Phx-Suns.Net

Split T wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:43 pm

Uncle_Gene wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:39 pm

I want to see Ayton get more than his usual 16 points a game.

He should be averaging around 24 a game.

I bet he’d do it if we let him take 25 mid range jumpers a game

More like forced him to take 25 jumpers.

Shabazz wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:11 pm

I don’t think we can wait until December 15th to make a move. Booker will die of exhaustion before then.

Bad coaching job by Monty not giving Book a breather at the start of the 4th. He was clearly gassed in the final quarter (0 points) and when we needed him the last 6 minutes he had nothing to give.

I think we can wait that long. It's only 6 weeks away.

I agree that Booker is going to wear down in games, but that's not good enough of a reason to rush into a marginal move.

specialsauce wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:43 pm

Uncle_Gene wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:39 pm

I want to see Ayton get more than his usual 16 points a game.

He should be averaging around 24 a game.

That’s a no brainer. And I’d love to see his nuts descend. His play tonight was embarrassing. So intimated. Soft as hell with multiple missed layups that were EASY dunks. Mr. Max needs to grow a pair.

The exact same statement could be replicated for Mikal, Mr. 12-15ppg for $90M. He is easily replaceable. Individual defense is so overrated in the playoffs. Team defense is much more important. I would ship either of them for a legit #1 or 2 on offense any day of the week

Embiid typically dominates Ayton because Embiid is an alpha. Tonight wasn't surprising at all.

Mikal was disappointing. He's the best non-Booker asset on the roster, IMO. But I don't know what star value the Suns could get in return besides KD if that's even possible anymore.

Superbone wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:13 pm

TOO wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 9:21 pm

My hero origin story is when everyone realizes I was right about Jones being bad at his job.

Good luck with that. He quickly took us from horrible to the Finals.

Had nothing to do with Booker or anyone else on the court? Interesting take. Look at the roster additions he's made, you're telling me that's why this team is good? Nope, not buying it.

TOO wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:12 am

Had nothing to do with Booker or anyone else on the court? Interesting take. Look at the roster additions he's made, you're telling me that's why this team is good? Nope, not buying it.

I think it's silly to be 100% positive or 100% negative on James Jones. He has done some really good things as our GM and also some bad.

Some of the good: He did the Rubio / CP3 upgrade, which has been really important for our ascension to being a contender for the past 2-3 years. He has stocked our bench with some good finds like JaVale McGee, Torrey Craig, Biyombo, Landale, Lee. He has us with a core of young guys (Booker, Bridges, Ayton) all on reasonable contracts for several years out. We don't really have any bad contracts on our payroll, other than arguably CP3 as he starts to tail off, but that is a blessing few teams can match.

EDIT: Superbone points out that Jones is also responsible for our bringing in Coach Monty Williams, which has been extremely positive for our team. Thanks, 'Bone.

Some of the bad: Jones has mostly whiffed on the draft. He found Cam Johnson at #11 which was nice, but that's about it. The Halliburton / Smith fiasco (multiple steps of it) is just a horrendous miss. Trading a pick for Shamet (and then re-signing him sight unseen) was another bad move. If you look up and down our roster you don't really see anybody other than CamJ who Jones drafted. We did draft our core of Booker, Bridges, Ayton, but Jones didn't do any of that. Outside of the draft, our handling of this past offseason was clumsy, alienating two starters (Ayton and Crowder) and not really acquiring any big-name new players.

Overall I am happy with Jones. He has built a good team and he seems to have a generally good instinct about the types of players we should go after. He has made some mistakes and this team is not as strong as it could be, but I think you would be able to say that about most any GM; nobody bats 1.000 in this business. I don't know if we'll win a title with this group, but this is one of the strongest runs in Suns history, and I think Jones deserves a significant amount of credit for that.

TOO wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:12 am

Superbone wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:13 pm

TOO wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 9:21 pm

My hero origin story is when everyone realizes I was right about Jones being bad at his job.

Good luck with that. He quickly took us from horrible to the Finals.

