Game Day: Magic (18-20) @ Suns (14-23), Fri 1/10/20

[SunsRIt]

Come on, man. Ayton has played 1 full season + what, 7 games? Give him a little time to see what we have. Nobody would stick around if you had your way. Certainly not Oubre!

I think you’re confused man. Im saying the Suns are doing Ayton a huge injustice. Treating him awfully, minimizing his strengths and this board has it out for him. If suns are going to minimize him, might as well trade him. I’m on Aytons side on this.

I totally agree Saucy. He should be in the starting line-up. Period. He will always get the Amare treatment(we both know why). Amare was a scoring machine, but everybody complained about his defense and rebounding. So far this season(7 games) Ayton is averaging 11.5 RPG(9th in the league), but that's still not enough. I'm not saying he won't improve, but he needs time. Give it to him.

No one complains about the number of rebounds he gets. We complain about the isolated instances where he stands and watches someone else grab the board. Or when he doesn’t use his size, power and athleticism offensively. He takes too many mid range shots when he could attack the basket.

Overall I’m pleased with Ayton this year. He’s been fine. His defense looks improved, but I’m not going to celebrate him getting 15/11...he can do that in his sleep. I expect more.

Exactly this. Exactly.

I totally agree, but taking him out of the starting line-up is not the way to motivate him. Build him up, don't tear him down by starting an inferior player. Baynes is definitely a huge step down.

[Split T]

I think you’re confused man. Im saying the Suns are doing Ayton a huge injustice. Treating him awfully, minimizing his strengths and this board has it out for him. If suns are going to minimize him, might as well trade him. I’m on Aytons side on this.

I totally agree Saucy. He should be in the starting line-up. Period. He will always get the Amare treatment(we both know why). Amare was a scoring machine, but everybody complained about his defense and rebounding. So far this season(7 games) Ayton is averaging 11.5 RPG(9th in the league), but that's still not enough. I'm not saying he won't improve, but he needs time. Give it to him.

No one complains about the number of rebounds he gets. We complain about the isolated instances where he stands and watches someone else grab the board. Or when he doesn’t use his size, power and athleticism offensively. He takes too many mid range shots when he could attack the basket.

Overall I’m pleased with Ayton this year. He’s been fine. His defense looks improved, but I’m not going to celebrate him getting 15/11...he can do that in his sleep. I expect more.

Exactly this. Exactly.

I totally agree, but taking him out of the starting line-up is not the way to motivate him. Build him up, don't tear him down by starting an inferior player. Baynes is definitely a huge step down.

I would also start him, and I’m sure he will move into the starting lineup again soon, but I don’t know that it’s negatively impacting him. He didn’t look unmotivated, he still got his minutes, he’s not pouting.

[AmareIsGod]

Everyone is acting like the Ayton off the bench thing is a permanent change. He'll be back as the starter. Let's have him show some consecutive effort for a few games. This isn't the end of the world for him or the team.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

Come on, man. Ayton has played 1 full season + what, 7 games? Give him a little time to see what we have. Nobody would stick around if you had your way. Certainly not Oubre!

I think you’re confused man. Im saying the Suns are doing Ayton a huge injustice. Treating him awfully, minimizing his strengths and this board has it out for him. If suns are going to minimize him, might as well trade him. I’m on Aytons side on this.

I totally agree Saucy. He should be in the starting line-up. Period. He will always get the Amare treatment(we both know why). Amare was a scoring machine, but everybody complained about his defense and rebounding. So far this season(7 games) Ayton is averaging 11.5 RPG(9th in the league), but that's still not enough. I'm not saying he won't improve, but he needs time. Give it to him.

No one complains about the number of rebounds he gets. We complain about the isolated instances where he stands and watches someone else grab the board. Or when he doesn’t use his size, power and athleticism offensively. He takes too many mid range shots when he could attack the basket.

Overall I’m pleased with Ayton this year. He’s been fine. His defense looks improved, but I’m not going to celebrate him getting 15/11...he can do that in his sleep. I expect more.

Exactly this. Exactly.

Funny thing you mentioned Amare, because I think you are spot on, but from a different angle. Both players have marvelous bodies and athleticism for their position but use them on a confort level, Amare could have been a rebounding machine and was not, while Ayton grabs every rebound he wants but refuses to dunk over people. Amare could have been a two-way monster and only showed that ferocity on the offensive side, and while Ayton is still maturing and could lack confidence, his instincts so far take him to avoid physical contact on both sides of the ball, and yet he is fully capable to get lose to 20 and 10 on a regular basis.

To make it short, both players have produced a lot, enough to fulfill many expectations, but is truly visible that they could produce even more, if they had the Kobe-Jordan chip, they would produce along the box score absurdly high numbers. Is the wasted potential, not the actual production that drives people mad, and to my own taste, there is one more paralel that cause people to ask for more: THEY BOTH TALK TOO MUCH AND WALK THAT TALK TOO LITTLE.

