All Things Ayton

[bIGDRAWLS0072]

Fuck it let's do it.

[Mori Chu]

If we could get #3 for Ayton, you absolutely have to take it. Even better if it's #3 and valuable / good players. I don't really count Nurkic but Portland would probably demand that we take him.

[Drewsprocket]

If we get 3 pick could we get Bridges back?

[Aztec Sunsfan]

I'm convinced JerBear is just trolling at this point. SDC vibes.

It's like I enter into an alternate reality when I visit this forum, where I experience almost nothing but gaslighting.

Funny thing, that's exactly my experience reading your Ayton's posts.

“There is no possibility of Monty getting fired in the summer of 2023, you’re crazy.”

“Monty is not on the hot seat at all.”

“Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread.”

“There is nothing even controversial about Monty, why would you start a thread about someone so perfect and saintly who’s obviously going to be here for another decade?”

How did those types of posts hold up to reality?

How about all your posts about "playoff Ayton"?

Because those were the ones I was specifically calling for, and the guy simply did not delivered, coaching be damned, if you are half the moniker Ayton calls upon himself, you go full Jimmy Butler on the offensive boards, and keep your team alive. YOU JUST DO NOT WATCH A DEFENSIVE REBOUND FROM THE SIDELINES GOING LIVE!!!

But let's go into your conveniently hand picked lines for a moment. On the first place, nobody was saying Monty was the greatest coach, so you are also exaggerating, but above all, you WERE NOT right at that moment, you just kept pushing your narrative, and only because of an awful performance on a elimination game for the second consecutive year Monty's fate was sealed. Reality has a nasty habit to change without given notice, and your beloved Ayton played a big role on getting Monty fired. Playoff Ayton carrying the team to the finals would have set a different reality upon us.

You can as well call for the California Big earthquake, and it wouldn't make you right if it happens, it just meant YOU GUESSED right. The available information at the moment allows for educated guesses, being stubborn about an outlier event does not make an stubborn person right, just stubborn... "even an blind squirrel..." and all that is always on play. Even Flex got his time under the spotlight.

Here, lets watch it again, Dominayton on offense and defense, but hey, it's all about coaching, yeah right.

[JeremyG]

I'm convinced JerBear is just trolling at this point. SDC vibes.

It's like I enter into an alternate reality when I visit this forum, where I experience almost nothing but gaslighting.

Funny thing, that's exactly my experience reading your Ayton's posts.

“There is no possibility of Monty getting fired in the summer of 2023, you’re crazy.”

“Monty is not on the hot seat at all.”

“Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread.”

“There is nothing even controversial about Monty, why would you start a thread about someone so perfect and saintly who’s obviously going to be here for another decade?”

How did those types of posts hold up to reality?

How about all your posts about "playoff Ayton"?

Because those were the ones I was specifically calling for, and the guy simply did not delivered, coaching be damned, if you are half the moniker Ayton calls upon himself, you go full Jimmy Butler on the offensive boards, and keep your team alive. YOU JUST DO NOT WATCH A DEFENSIVE REBOUND FROM THE SIDELINES GOING LIVE!!!

But let's go into your conveniently hand picked lines for a moment. On the first place, nobody was saying Monty was the greatest coach, so you are also exaggerating, but above all, you WERE NOT right at that moment, you just kept pushing your narrative, and only because of an awful performance on a elimination game for the second consecutive year Monty's fate was sealed. Reality has a nasty habit to change without given notice, and your beloved Ayton played a big role on getting Monty fired. Playoff Ayton carrying the team to the finals would have set a different reality upon us.

You can as well call for the California Big earthquake, and it wouldn't make you right if it happens, it just meant YOU GUESSED right. The available information at the moment allows for educated guesses, being stubborn about an outlier event does not make an stubborn person right, just stubborn... "even an blind squirrel..." and all that is always on play. Even Flex got his time under the spotlight.

Here, lets watch it again, Dominayton on offense and defense, but hey, it's all about coaching, yeah right.

