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

[Mori Chu]

So, how do the Suns(players, front office, coaching staff) fix what's happening?
Do they make a play for a pg? How much do they give up? Do they try to trade for Love using Anderson and assets? Do they just hope for another draft pick?

I don't use this upcoming draft pick, Booker, Bridges, Warren, or Ayton, but everyone else and everything else is on the table.

My hope has been that one of the Cavs or Hornets would have a lousy start to the season, causing them to be willing to send Kemba Walker or Kevin Love to us in a trade. Charlotte looks okay, but Cleveland is bad. Love might be gettable in a month or two. He won't do anything to solve our defensive problems, but I think he'd be a PF who would fit in really well with our other talent.

[Hermen]

http://bkref.com/tiny/i70Hk

Deandre Ayton is the only player in NBA history to average 15/10/3/1 in his rookie season. It will be interesting to see if he can keep it up!

These games annoy me. Doncic has negative WS, and still gets in an exclusive group with Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Grant Hill. http://bkref.com/tiny/1idvJ

That's also impressive if he keeps that up the whole season.

Trae Young is another oner: http://bkref.com/tiny/YLEv1

After setting the filters, is it better if your player is the only one left, or if Jordan did it as well?

[Indy]

So, how do the Suns(players, front office, coaching staff) fix what's happening?
Do they make a play for a pg? How much do they give up? Do they try to trade for Love using Anderson and assets? Do they just hope for another draft pick?

I don't use this upcoming draft pick, Booker, Bridges, Warren, or Ayton, but everyone else and everything else is on the table.

My hope has been that one of the Cavs or Hornets would have a lousy start to the season, causing them to be willing to send Kemba Walker or Kevin Love to us in a trade. Charlotte looks okay, but Cleveland is bad. Love might be gettable in a month or two. He won't do anything to solve our defensive problems, but I think he'd be a PF who would fit in really well with our other talent.

But what about when we are lousy to start the season? You think other teams that are lousy to start the season will decide to jettison their best players to another lousy team, while our lousy team keeps their best players and unloads their trash?

[In2ition]

So, how do the Suns(players, front office, coaching staff) fix what's happening?
Do they make a play for a pg? How much do they give up? Do they try to trade for Love using Anderson and assets? Do they just hope for another draft pick?

I don't use this upcoming draft pick, Booker, Bridges, Warren, or Ayton, but everyone else and everything else is on the table.

My hope has been that one of the Cavs or Hornets would have a lousy start to the season, causing them to be willing to send Kemba Walker or Kevin Love to us in a trade. Charlotte looks okay, but Cleveland is bad. Love might be gettable in a month or two. He won't do anything to solve our defensive problems, but I think he'd be a PF who would fit in really well with our other talent.

But what about when we are lousy to start the season? You think other teams that are lousy to start the season will decide to jettison their best players to another lousy team, while our lousy team keeps their best players and unloads their trash?

I think that only happens if they believe that their rebuild will last more than one more season and they get the picks and possibly a young player to help with it. If their trying to improve right now, of course it wouldn't work.

[O_Gardino]

So, how do the Suns(players, front office, coaching staff) fix what's happening?
Do they make a play for a pg? How much do they give up? Do they try to trade for Love using Anderson and assets? Do they just hope for another draft pick?

I don't use this upcoming draft pick, Booker, Bridges, Warren, or Ayton, but everyone else and everything else is on the table.

I think the first challenge is on Igor. He's trying to get the players to play smart, and that's good. But he also has to get them playing hard and playing with pride.

[Mori Chu]

But what about when we are lousy to start the season? You think other teams that are lousy to start the season will decide to jettison their best players to another lousy team, while our lousy team keeps their best players and unloads their trash?

The difference being we are lousy (ish) and young / on the rise, with a core of players under 25; they (Cavs in particular) are lousy and old, on a downward trend. The former kind of team needs patience along with maybe acquiring some veterans; the latter needs to trade for draft picks and younglings to start a rebuild.

[Indy]

But what about when we are lousy to start the season? You think other teams that are lousy to start the season will decide to jettison their best players to another lousy team, while our lousy team keeps their best players and unloads their trash?

The difference being we are lousy (ish) and young / on the rise, with a core of players under 25; they (Cavs in particular) are lousy and old, on a downward trend. The former kind of team needs patience along with maybe acquiring some veterans; the latter needs to trade for draft picks and younglings to start a rebuild.

The only old guys getting burn on the Cavs are Hill and Love. I guess you can count Korver but he has only played 60 minutes in 5 games. If you do the same analysis of their minutes played by age for their top 8 guys, their team is at 26.3 years old, where we are at 26.2.