[specialsauce]

Back to last night's game: Ayton's offense primarily came from dives and working the glass.

But he had one possession where he tried to take Amile Jefferson to the hoop. Jefferson denied him, Ayton got it back, and then was challenged by Bamba and missed his second attempt. Really discouraging sequence.

I need to see them force feed plays where the ball is fed to him in the post, not at the elbow and not at the three point line.

[specialsauce]

Sounds like a great plan you guys have got brewing. Thank god you have no power to pull it off.

Yeah, and you like every Suns player and coach ever and have never found fault in any of them, just want to stash them in case they ever blossom into a 15th man. We’d still be running out Archie, Dragan, TJ, Chriss, Bender, Mike James, Ray Spaulding, Alex Len, with L*****y H****r at coach

Come on, man. Ayton has played 1 full season + what, 7 games? Give him a little time to see what we have. Nobody would stick around if you had your way. Certainly not Oubre!

I think you’re confused man. Im saying the Suns are doing Ayton a huge injustice. Treating him awfully, minimizing his strengths and this board has it out for him. If suns are going to minimize him, might as well trade him. I’m on Aytons side on this.

I totally agree Saucy. He should be in the starting line-up. Period. He will always get the Amare treatment(we both know why). Amare was a scoring machine, but everybody complained about his defense and rebounding. So far this season(7 games) Ayton is averaging 11.5 RPG(9th in the league), but that's still not enough. I'm not saying he won't improve, but he needs time. Give it to him.

Thank you.

[specialsauce]

You’re right you’re right, DA is the only player on the team missing rotations. Forgot about that. Everyone else including Booker is playing outstanding D. Too bad Frank is out, good for DA or he would really have a hard time earning minutes ahead of that defensive stud.

And again being our best rebounder by far is a joke! Lazy ass! Less rebounds more butt rubbing is what we want to see. Until then, he should sit.

What the hell is sealing the post anyway. There are a solid 2-3 seconds where DA has his man pinned on his back on every offensive possession where he isn’t asked to wander around halfcourt setting screens, and he only gets the ball 20% of the time on those.

I don’t really see what you think is so disrespectful. He’s getting his minutes. Your disrespect of Booker and Oubre is worse than any disrespect of Ayton.

Wasted minutes. Throwing him out there for 30 mpg versus incorporating your game plan around him and Book are two different things. They are putting it all on him to succeed and find his way but putting him in awful positions (setting screens at the 3 pt line, ignoring him in the post and not running set plays for him in the post) where he is guaranteed to fail.

I don’t see what the problem with running a screen at the 3 pt line is. If that’s where the ball handler is, that’s where you run the screen. Ayton is more than capable of diving to the rim from the 3 pt line. And like I said last night, Ayton led the team in FGA, he’s not being ignored in the offense. I guess I just don’t understand what you are expecting. What does a game plan built around Book and Ayton look like to you?

We see Baynes set that same screen all the time.

This is exactly the problem. Baynes is a joke. Ayton is not Baynes. He’s not Bo Outlaw. He’s far more offensively gifted around the basket. He’s being treated in the same manner in this offense, but with the expectations of Joel Embiid (and the talent). A gross misuse of his skill.

[Superbone]

I don’t really see what you think is so disrespectful. He’s getting his minutes. Your disrespect of Booker and Oubre is worse than any disrespect of Ayton.

Wasted minutes. Throwing him out there for 30 mpg versus incorporating your game plan around him and Book are two different things. They are putting it all on him to succeed and find his way but putting him in awful positions (setting screens at the 3 pt line, ignoring him in the post and not running set plays for him in the post) where he is guaranteed to fail.

I don’t see what the problem with running a screen at the 3 pt line is. If that’s where the ball handler is, that’s where you run the screen. Ayton is more than capable of diving to the rim from the 3 pt line. And like I said last night, Ayton led the team in FGA, he’s not being ignored in the offense. I guess I just don’t understand what you are expecting. What does a game plan built around Book and Ayton look like to you?

We see Baynes set that same screen all the time.

This is exactly the problem. Baynes is a joke. Ayton is not Baynes. He’s not Bo Outlaw. He’s far more offensively gifted around the basket. He’s being treated in the same manner in this offense, but with the expectations of Joel Embiid (and the talent). A gross misuse of his skill.

Why can't Ayton dive to the basket after setting a screen up high? How would you play Ayton? Feed him in the post? He doesn't seem to know what to do in that situation other than shooting a fall away jumper away from his man.

[3rdside]

I don’t know why we didn’t just tell Rubio we only had 14/15 million. Would he have not signed at that point? Then we could have held Jackson and dumped him later into cap space if someone wanted him, or just waived him outright.