Had nothing to do with Booker or anyone else on the court? Interesting take. Look at the roster additions he's made, you're telling me that's why this team is good? Nope, not buying it.

Shouldn’t Jones get huge credit for hiring Monty?

Wally_West wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:43 am

TOO wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:12 am

Superbone wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:13 pm

TOO wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 9:21 pm

My hero origin story is when everyone realizes I was right about Jones being bad at his job.

Good luck with that. He quickly took us from horrible to the Finals.

Had nothing to do with Booker or anyone else on the court? Interesting take. Look at the roster additions he's made, you're telling me that's why this team is good? Nope, not buying it.

Shouldn’t Jones get huge credit for hiring Monty?

Sure? I do not know the workings behind the hire. I'm also not a huge monty fan, he sticks too long with far too many things and is very poor at making adjustments. No doubt he's been a good hire though helping right the ship.

Mori Chu wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:35 am

TOO wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:12 am

Had nothing to do with Booker or anyone else on the court? Interesting take. Look at the roster additions he's made, you're telling me that's why this team is good? Nope, not buying it.

I think it's silly to be 100% positive or 100% negative on James Jones. He has done some really good things as our GM and also some bad.

Some of the good: He did the Rubio / CP3 upgrade, which has been really important for our ascension to being a contender for the past 2-3 years. He has stocked our bench with some good finds like JaVale McGee, Torrey Craig, Biyombo, Landale, Lee. He has us with a core of young guys (Booker, Bridges, Ayton) all on reasonable contracts for several years out. We don't really have any bad contracts on our payroll, other than arguably CP3 as he starts to tail off, but that is a blessing few teams can match.

Some of the bad: Jones has mostly whiffed on the draft. He found Cam Johnson at #11 which was nice, but that's about it. The Halliburton / Smith fiasco (multiple steps of it) is just a horrendous miss. Trading a pick for Shamet (and then re-signing him sight unseen) was another bad move. If you look up and down our roster you don't really see anybody other than CamJ who Jones drafted. We did draft our core of Booker, Bridges, Ayton, but Jones didn't do any of that. Outside of the draft, our handling of this past offseason was clumsy, alienating two starters (Ayton and Crowder) and not really acquiring any big-name new players.

Overall I am happy with Jones. He has built a good team and he seems to have a generally good instinct about the types of players we should go after. He has made some mistakes and this team is not as strong as it could be, but I think you would be able to say that about most any GM; nobody bats 1.000 in this business. I don't know if we'll win a title with this group, but this is one of the strongest runs in Suns history, and I think Jones deserves a significant amount of credit for that.

I wonder if Celtics and Heat fans are pissed at Stevens and Riley, respectively, for not trading for big name guys after losing in the playoffs. Or maybe it's about understanding you can't win a title every year, so you find a sustainable model to compete year in and year out and position yourself for a big move should one come along. We swapped out guys almost every year of the D'Antoni 7SOL era because every year Nash was going to hit the wall and crash out. Not saying we should be content just to win 50 games every year, but to think we have to make this major move right now because of Chris Paul is shortsighted IMO. The NBA is a very fluid league; you just never know what can happen and who can become available.

For those 2 teams it wasn't for lack of trying.

We can be too stagnant on movement too...we are bring too complacent right now...that's also how you end up in a full tear down / rebuild mode with years of no playoffs...

specialsauce wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:06 pm

TOO wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 9:17 pm

Vladimir_Taltos wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 9:02 pm

They need a stronger backup for CP...it was PAYNEFULLY obvious tonight...

We need a stronger #2 than CP3, not backup.

And yes Too, caught what you did there...cute...lolz ..

Vladimir_Taltos wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 9:22 am

We can be too stagnant on movement too...we are bring too complacent right now...that's also how you end up in a full tear down / rebuild mode with years of no playoffs...

This is what my biggest fear is especially with mr internal development running the show.

TOO wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 9:15 am

For those 2 teams it wasn't for lack of trying.