Sure, it was just a guess based on zero available information:

Wow. I’ve haven’t heard anyone (other than James & Monty) say that last season was anything other than a complete failure.

How is it not underachieving for a 64-win team to not make it out of the second round? And mainly due to abysmal coaching and being completely out-coached in both rounds.

Complete failure would be the Lakers…they still won 64 games and set the franchise record for wins. You don’t throw away a perfectly good coach over 5 bad games. Remember all the coaches we had before Monty…you want Igor or Watson back? Triano? Hornacek? Hunter? Gentry? Porter?

Monty is pretty easily a top 2 coach of the last 25 years for us.

Just because we had bottom-of-the-barrel coaches before--due to a cheap owner--means we should settle for anyone who's better than they were? That's not my bar. My bar is having a coach who knows how to best utitlize his players and who can coach in the playoffs--the most important time for coaching.

Where did I say anything about firing him over 5 bad games? I said I can see him getting fired if we have another underachieving season.

So many winnable games we've lost that could be the difference in seeding or making the postseason at all. There has to be a coaching change after this season, and I'm even more confident than when I made this thread that there will be.

[AmareIsGod]

Jeremy, why can we agreeably criticize Monty but playoff Ayton gets a pass?

[JeremyG]

Jeremy, why can we agreeably criticize Monty but playoff Ayton gets a pass?

Is this a pass? I give him a partial pass due to the coach and roster/role changes he was playing under.

I’ll just say that overall I think he performed well for the circumstances he had to endure, except for about 40% of the playoff games this year I would have liked to see better intensity despite any role/relationship differences.

I am excited to see him playing for a new coach next season (hopefully in Phoenix).

[Aztec Sunsfan]

It's like I enter into an alternate reality when I visit this forum, where I experience almost nothing but gaslighting.

Funny thing, that's exactly my experience reading your Ayton's posts.

“There is no possibility of Monty getting fired in the summer of 2023, you’re crazy.”

“Monty is not on the hot seat at all.”

“Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread.”

“There is nothing even controversial about Monty, why would you start a thread about someone so perfect and saintly who’s obviously going to be here for another decade?”

How did those types of posts hold up to reality?

How about all your posts about "playoff Ayton"?

Because those were the ones I was specifically calling for, and the guy simply did not delivered, coaching be damned, if you are half the moniker Ayton calls upon himself, you go full Jimmy Butler on the offensive boards, and keep your team alive. YOU JUST DO NOT WATCH A DEFENSIVE REBOUND FROM THE SIDELINES GOING LIVE!!!

But let's go into your conveniently hand picked lines for a moment. On the first place, nobody was saying Monty was the greatest coach, so you are also exaggerating, but above all, you WERE NOT right at that moment, you just kept pushing your narrative, and only because of an awful performance on a elimination game for the second consecutive year Monty's fate was sealed. Reality has a nasty habit to change without given notice, and your beloved Ayton played a big role on getting Monty fired. Playoff Ayton carrying the team to the finals would have set a different reality upon us.

You can as well call for the California Big earthquake, and it wouldn't make you right if it happens, it just meant YOU GUESSED right. The available information at the moment allows for educated guesses, being stubborn about an outlier event does not make an stubborn person right, just stubborn... "even an blind squirrel..." and all that is always on play. Even Flex got his time under the spotlight.

Here, lets watch it again, Dominayton on offense and defense, but hey, it's all about coaching, yeah right.

Sure, it was just a guess based on zero available information:

Wow. I’ve haven’t heard anyone (other than James & Monty) say that last season was anything other than a complete failure.

How is it not underachieving for a 64-win team to not make it out of the second round? And mainly due to abysmal coaching and being completely out-coached in both rounds.

Complete failure would be the Lakers…they still won 64 games and set the franchise record for wins. You don’t throw away a perfectly good coach over 5 bad games. Remember all the coaches we had before Monty…you want Igor or Watson back? Triano? Hornacek? Hunter? Gentry? Porter?