If it was really Rubio at 17 or he wouldn’t sign, then waiving and stretching Jackson made more sense. For some reason no one in our front office ever seemed to be fans of Melton...I wouldn’t be surprised if the deal was just Jackson and a 2nd for Korver and we wanted the Carter for Melton swap.

Anyone who watched both Melton and Carter play last season and came to the conclusion that Carter is better should not be working in basketball. Melton is 3 years younger and miles better on both sides of the ball. It's not close.

Seriously.

7-4 start meant overlooking offseason moves no problem, now they’re beginning to look stupid.

The Saric / Johnson trade as well - up until a couple games ago we effectively traded out of 6th spot for nothing as Saric wasn’t playing and Johnson wasn’t (isn’t) contributing.

[Ring_Wanted]

Because they are capable of so much more, or because you think they are busts?

We paid A LOT to get them.

Yep. And the return is minimal at best.

I always forget how much we paid.

Well then help me out. What are the players in the draft spots we gave up? I'd like to see how they're performing. I'd like to know what we could have had vs what we have.

It's the opportunity cost. If you just look at the players actually selected with the picks PHX sent out, you wouldn't complain because Minni picked Culver and he is struggling (has been played at PG, even starting some games from what I've seen; still only 20, though), while Zhaire Smith has played 6 games total since being drafted.

But once you arrange the trade with PHI, you had the clearly superior talent SGA available (this is not hindsight; he was way more well regarded at the time than Mikal). This is like picking Marklieff M0rris over Kawhi in 2011. Big mistake.

Then, last draft, you turn a #6 into a limited rotation guy (Saric) and a pick you use to reach big time for another limited role player.

Without abusing hindsight (for instance, saying 'I would have picked Herro', who was not on anybody's radar, at least on here), Clarke would have given this team something they desperately need right now, and it was even a consensus pick.

By the way, Jerome only adds to the sour taste given he is so obviously limited as well.

[Ring_Wanted]

It's because he's soft.

He is. That's what they want to change and why Monty has put him on the bench. And it doesn't seem like it's hurting as I feel Ayton is playing better defense. Boxing out, not so much, but at least he is trying to pay attention to rotations and is looking to deny opposite players, which is paying off since when you are that gifted, many times it's just a matter of showing up.

Now, scoring in the post, first he needs to stablish position, which is also inconsistent at the moment because he doesn't know how to actually seal his defender. He also gets discouraged when he feels he has position but the ball doesn't get to him.

Of couse, the rest of the lineup needs to do a better job at finding him, but a big part of that is having real 3pt threats our there to keep defenses from crowding Ayton (PHI is suffering this with Embiid too), which we annoyingly still lack (21st overall in 3pt%, #13 in attempts per game) despite all the moves made this offseason with that issue in mind.

[Indy]

Back to last night's game: Ayton's offense primarily came from dives and working the glass.

But he had one possession where he tried to take Amile Jefferson to the hoop. Jefferson denied him, Ayton got it back, and then was challenged by Bamba and missed his second attempt. Really discouraging sequence.

I need to see them force feed plays where the ball is fed to him in the post, not at the elbow and not at the three point line.

This season, Ayton is scoring on 33.6% of his post ups. Alex Len is at 33.3. Dario is at 44.2 (So is Chriss). Frank is at 46.9%. Devin is at 49.1. Baynes is 55.9.

[Indy]

We paid A LOT to get them.

Yep. And the return is minimal at best.

I always forget how much we paid.

Well then help me out. What are the players in the draft spots we gave up? I'd like to see how they're performing. I'd like to know what we could have had vs what we have.

It's the opportunity cost. If you just look at the players actually selected with the picks PHX sent out, you wouldn't complain because Minni picked Culver and he is struggling (has been played at PG, even starting some games from what I've seen; still only 20, though), while Zhaire Smith has played 6 games total since being drafted.

But once you arrange the trade with PHI, you had the clearly superior talent SGA available (this is not hindsight; he was way more well regarded at the time than Mikal). This is like picking Marklieff M0rris over Kawhi in 2011. Big mistake.

Then, last draft, you turn a #6 into a limited rotation guy (Saric) and a pick you use to reach big time for another limited role player.

Without abusing hindsight (for instance, saying 'I would have picked Herro', who was not on anybody's radar, at least on here), Clarke would have given this team something they desperately need right now, and it was even a consensus pick.

By the way, Jerome only adds to the sour taste given he is so obviously limited as well.

Really well said

[Indy]

It's because he's soft.

He is. That's what they want to change and why Monty has put him on the bench. And it doesn't seem like it's hurting as I feel Ayton is playing better defense. Boxing out, not so much, but at least he is trying to pay attention to rotations and is looking to deny opposite players, which is paying off since when you are that gifted, many times it's just a matter of showing up.