Same goes for us. Durant had us at the top of his list. That doesn't happen by accident and wouldn't have happened even 3 years ago. And we had Barnes on tap as well, supposedly. I don't think Jones said "We went to the Finals and just won 60 games, time for a vacation!".

We've come a long way from McDickhead signing Tyson Chandler just to get turned down by LaMarcus Aldridge.

ShelC wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 9:28 am

TOO wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 9:15 am

For those 2 teams it wasn't for lack of trying.

Same goes for us. Durant had us at the top of his list. That doesn't happen by accident and wouldn't have happened even 3 years ago. And we had Barnes on tap as well, supposedly. I don't think Jones said "We went to the Finals and just won 60 games, time for a vacation!".

We've come a long way from McDickhead signing Tyson Chandler just to get turned down by LaMarcus Aldridge.

Its cool to be on a list, but this off-seasons biggest move was Jock frickin Landale lol.

Can't force another team to make a trade. I'm sure if we wanted to gut the team and trade DA, Mikal, CamJ along with Crowder and Saric and 5 draft picks we could've had Durant.

Also, don't forget Damion Le3!

Mori Chu wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:35 am

TOO wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 8:12 am

Had nothing to do with Booker or anyone else on the court? Interesting take. Look at the roster additions he's made, you're telling me that's why this team is good? Nope, not buying it.

I think it's silly to be 100% positive or 100% negative on James Jones. He has done some really good things as our GM and also some bad.

Some of the good: He did the Rubio / CP3 upgrade, which has been really important for our ascension to being a contender for the past 2-3 years. He has stocked our bench with some good finds like JaVale McGee, Torrey Craig, Biyombo, Landale, Lee. He has us with a core of young guys (Booker, Bridges, Ayton) all on reasonable contracts for several years out. We don't really have any bad contracts on our payroll, other than arguably CP3 as he starts to tail off, but that is a blessing few teams can match.

Some of the bad: Jones has mostly whiffed on the draft. He found Cam Johnson at #11 which was nice, but that's about it. The Halliburton / Smith fiasco (multiple steps of it) is just a horrendous miss. Trading a pick for Shamet (and then re-signing him sight unseen) was another bad move. If you look up and down our roster you don't really see anybody other than CamJ who Jones drafted. We did draft our core of Booker, Bridges, Ayton, but Jones didn't do any of that. Outside of the draft, our handling of this past offseason was clumsy, alienating two starters (Ayton and Crowder) and not really acquiring any big-name new players.

Overall I am happy with Jones. He has built a good team and he seems to have a generally good instinct about the types of players we should go after. He has made some mistakes and this team is not as strong as it could be, but I think you would be able to say that about most any GM; nobody bats 1.000 in this business. I don't know if we'll win a title with this group, but this is one of the strongest runs in Suns history, and I think Jones deserves a significant amount of credit for that.

You totally whiffed on one of his biggest gets. Bringing in Coach Monty Williams. I'd say that might have been the biggest game changer of them all.

And I'll just say that this game was a drag from start to finish. Playing behind the entire time and two of our players getting injured during the course of the game. The one thing I did like is that we never gave up and got within striking distance multiple times. However, repeatedly leaving Niang open for those threes is what killed us. You'd think they'd might have learned from the first 3 or 4, but no!

TOO wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 6:06 pm

Superbone wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 6:05 pm

TOO wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 07, 2022 6:02 pm

I predict a big nights from Ayton and Maxey. Booker gonna suck ass and go like 6/20.

Book historically kicks the 76ers butts.

I said what I said.

Yes, you did. I think you whiffed on all three players.

Superbone wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 08, 2022 10:20 am

You totally whiffed on one of his biggest gets. Bringing in Coach Monty Williams. I'd say that might have been the biggest game changer of them all.

You're right; I knew that if I tried to write an exhaustive list of all Jones's best and worst moves, I would omit some important ones. Not mentioning Coach Monty is a big omission. If anything it strengthens my argument that Jones has done much more good than harm for the team over the past few years.