Game Day: Spurs (4-2) @ Suns (1-5), Wed 10/31/18

[Gladiator]

How about we play 10-20 games with both of our two good players (Booker and Ayton) playing before we decide if Igor can coach or not?
This roster has a well documented major flaw - the lack of a functional, ready-now point guard - and the rest of the team just isn’t good enough to make up for that. Booker and Ayton will put us in some games against middling, lesser teams and it won’t seem quite as bad as it is right now (I predict).
Also - who the heck would we get to coach the team now if we got rid of Igor?!? There is no superstar coach out there waiting by the phone for a call from Sarver and co. Let’s stay the course with what we have now for a while, and let the young players grow together. (Please)

[Indy]

Has the timeline been accelerated? Really? Doesn’t look like it to me. Looks like we’re headed for another top 3 pick.

That may be something you lament, but honestly, that is really the only hope the franchise has.

Agreed.

Let's say we were to trade for a PG. If that is a starting caliber guy, he is going to cost us something good. Not Bender and Chandler and Jackson for a starting PG. We are going to have to give up people doing well on this team. We assume Book and Ayton are off the table, and TJ doesn't have value around the league. That means giving up future picks, or guys showing promise like Bridges, packaged with less expensive picks. Are we better if we give up our pick and Bridges for a meh starting PG? Does that get us to 35 wins this year, and then we get to give our #13 pick to whichever team gave us their meh PG? Or would we be better off winning 21 games this year and having a top 3 pick? I know the odds are flatter this year, but if you end up with the worst record, you still can't have a worse pick that #5. I assume a top 5 pick will do more for this team than firing Igor or trading for a meh PG on a 30M deal.

Let Igor work the team, focusing on one thing at a time for the 3 rookies that look to be possible rotation guys in this league. When we are 3-21 to start December, will we finally decide we can't do anything to "win now"?

[Indy]

Starting Okobo won't matter much if JJ is starting alongside him.

Kokoskov needs to start someone that can actually shoot like Warren or Bridges in place of Booker, not Josh ".6 PER" Jackson.

Apparently, all Josh needs to do to boost his PER is not turn it over and hit the defensive boards.

Fun stats of the day:

A 0.6 PER for Josh would be a huge jump. He currently has a negative PER. (-0.4).

He is currently the only player in the league to see real court time and have a negative PER. (>100 total minutes played)

The number of times in the last 75 years that a player had a negative PER playing more than 5 games for at least 15 mpg is 1.

[iLLmatic]

Selling the team isn't going to happen so the best we could hope for is that he stop meddling and we know that's not going to happen. So, our only other option is to find a different sport/team to cheer for.

The wife called me a fairweather fan because I don't watch them much anymore, I just can't deal with getting abused by 30 points. That's not a good product on the court and I refuse to waste my time watching this crap, especially now that I have a family.

I'm loyal to the Suns all the way to the grave. You just gotta find other sporting interests. I had a good time watching my Portland Timbers win a playoff knockout game today instead of the Suns game, which I didn't watch a single second of.

Yeah the Cardinals were kind of my other interest, and well, after BA left everything has been downhill ever since. It's been a miserable sports year for the Phoenix area.

[jonh]

Selling the team isn't going to happen so the best we could hope for is that he stop meddling and we know that's not going to happen. So, our only other option is to find a different sport/team to cheer for.

The wife called me a fairweather fan because I don't watch them much anymore, I just can't deal with getting abused by 30 points. That's not a good product on the court and I refuse to waste my time watching this crap, especially now that I have a family.

I'm loyal to the Suns all the way to the grave. You just gotta find other sporting interests. I had a good time watching my Portland Timbers win a playoff knockout game today instead of the Suns game, which I didn't watch a single second of.

Yeah the Cardinals were kind of my other interest, and well, after BA left everything has been downhill ever since. It's been a miserable sports year for the Phoenix area.

Between the Diamondbacks, Coyotes, Suns, it feels like its been a miserable 8 years for the Phoenix Area.

[djy2j]

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Sorry, man. That really sucks! I hope you find another better one quickly.

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Screw the Suns. What happened?!

