Game Day: Lakers (31-27) @ Suns (33-24), Sun 2/25/24

[Superbone]

Old heads

Young punks

[ShadowHawke]

Old heads

Young punks

How many here remember when North High was on the northern edge of Phoenix?

[BKinSJC]

Old heads

Young punks

How many here remember when North High was on the northern edge of Phoenix?

I don’t know about that, but I did attend Corona Del Sol when it was in the middle of alfalfa fields in all directions for a couple of miles.

[SunsRIt]

Old heads

Young punks

How many here remember when North High was on the northern edge of Phoenix?

I don’t know about that, but I did attend Corona Del Sol when it was in the middle of alfalfa fields in all directions for a couple of miles.

I remember when Metrocenter was new. With vacant fields around it.

[Kryptonic]

When we moved out here from Michigan in '83 Val Vista was the last exit on the 60! Look at it now!

[The Bobster]

Old heads

Young punks

How many here remember when North High was on the northern edge of Phoenix?

North HS opened in 1939 and the homes around Osborn Road (just north of North HS) were built in 1940. I guess you could really consider that to still be the north part of up to about the mid-1950's because Sunnyslope (1959) and Maryvale (1960) were annexed soon after that.

[The Bobster]

When we moved out here from Michigan in '83 Val Vista was the last exit on the 60! Look at it now!

When I was in high school in 1980 or 1981 desert parties we held around where Union Hills Road is now. Bell Road was for all practical purposes the north end of the urban sprawl.

Al long trip from home in Sunnyslope was heading out to ASU. Of course it was all through town and no freeways back then.

[JeremyG]

Old heads

Young punks

How many here remember when North High was on the northern edge of Phoenix?

*Goes to google it's location...*

*almost chokes* Thomas??! It's on Thomas Road?!! I would've thought it would at least be up by Northern or something.

[Charlie Smithy!]

Why didn't any of the Nash teams make it out of the west?

[Superbone]

Post game speech:

https://youtube.com/shorts/QQO9i7L8wfs? ... cqOSZRqIyu

[Superbone]

Why didn't any of the Nash teams make it out of the west?

Ron Artest put back.

[Shabazz]

Why didn't any of the Nash teams make it out of the west?

People underestimate the impact of luck in sports success - both the presence of good luck and the absence of bad luck.

[The Bobster]

Why didn't any of the Nash teams make it out of the west?

Mostly the lack of defense. Nash and Sotudemire were never strong defensively.

[virtual9mm]

I think winning cures most ills. People like winning. Winning is always more fun than losing. Almost all the team was new this year along with the coach. I think it’s hard to throw a bunch of guys together with a new coach and expect them to gel like they have been together a long time. I think I see steady improvement and the new new guys certainly don’t hurt. I don’t think us fans have developed a bond to the new Suns other than Booker yet. There is something to be said about going through the trenches together that builds strong bonds. The playoffs are the real war with the real trenches. Win a couple of series in the playoffs and I bet the fandom level goes up.

Well, that's pretty much how things were in 1975-76 (Westphal, Adams, Sobers), 1988-89 (KJ, West, Chambers), 2004-05 (Nash, Richardson, Barbosa) and 2020-21 (Paul, Crowder) all of those teams made major changes and fit things together pretty quickly. The thing is when the owner pushes all the chips to the center of the table, there's a lot of pressure on the coaches to win right away. It's what got Paul Westphal fired when they acquired Barkley and the team started to lose ground in the mid-90's.

It's been really, really hard to watch the team this season, especially with the slow start. I've had the most intense work year since I was 23 -- and I'm double that age now -- so there's a legit reason I haven't watched much this year. But even if I weren't so busy, I'm not sure how much I could have watched after the team mortgaged the next decade for two or three seasons of Durant. If this doesn't work, it could be the mid 2030s by the time we have a decent team again.

This is where I disagree with a lot of suns fans. I don’t think the future is all that dire. We basically have the team we have for this year and the 2 after that. At that point we will have Book and Beal and up to 40ish million in cap space. We will have an owner willing to spend and that FA class is absolutely loaded. Not to mention we will have our own 2026 1st round pick. We will also have 2028, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033. Only 2027 and 2029 will still be due.

Maybe KD re-signs on a shorter term, cheaper deal. We can use our cap space to go out and add depth. Or maybe we simply have just dropped out of the 2nd apron territory and can now make trades. We’d have 3 1st round picks we can trade.

Yes I think it’s very likely the title window closes by 2026, but I fully expect them to be a good team through this decade.

I hope you're right. The worst case scenario is that they sputter out and the Suns are terrible for a decade without most of their picks.