Monty is pretty easily a top 2 coach of the last 25 years for us.

Just because we had bottom-of-the-barrel coaches before--due to a cheap owner--means we should settle for anyone who's better than they were? That's not my bar. My bar is having a coach who knows how to best utitlize his players and who can coach in the playoffs--the most important time for coaching.

Where did I say anything about firing him over 5 bad games? I said I can see him getting fired if we have another underachieving season.

So many winnable games we've lost that could be the difference in seeding or making the postseason at all. There has to be a coaching change after this season, and I'm even more confident than when I made this thread that there will be.

Yeah, one post among over 1,500 replies just between both "All Ayton things" and "Monty Williams" threads. And to use one of your favorite tricks, Split just said "Top 2 for us" he didn't said "Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread", which is completely in line with having bottom-of-the-barrel coaches (as you said), but not necessarily an all-world endorsement.

And on top of that, you once again conveniently got quiet about playoff Ayton. Like I already said, my original post reads "reading your Ayton's posts", so it's completely irrelevant the Monty talk. I was never an all-in Monty supporter, I would dare you to find how many posts FROM ME are saying that he is the greatest coach available. I post in a very low volume, so it shouldn't be that hard.

Stop running to the corners, let's talk about Monty instructing Ayton to step out of bounds during a live defensive rebounding situation, and staying there over FULL SIX SECONDS and two shooting attempts from the player your are supposed to be primarily handling, and let your two over-30-almost-40 co stars do your job. Yeah, that was all Monty's fault.

[JeremyG]

Funny thing, that's exactly my experience reading your Ayton's posts.

“There is no possibility of Monty getting fired in the summer of 2023, you’re crazy.”

“Monty is not on the hot seat at all.”

“Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread.”

“There is nothing even controversial about Monty, why would you start a thread about someone so perfect and saintly who’s obviously going to be here for another decade?”

How did those types of posts hold up to reality?

How about all your posts about "playoff Ayton"?

Because those were the ones I was specifically calling for, and the guy simply did not delivered, coaching be damned, if you are half the moniker Ayton calls upon himself, you go full Jimmy Butler on the offensive boards, and keep your team alive. YOU JUST DO NOT WATCH A DEFENSIVE REBOUND FROM THE SIDELINES GOING LIVE!!!

But let's go into your conveniently hand picked lines for a moment. On the first place, nobody was saying Monty was the greatest coach, so you are also exaggerating, but above all, you WERE NOT right at that moment, you just kept pushing your narrative, and only because of an awful performance on a elimination game for the second consecutive year Monty's fate was sealed. Reality has a nasty habit to change without given notice, and your beloved Ayton played a big role on getting Monty fired. Playoff Ayton carrying the team to the finals would have set a different reality upon us.

You can as well call for the California Big earthquake, and it wouldn't make you right if it happens, it just meant YOU GUESSED right. The available information at the moment allows for educated guesses, being stubborn about an outlier event does not make an stubborn person right, just stubborn... "even an blind squirrel..." and all that is always on play. Even Flex got his time under the spotlight.

Here, lets watch it again, Dominayton on offense and defense, but hey, it's all about coaching, yeah right.

Sure, it was just a guess based on zero available information:

Wow. I’ve haven’t heard anyone (other than James & Monty) say that last season was anything other than a complete failure.

How is it not underachieving for a 64-win team to not make it out of the second round? And mainly due to abysmal coaching and being completely out-coached in both rounds.

Complete failure would be the Lakers…they still won 64 games and set the franchise record for wins. You don’t throw away a perfectly good coach over 5 bad games. Remember all the coaches we had before Monty…you want Igor or Watson back? Triano? Hornacek? Hunter? Gentry? Porter?

Monty is pretty easily a top 2 coach of the last 25 years for us.

Just because we had bottom-of-the-barrel coaches before--due to a cheap owner--means we should settle for anyone who's better than they were? That's not my bar. My bar is having a coach who knows how to best utitlize his players and who can coach in the playoffs--the most important time for coaching.