Thought I was in a good place. Boss was a friend who recruited me a little over a year ago. Always assured me it wasn't a place that would up and fire you. Long story short it was. It was a new field of work to me and their training program didn't exist an d it was more figure it out on your own scenario. Like the Suns I lacked training and direction. They felt Y2J wasn't where he needed to be. Boss/friend was apparently feeling pressure to let me go. Also ike the Suns I didn't have a chance when they called me in that room.

Thanks for your condolences and well wishes. Got some soul searching to do.

[In2ition]

I've been a Duke basketball fan since '82, so at least I have that. ASU football, Cards, DBacks are all my varying interests teams.

[In2ition]

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Sorry, man. That really sucks! I hope you find another better one quickly.

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Screw the Suns. What happened?!

Thought I was in a good place. Boss was a friend who recruited me a little over a year ago. Always assured me it wasn't a place that would up and fire you. Long story short it was. It was a new field of work to me and their training program didn't exist an d it was more figure it out on your own scenario. Like the Suns I lacked training and direction. They felt Y2J wasn't where he needed to be. Boss/friend was apparently feeling pressure to let me go. Also ike the Suns I didn't have a chance when they called me in that room.

Thanks for your condolences and well wishes. Got some soul searching to do.

Good luck. I was right there with you this past Feb. It took awhile, but it's working out now.

[djy2j]

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Sorry, man. That really sucks! I hope you find another better one quickly.

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Screw the Suns. What happened?!

Thought I was in a good place. Boss was a friend who recruited me a little over a year ago. Always assured me it wasn't a place that would up and fire you. Long story short it was. It was a new field of work to me and their training program didn't exist an d it was more figure it out on your own scenario. Like the Suns I lacked training and direction. They felt Y2J wasn't where he needed to be. Boss/friend was apparently feeling pressure to let me go. Also ike the Suns I didn't have a chance when they called me in that room.

Thanks for your condolences and well wishes. Got some soul searching to do.

Good luck. I was right there with you this past Feb. It took awhile, but it's working out now.

Thanks for the encouragement.

[Indy]

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Sorry, man. That really sucks! I hope you find another better one quickly.

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Screw the Suns. What happened?!

Thought I was in a good place. Boss was a friend who recruited me a little over a year ago. Always assured me it wasn't a place that would up and fire you. Long story short it was. It was a new field of work to me and their training program didn't exist an d it was more figure it out on your own scenario. Like the Suns I lacked training and direction. They felt Y2J wasn't where he needed to be. Boss/friend was apparently feeling pressure to let me go. Also ike the Suns I didn't have a chance when they called me in that room.

Thanks for your condolences and well wishes. Got some soul searching to do.

Good luck. I was right there with you this past Feb. It took awhile, but it's working out now.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Sorry to hear it. I know it might not help, but the best thing career-wise for me was getting laid off in 2003, even though it didn't feel that way at the time. Good luck.

[O_Gardino]

Jackson needs a backup plan when he doesn't get a good angle on his drives to the hoop. Once he starts the drive, he has no escape plan. Needs to learn how to pull the ball back out.

This was my #1 request of Jackson over the summer. Now it's just one of his many flaws.

[Danimal]

Sorry about the job situation

We looked ok the first 9 minutes then the wheels fell off

I liked somethings about our Rookie pgs. When they looked more aggressive with their own shots.

Yes been thinking Jackson is like barbs on crack.
Bridges should be repacking him at sg If booker is still out
For anything Jackson does right yes does 3 more mistakes to cancel it out. I’m sure he gets traded for a pg. he needs about a month off to watch film and work on his shot. Just throwing him out there and doing the same thing isn’t fixing anything

Also maybe try Anderson as backup C. Chandler can’t do jack from the high post. Anderson can at least shoot

[O_Gardino]

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Worst news of the night.

[Mori Chu]

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Worst news of the night.

Sorry to hear that, dj. Will be thinking of you. I'm sure you will be back on your feet soon and on to the next step.

[AmareIsGod]

Hey djy2j, what was the job responsibility / title or industry?

[Mori Chu]

I watched this game but didn't finish it on DVR until the wee hours. My class has an exam today so it was hard to post yesterday. Some quick takes. Yes, we lost, badly, and almost everything sucked, such as:

- Josh Jackson. THE NET NEGATIVE. He is a disaster so far.

- Okobo looked a little overmatched. Not a great game for him. Didn't like his shot selection, either.