[Split T]

We’d have to sputter out now. We’ve already sent one of the 4 picks we owe and we’ll send the 2nd next year when we should still be very good. We also still have this guy named Devin Booker right in his prime. Outside of something drastic happening, I’d be surprised if we missed the playoffs at all over the next 5 years.

[JeremyG]

Why didn't any of the Nash teams make it out of the west?

Ron Artest put back.

That’s Metta Sandiford-Artest to you, sir!

[Charlie Smithy!]

We’d have to sputter out now. We’ve already sent one of the 4 picks we owe and we’ll send the 2nd next year when we should still be very good. We also still have this guy named Devin Booker right in his prime. Outside of something drastic happening, I’d be surprised if we missed the playoffs at all over the next 5 years.

You forgot to give your opinion on why none of the Nash teams made it out of the west.

[Split T]

We’d have to sputter out now. We’ve already sent one of the 4 picks we owe and we’ll send the 2nd next year when we should still be very good. We also still have this guy named Devin Booker right in his prime. Outside of something drastic happening, I’d be surprised if we missed the playoffs at all over the next 5 years.

You forgot to give your opinion on why none of the Nash teams made it out of the west.

‘05 - Spurs had our number. Would’ve been a better series if Joe Johnson was healthy, but I still think we lose. They were the one team that could play our style when they needed to.

‘06 - Health. No Amare and Bell/Thomas also got hurt in the playoffs.

‘07 - Spurs again…those suspensions were also killer

‘08 - trading for Shaq was dumb. Should’ve tried harder to get KG in the off-season.

‘09 - Terry Porter sucks

‘10 - Lakers were better. That was such a fun team though and the team that really should’ve doubled and tripled down on shooting 3s.

Look at these 3pt numbers:

Dudley 45.8% on 3.2 attempts per game
Frye 43.9% on 4.8 attempts per game
Hill 43.8% on 1.0 attempts per game
Nash 42.6% on 3.6 attempts per game
Dragic 39.4% on 2.4 attempts per game
JRich 39.3% on 5.1 attempts per game

Those guys combined to shoot 42.3%…thats insane and they all should’ve been shooting twice as many 3s. That’s a 127 offensive rating when one of those guys took a 3.

Those 6 guys shot 33.5% from 3 in the WCF though, so that’s a good indicator of why we lost. Frye, Nash, and Dragic were particularly bad. JRich shot 40% and Dudley shot 50%. Frye was 29%, Nash was 27%, and Dragic was 8%

[Nodack]

I think defense goes up in the playoffs and shooting percentages go down.

And when I grew up on Bell road it was one lane in each direction. 40st and Greenway was a dirt road intersection.

[In2ition]

We’d have to sputter out now. We’ve already sent one of the 4 picks we owe and we’ll send the 2nd next year when we should still be very good. We also still have this guy named Devin Booker right in his prime. Outside of something drastic happening, I’d be surprised if we missed the playoffs at all over the next 5 years.

You forgot to give your opinion on why none of the Nash teams made it out of the west.

‘05 - Spurs had our number. Would’ve been a better series if Joe Johnson was healthy, but I still think we lose. They were the one team that could play our style when they needed to.

‘06 - Health. No Amare and Bell/Thomas also got hurt in the playoffs.

‘07 - Spurs again…those suspensions were also killer

‘08 - trading for Shaq was dumb. Should’ve tried harder to get KG in the off-season.

‘09 - Terry Porter sucks

‘10 - Lakers were better. That was such a fun team though and the team that really should’ve doubled and tripled down on shooting 3s.

Look at these 3pt numbers:

Dudley 45.8% on 3.2 attempts per game
Frye 43.9% on 4.8 attempts per game
Hill 43.8% on 1.0 attempts per game
Nash 42.6% on 3.6 attempts per game
Dragic 39.4% on 2.4 attempts per game
JRich 39.3% on 5.1 attempts per game

Those guys combined to shoot 42.3%…thats insane and they all should’ve been shooting twice as many 3s. That’s a 127 offensive rating when one of those guys took a 3.

Those 6 guys shot 33.5% from 3 in the WCF though, so that’s a good indicator of why we lost. Frye, Nash, and Dragic were particularly bad. JRich shot 40% and Dudley shot 50%. Frye was 29%, Nash was 27%, and Dragic was 8%

The thing about the '05 series was that if Joe Johnson didn't break his face, the Suns would have swept the Mavs. Then they would have rested for the Spurs instead of only having a day off between series, while the Spurs rested. With a healthy and rested Suns team, I think the Suns take that series vs. the Spurs and perhaps find out that they need to play even faster than they did in the regular season. Once they made the faulty decision to slow it down for the playoffs, they fed into the Spurs narrative, imo.