Where did I say anything about firing him over 5 bad games? I said I can see him getting fired if we have another underachieving season.

So many winnable games we've lost that could be the difference in seeding or making the postseason at all. There has to be a coaching change after this season, and I'm even more confident than when I made this thread that there will be.

Yeah, one post among over 1,500 replies just between both "All Ayton things" and "Monty Williams" threads. And to use one of your favorite tricks, Split just said "Top 2 for us" he didn't said "Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread", which is completely in line with having bottom-of-the-barrel coaches (as you said), but not necessarily an all-world endorsement.

And on top of that, you once again conveniently got quiet about playoff Ayton. Like I already said, my original post reads "reading your Ayton's posts", so it's completely irrelevant the Monty talk. I was never an all-in Monty supporter, I would dare you to find how many posts FROM ME are saying that he is the greatest coach available. I post in a very low volume, so it shouldn't be that hard.

Stop running to the corners, let's talk about Monty instructing Ayton to step out of bounds during a live defensive rebounding situation, and staying there over FULL SIX SECONDS and two shooting attempts from the player your are supposed to be primarily handling, and let your two over-30-almost-40 co stars do your job. Yeah, that was all Monty's fault.

Lol, it’s crazy how obsessed people get over one play just because it went viral. Nobody made a viral video when AD stood out of bounds in Denver while Joker put a shot back up…that actually went in.

Anyway, you missed the entire point of me quoting the old posts. It had nothing to do with proving that people said what I (of course) slightly exaggerated them saying. My point was exactly what I said, to show that my prediction was not just a guess like a blind squirrel as you had claimed above.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

“There is no possibility of Monty getting fired in the summer of 2023, you’re crazy.”

“Monty is not on the hot seat at all.”

“Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread.”

“There is nothing even controversial about Monty, why would you start a thread about someone so perfect and saintly who’s obviously going to be here for another decade?”

How did those types of posts hold up to reality?

How about all your posts about "playoff Ayton"?

Because those were the ones I was specifically calling for, and the guy simply did not delivered, coaching be damned, if you are half the moniker Ayton calls upon himself, you go full Jimmy Butler on the offensive boards, and keep your team alive. YOU JUST DO NOT WATCH A DEFENSIVE REBOUND FROM THE SIDELINES GOING LIVE!!!

But let's go into your conveniently hand picked lines for a moment. On the first place, nobody was saying Monty was the greatest coach, so you are also exaggerating, but above all, you WERE NOT right at that moment, you just kept pushing your narrative, and only because of an awful performance on a elimination game for the second consecutive year Monty's fate was sealed. Reality has a nasty habit to change without given notice, and your beloved Ayton played a big role on getting Monty fired. Playoff Ayton carrying the team to the finals would have set a different reality upon us.

You can as well call for the California Big earthquake, and it wouldn't make you right if it happens, it just meant YOU GUESSED right. The available information at the moment allows for educated guesses, being stubborn about an outlier event does not make an stubborn person right, just stubborn... "even an blind squirrel..." and all that is always on play. Even Flex got his time under the spotlight.

Here, lets watch it again, Dominayton on offense and defense, but hey, it's all about coaching, yeah right.

Sure, it was just a guess based on zero available information:

Complete failure would be the Lakers…they still won 64 games and set the franchise record for wins. You don’t throw away a perfectly good coach over 5 bad games. Remember all the coaches we had before Monty…you want Igor or Watson back? Triano? Hornacek? Hunter? Gentry? Porter?

Monty is pretty easily a top 2 coach of the last 25 years for us.

Just because we had bottom-of-the-barrel coaches before--due to a cheap owner--means we should settle for anyone who's better than they were? That's not my bar. My bar is having a coach who knows how to best utitlize his players and who can coach in the playoffs--the most important time for coaching.

Where did I say anything about firing him over 5 bad games? I said I can see him getting fired if we have another underachieving season.

