.4 WS, 3.4 BPM, 0.2 VORP
Young - 0.3 WS, -2.4 BPM, 9.9 VORP

Ayton also has impressive traditional stats in comparison to the other top picks -

Ayton - 30.3 Min, 62.8 FG%, 84.6 FT%, 10.8 Reb, 3.8 Ast, 16.3 Pts
Bagley - 24.3 Min, 55.9 FG%, 56.0 FT%, 7.2 Reb, 1.2 Ast, 13.7 Pts
Doncic - 34.6 Min, 43.6 FT%, 68.0 FT%, 6.2 Reb, 3.8 Ast, 19.6 Pts
Jackson - 27.8 Min, 45.7 FG%, 78.9 FT%, 6.5 Reb, 1.5 Ast, 14.8 Pts
Young - 32.3 Min, 41.8 FG%, 78.3 FT%, 3.5 Reb, 7.5 Ast, 21.5 Pts

[The Bobster]

Offensive & Defensive ratings -

Ayton - 137/114 (+23)
Bagley - 106/111 (-5)
Doncic - 99/118 (-18)
Jackson - 111/100 (+11)
Young - 111/112 (-1)

[Xylus]

Thanks for those stats, Bobster.

I wonder if anyone has ever put together a 20(pts)-10(reb)-60(fg%)-80(ft%) line in a season before.