Sure their best players are older than our best players by a long shot, but they suck and have some good young guys, and we suck and have some good young guys. I am not sure they see themselves as so much better with Josh Jackson, or Dragan Bender, or Okobo/Melton.

[ShelC]

I don't think we have anything to offer the Cavs except a potentially high pick. They can get better offers for Love for sure. And Hill...same as Teague, where does he really get us?

[In2ition]

So, how do the Suns(players, front office, coaching staff) fix what's happening?
Do they make a play for a pg? How much do they give up? Do they try to trade for Love using Anderson and assets? Do they just hope for another draft pick?

I don't use this upcoming draft pick, Booker, Bridges, Warren, or Ayton, but everyone else and everything else is on the table.

I think the first challenge is on Igor. He's trying to get the players to play smart, and that's good. But he also has to get them playing hard and playing with pride.

I agree. I think there are a lot of small goals and low hanging fruit to work on that can be improved pretty quickly, by all parties.

[jonh]

Hard not to get discouraged by the past 3 games. No easy answers for the team.

[virtual9mm]

Hard not to get discouraged by the past 3 games. No easy answers for the team.

It's important to remember that the Suns have an incredibly difficult schedule through their first month, and then they'll have a cupcake schedule through March. And I ran through their schedule and just mentally checked off the games I think they "should" win. My tally came out to 35 wins for the season.

[carey]

V9, I can't imagine any team that I would just check off as a "should" win right now.

[Superbone]

V9, I can't imagine any team that I would just check off as a "should" win right now.

I'm guessing we should beat Memphis on Saturday? Probably no Booker, right? I don't have a lot of confidence in the team right now. That opening night win kind of set us up.

[ShelC]

Conley's been playing really well so far. He could kill us.

[Indy]

V9, I can't imagine any team that I would just check off as a "should" win right now.

We "should" win games if we are on the road playing a bottom 4 team in the east, and a bottom 2-3 team in the west. That gives us 10 wins.

We "should" also win at home against the same teams, plus the next 2-3 in the east, and the next 1-2 in the west. That gets us another ~7.

Then we "should" win some random games against teams better than us a few times throughout the year. Maybe another 10.

Now we just need to fill the GIANT holes on our roster at PG and PF, then care to play on both sides of the court. That should put us into the 30s. But without it, I don't see us being much better than last year. Booker would have to make a huge stride on both sides of the floor, and JJ would have to be an average NBA player at something, and our Houston cast-offs would have to start playing like it was a contract year.

[UglyTruth]

V9, I can't imagine any team that I would just check off as a "should" win right now.

I'm guessing we should beat Memphis on Saturday? Probably no Booker, right? I don't have a lot of confidence in the team right now. That opening night win kind of set us up.

They play another winless team, much like the Lakers, right after the Grizzlies game.

[Superbone]

V9, I can't imagine any team that I would just check off as a "should" win right now.

I'm guessing we should beat Memphis on Saturday? Probably no Booker, right? I don't have a lot of confidence in the team right now. That opening night win kind of set us up.

They play another winless team, much like the Lakers, right after the Grizzlies game.

Yep, that's a loss. Good thing we're there for OKC to but them back on the right path.

[Superbone]

[Ring_Wanted]

We "should" win games if we are on the road playing a bottom 4 team in the east, and a bottom 2-3 team in the west. That gives us 10 wins.

We "should" also win at home against the same teams, plus the next 2-3 in the east, and the next 1-2 in the west. That gets us another ~7.

Then we "should" win some random games against teams better than us a few times throughout the year. Maybe another 10.

Now we just need to fill the GIANT holes on our roster at PG and PF, then care to play on both sides of the court. That should put us into the 30s. But without it, I don't see us being much better than last year. Booker would have to make a huge stride on both sides of the floor, and JJ would have to be an average NBA player at something, and our Houston cast-offs would have to start playing like it was a contract year.

I was making this math yesterday.

Say we win 50% of our games against ATL, BRK, CHI, CLE, DAL, MEM, NYN, ORL, SAC.

Then 33% against unreliable teams like CHA, DET, WAS, MIN, OKC, LAC, LAL, MIA.

Then 10 random games against BOS, DEN, GSW, MIL, POR, SAS, TOR, UTA, PHI, HOU, NOP, IND,

That means maybe 10 games vs tier one, 7 vs tier two plus those 10 random wins vs consolidated playoff teams.

30 wins is looking hard af after the last three games. It seems we only have four legitimate players and some change. The defense is a joke, but offensively we need to reconsider that motion/wave stuff. It is not fooling anyone, can't create clean looks and doesn't use the Booker-Ayton combo enough. If I see Chandler getting the ball again around the FT line...

[Superbone]