So many winnable games we've lost that could be the difference in seeding or making the postseason at all. There has to be a coaching change after this season, and I'm even more confident than when I made this thread that there will be.

Yeah, one post among over 1,500 replies just between both "All Ayton things" and "Monty Williams" threads. And to use one of your favorite tricks, Split just said "Top 2 for us" he didn't said "Monty is the greatest coach since sliced bread", which is completely in line with having bottom-of-the-barrel coaches (as you said), but not necessarily an all-world endorsement.

And on top of that, you once again conveniently got quiet about playoff Ayton. Like I already said, my original post reads "reading your Ayton's posts", so it's completely irrelevant the Monty talk. I was never an all-in Monty supporter, I would dare you to find how many posts FROM ME are saying that he is the greatest coach available. I post in a very low volume, so it shouldn't be that hard.

Stop running to the corners, let's talk about Monty instructing Ayton to step out of bounds during a live defensive rebounding situation, and staying there over FULL SIX SECONDS and two shooting attempts from the player your are supposed to be primarily handling, and let your two over-30-almost-40 co stars do your job. Yeah, that was all Monty's fault.

Lol, it’s crazy how obsessed people get over one play just because it went viral. Nobody made a viral video when AD stood out of bounds in Denver while Joker put a shot back up…that actually went in.

Anyway, you missed the entire point of me quoting the old posts. It had nothing to do with proving that people said what I (of course) slightly exaggerated them saying. My point was exactly what I said, to show that my prediction was not just a guess like a blind squirrel as you had claimed above.

Are you really talking about OTHER people being obsessed?

Yeah, right, so be it... keep deflecting, keep pushing your narrative, keep avoiding that I was talking about Ayton, that's the real entire point...

[JeremyG]

JMJ almost always has spot-on analysis (click to read the whole thread):

[Split T]

I think that’s mostly fair. Theres some blame to go around, but Ayton needs to own some of it too. The suns biggest mistake was keeping him when they didn’t value him as a max big. Should’ve flipped him for Turner last summer. Might’ve even gotten a pick out of it at the time.

[ShelC]

JJ and Monty have to do what's right by the org, not by DA in terms of the contract. There's no way you give in and pay him the $150mil+. There's just no way. He's not that player, he never will be. He was a RFA and you don't negotiate against yourself. And just because another team did it with their player (Denver and MPJ) doesn't mean we should have and were wrong not to. We'd be in a much rougher situation capwise giving into his contact demands. If that affected his play, so be it. If you want to blame Monty for not kissing his ass and jerking him to sleep every night, go ahead. But DA got paid and has as much of an obligation to play hard for the team and his teammates. He's bullshit and it showed throughout the season and the playoffs. He's not a bad player, but he's also not a great one.

[JeremyG]

And just because another team did it with their player (Denver and MPJ) doesn't mean we should have and were wrong not to.

Why not? It seems to have worked out great for them. That's a funny argument to make considering Denver is in the Finals as we speak.

[AmareIsGod]

And just because another team did it with their player (Denver and MPJ) doesn't mean we should have and were wrong not to.

Why not? It seems to have worked out great for them. That's a funny argument to make considering Denver is in the Finals as we speak.

Denver being in the finals has ZERO to do with them overpaying MPJ. He's been pretty good but definitely not anywhere near the contract they paid him. "They grossly overpaid and are in the finals. We should grossly overpay too!".

Again,

[Drewsprocket]

JJ and Monty have to do what's right by the org, not by DA in terms of the contract. There's no way you give in and pay him the $150mil+. There's just no way. He's not that player, he never will be. He was a RFA and you don't negotiate against yourself. And just because another team did it with their player (Denver and MPJ) doesn't mean we should have and were wrong not to. We'd be in a much rougher situation capwise giving into his contact demands. If that affected his play, so be it. If you want to blame Monty for not kissing his ass and jerking him to sleep every night, go ahead. But DA got paid and has as much of an obligation to play hard for the team and his teammates. He's bullshit and it showed throughout the season and the playoffs. He's not a bad player, but he's also not a great one.