- Melton annoyed me. He took a lot of shots and seemed like he missed almost all of them. I just double-checked and he was 3-12 including 1-6 on threes. He would just pull up for a long jumper without any flow or rhythm and it would clang off the rim. I din't really like what I saw, and it wasn't just because of the poor shooting percentage. It was the whole approach, how he played in the offense, the kind of shots he seemed to go after. He seemed like a selfish chucker who will be inefficient and ineffective. Not very high on him overall right now. (To be fair, Daniels had a very similar night and has been essentially useless this whole season.)

- The defense is always really aggravating. You just see guys let their man blow by them. Ayton is quite bad in this regard, but so are many others. Guys just race to the basket for an uncontested layup. Or in transition we don't get back and they just give up a free dunk. At least we don't seem to commit a ton of ticky-tack fouls most nights, but that's about all I can say.


But, there were a few positives:

- Bridges continues to look like a valuable rotation NBA player, and maybe even a starter. I'm really happy with him in the last few games. That is the kind of SF I want, a 3-and-D guy who plays within himself, NOT a Josh Jackson who can't shoot and doesn't know what his limitations are.

- Ayton is really solid and consistent. He's a guy who can be a top-3 guy on a contending team, I think. I'm really happy with him. Every night I just know I'm getting somewhere close to 15-20 points and 8-11 rebounds. That is such a nice thing to have.

- Ariza had a pretty solid game. I thought he contributed a lot and just seemed to display his veteran savvy. I do like him on this team overall despite my frustration about his big contract.

- Igor Coachoskov seems to be doing some concrete good things. Our offense is much, much better than last year, though still imperfect. They have much better ball movement and they do seem to be getting assists even though no one player has very many. The number of horrid shots is way down from last year. And Coach has quickly adjusted lineups when things are not working; Ryan Anderson got only 8 minutes, and Bridges and Warren are being featured more prominently. Igor isn't impressing me with the defense, but I want to appreciate the good things I do see from him.


And some important perspective to keep in mind:

- We are missing our best player. We are missing our best player. We are missing our best player. We are missing our best player. We are missing our best player.

- We are an extremely young team. NBA teams don't just get good overnight. Look at the Timberwolves. Amazing talent, but still very young, and it takes time.

[Superbone]

I doubt if the Suns like losing either. I’ll keep watching. Waiting for them to get good before watching them seems like the very definition of fair weather fan.

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Fair-weather+fans
fair-weather fan. A person who is supportive of and enthusiastic about a sports team only when that team is performing well.

I'm with you Nodack. I watch them all. It makes it all that much sweeter when they do turn it around. You can't just eat the frosting off the donuts.

[Superbone]

It’s about time Sarver rolls his sleeves up and starts coaching. He could be the league’s first owner-coach. I’m confident he can whip this garbage roster into shape.

Don't give him any ideas. I did like that the announcers gave him shit about his boorish behavior on national TV last night.

[Superbone]

Starting Okobo won't matter much if JJ is starting alongside him.

Kokoskov needs to start someone that can actually shoot like Warren or Bridges in place of Booker, not Josh ".6 PER" Jackson.

Apparently, all Josh needs to do to boost his PER is not turn it over and hit the defensive boards.

Fun stats of the day:

A 0.6 PER for Josh would be a huge jump. He currently has a negative PER. (-0.4).

He is currently the only player in the league to see real court time and have a negative PER. (>100 total minutes played)

The number of times in the last 75 years that a player had a negative PER playing more than 5 games for at least 15 mpg is 1.

Yeah, fun. Wheeeeeee!!!!

[iLLmatic]

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Sorry, man. That really sucks! I hope you find another better one quickly.

Damn. I lost my job today and then came home and watched this. What a day. What a beating.

Screw the Suns. What happened?!

Thought I was in a good place. Boss was a friend who recruited me a little over a year ago. Always assured me it wasn't a place that would up and fire you. Long story short it was. It was a new field of work to me and their training program didn't exist an d it was more figure it out on your own scenario. Like the Suns I lacked training and direction. They felt Y2J wasn't where he needed to be. Boss/friend was apparently feeling pressure to let me go. Also ike the Suns I didn't have a chance when they called me in that room.

Thanks for your condolences and well wishes. Got some soul searching to do.

Good luck. I was right there with you this past Feb. It took awhile, but it's working out now.

Thanks for the encouragement.

What would Kenny Powers do?