Now, scoring in the post, first he needs to stablish position, which is also inconsistent at the moment because he doesn't know how to actually seal his defender. He also gets discouraged when he feels he has position but the ball doesn't get to him.

Of couse, the rest of the lineup needs to do a better job at finding him, but a big part of that is having real 3pt threats our there to keep defenses from crowding Ayton (PHI is suffering this with Embiid too), which we annoyingly still lack (21st overall in 3pt%, #13 in attempts per game) despite all the moves made this offseason with that issue in mind.

Unfortunately, Ayton seems to be a guy that can only focus for very limited stretches. Like 2-3 minutes a quarter. And part of it looks to be conditioning, other part is paying attention.

[specialsauce]

Wasted minutes. Throwing him out there for 30 mpg versus incorporating your game plan around him and Book are two different things. They are putting it all on him to succeed and find his way but putting him in awful positions (setting screens at the 3 pt line, ignoring him in the post and not running set plays for him in the post) where he is guaranteed to fail.

I don’t see what the problem with running a screen at the 3 pt line is. If that’s where the ball handler is, that’s where you run the screen. Ayton is more than capable of diving to the rim from the 3 pt line. And like I said last night, Ayton led the team in FGA, he’s not being ignored in the offense. I guess I just don’t understand what you are expecting. What does a game plan built around Book and Ayton look like to you?

We see Baynes set that same screen all the time.

This is exactly the problem. Baynes is a joke. Ayton is not Baynes. He’s not Bo Outlaw. He’s far more offensively gifted around the basket. He’s being treated in the same manner in this offense, but with the expectations of Joel Embiid (and the talent). A gross misuse of his skill.

Why can't Ayton dive to the basket after setting a screen up high? How would you play Ayton? Feed him in the post? He doesn't seem to know what to do in that situation other than shooting a fall away jumper away from his man.

That’s just not true. He’s got a great soft baby right hook. And he’s shown a great quick spin. Just needs more opportunities to get into a rhythm.



Fast forward past 1:45. You’ll see all kinds of hooks.

[specialsauce]

It's because he's soft.

He is. That's what they want to change and why Monty has put him on the bench. And it doesn't seem like it's hurting as I feel Ayton is playing better defense. Boxing out, not so much, but at least he is trying to pay attention to rotations and is looking to deny opposite players, which is paying off since when you are that gifted, many times it's just a matter of showing up.

Now, scoring in the post, first he needs to stablish position, which is also inconsistent at the moment because he doesn't know how to actually seal his defender. He also gets discouraged when he feels he has position but the ball doesn't get to him.

Of couse, the rest of the lineup needs to do a better job at finding him, but a big part of that is having real 3pt threats our there to keep defenses from crowding Ayton (PHI is suffering this with Embiid too), which we annoyingly still lack (21st overall in 3pt%, #13 in attempts per game) despite all the moves made this offseason with that issue in mind.

Unfortunately, Ayton seems to be a guy that can only focus for very limited stretches. Like 2-3 minutes a quarter. And part of it looks to be conditioning, other part is paying attention.

Because he doesn’t touch the ball for 5 minutes at a time. It’s only human nature if you’re not involved, you’ll drift.

[n4th4n]

It kills me how little we get from Cam and Bridges.

Because they are capable of so much more, or because you think they are busts?

We paid A LOT to get them.

Yep. And the return is minimal at best.

On Bridges? You clearly haven't been watching or following him lately. And Cam is a rookie. Pump the brakes. This is even extreme for you INF.

Bridges is certainly an impact player on defense, but as INF said, we gave up a ton to get him. At this point in time, I really don't see a roadmap for him becoming an impact offensive player. He fills in some gaps here and there by cutting, but it's tough to turn that into a dependable weapon against good defenses.

[Split T]

Why again is setting a screen at the 3 pt line a bad thing?

[specialsauce]

Why again is setting a screen at the 3 pt line a bad thing?

It’s okay when it’s mixed within the offense. But when that’s the only thing he’s tasked to do in the offense, it’s a total waste. Might as well call him Hakim Warrick. He’s so much more talented than that. We drafted a center #1 just to have him set screens and roll? Really? Any center in the league can do that. Hell Marquese could do that.

[Mori Chu]

I am as critical of the Ayton-over-Luka pick as anybody. But I don't get all the bashing of Ayton's game. He has lots of flaws and limitations as an NBA player. But it's only his second season, and he's played barely a handful of games this season. He's only 21. Can't we give him more time to learn and grow and improve?

There's a lot to like about him despite his current flaws. I love that he often has really high shooting percentage, like shooting 8-for-11 or thereabouts. I love that he can almost effortlessly pull down 10+ rebounds. I like having a center who can roll to the basket and throw down a thundering dunk. I do like some of his help defense and altering shots.

He still has a ways to go, but some of the posts here are acting like he's a straight up bust or garbage. I don't think that is fair to him.