Suns paid Ayton what they had to. If Ayton played like 2021 playoffs guy then I’d be fine with him. I would rather us see him traded so long as we dont lose on a deal. I’m no basketball scout but I do know personality traits and emotional development and it’s clear that Ayton is a B minus competitor compared to the company he has next to Book and CP3 and KD. his issues are related to the sort of work ethic it takes to compete at the level he wants to pretend to be. It’s immensely difficult to stay that focused, driven, and dialed into the routine for people. Monty did what he knew, perhaps he played too hard with the withdrawal of warm affect as a motivator and lost Ayton.

[JeremyG]

And just because another team did it with their player (Denver and MPJ) doesn't mean we should have and were wrong not to.

Why not? It seems to have worked out great for them. That's a funny argument to make considering Denver is in the Finals as we speak.

Denver being in the finals has ZERO to do with them overpaying MPJ. He's been pretty good but definitely not anywhere near the contract they paid him. "They grossly overpaid and are in the finals. We should grossly overpay too!".

Again,

They kept him happy. It worked. Also, it hasn't destroyed their ability to build a roster. I would love to have seen what would have happened if the Suns had not only not disrespected DA but also not alienated him (Monty).

[Split T]

It worked for Denver because they have Jokic. And they didn’t have to deplete their roster to get him.

Let’s go back to 2021:

Jokic/Murray/MPJ/AG/Barton/Morris. That was their top 6.
Booker/CP3/Ayton/Mikal/CamJ/Crowder was ours.

Pretty comparable across the board as far as talent level goes, except Jokic is better than Booker and Murray was hurt, so CP3 was a huge upgrade for us. Since then, CP3 fell off, Murray got healthy and Barton turned into KCP and we traded Mikal/CamJ/Crowder for KD.

Now:

Jokic/Murray/MPJ/Gordon/KCP/Brown
Durant/Booker/Ayton/CP3/Shamet/Jock

They didn’t need MPJ to be a top 2 talent for them. They have Jokic/Murray in place and they also are rock solid at 4/5/6.

When CP3 fell off, we needed someone to ascend to #2 status. Ayton should have been that guy but didn’t. Mikal was maybe beginning to be that guy, but we traded him to make Booker that guy.

So long story short, they had their depth and their top 2 in place. We had to sacrifice our depth to get a top 2.

I’ll also add that MPJ seems perfectly content to be a 3rd piece. Ayton has shown signs that he’s not.

[AmareIsGod]

And just because another team did it with their player (Denver and MPJ) doesn't mean we should have and were wrong not to.

Why not? It seems to have worked out great for them. That's a funny argument to make considering Denver is in the Finals as we speak.

Denver being in the finals has ZERO to do with them overpaying MPJ. He's been pretty good but definitely not anywhere near the contract they paid him. "They grossly overpaid and are in the finals. We should grossly overpay too!".

Again,

They kept him happy. It worked. Also, it hasn't destroyed their ability to build a roster. I would love to have seen what would have happened if the Suns had not only not disrespected DA but also not alienated him (Monty).

You think if they paid him the largest max possible, no questions asked, he would have played like 2021 playoff (except the Finals when he struggled) Ayton? Come on. He'll NEVER be that kind of consistent player that plays to the max. He doesn't have it in him. He's a giant child and he lacks the kind of pair it takes to be a physical and dominant player regularly. You can't implant that between his ears.

He couldn't get over it, after 82 games, and with KD and Book on the roster? Playing alongside a guy like KD couldn't get him to lay off the weed during the postseason, floating around like an aloof bystander most plays?

He couldn't even play like a consistent DominAyton in college against a ton of bigs that never sniffed the NBA.

He was disrespected though and not paid the super max so why the hell should he honor his contract and play basketball with effort and force.

[TOO]

Ayton discourse on this forum has reached it's end. I for one can no longer argue in circles about the same thing.

Looking forward to next year.