Suns News: Week 20 3/9-3/15

[Split T]

Ya people often say how much harder it was to score in the 80’s-90’s. Clips like that make me question that.

[Mori Chu]

One thing they didn't talk about in the doc: didn't MJ take Barkley out drinking and partying the nights before games, getting Chuck wasted while MJ sipped his own drink? I thought that was the rumor. Or am I getting mixed up?

[ShelC]

Yea they didn't spend a lot of time on details of the Finals appearances vs the Lakers, Blazers and Suns. I remember hearing/reading MJ and Barkley were hanging the day before but maybe playing golf or something as a way for MJ to pull an okie-doke on Chuck. I'd hope Chuck wouldn't have been out the night before that Game 6 but Chuck is Chuck.

[Indy]

Yea they didn't spend a lot of time on details of the Finals appearances vs the Lakers, Blazers and Suns. I remember hearing/reading MJ and Barkley were hanging the day before but maybe playing golf or something as a way for MJ to pull an okie-doke on Chuck. I'd hope Chuck wouldn't have been out the night before that Game 6 but Chuck is Chuck.

I don't remember reading about Jordan getting Barkley drunk the night before. Barkley didn't need MJ for that. I would bet a ton of money that Chuck was drunk and at a strip club at 3am the day of Game 6.

[Nodack]

Barkley was great but, he could be a real azz sometimes. What bothered me the most was his outward disrespect for Westphal at times. I don’t think he listened to him at all.

[O_Gardino]

Ya people often say how much harder it was to score in the 80’s-90’s. Clips like that make me question that.

It was harder to score.

Most teams could only field 2 shooters at at time.
Most teams had 1-2 guys on court at all times who couldn't score, pass, or dribble.
Most teams walked the ball up the court and let the defense set up.

It's much more difficult to score under those circumstances.

[Split T]

Ya people often say how much harder it was to score in the 80’s-90’s. Clips like that make me question that.

It was harder to score.

Most teams could only field 2 shooters at at time.
Most teams had 1-2 guys on court at all times who couldn't score, pass, or dribble.
Most teams walked the ball up the court and let the defense set up.

It's much more difficult to score under those circumstances.

Well offensive efficiency from 84-97 was essentially the same as it was from 2004-2015. Without anyone taking many 3’s and using inefficient mid range shots. That tells me the defense must have been worse back then. Offensive efficiency has made a bump since 2016, with a pretty significant one in 2018. Massive increases in 3pt shooting seems to be the driver of that.

[Superbone]

Oubre ready to go?

https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/ ... 089413001/

[ShelC]

Feels so much longer than 2 months ago. I thought it was a 6 week thing and he'd be more than ready by now. Not sure what kind of rehab he's had without the normal trainers/equipment but good to see he's moving well and dunking.

[O_Gardino]

I honestly forgot he had knee surgery.

[Cap]

I honestly forgot he had knee surgery.

I honestly forgot that professional sports are a thing.

[Nodack]

I saw live baseball from Japan a couple of days ago on ESPN. Two local teams, Samsung and UC whatever that is. They were playing in an empty stadium but, it was live.

[Cap]

I saw live baseball from Japan a couple of days ago on ESPN. Two local teams, Samsung and UC whatever that is. They were playing in an empty stadium but, it was live.

How do they social distance in the dugout?

[Nodack]

I wasn’t paying that much attention. It was at my parents new house and my step dad was watching.

[Flagrant Fowl]

I saw live baseball from Japan a couple of days ago on ESPN. Two local teams, Samsung and UC whatever that is. They were playing in an empty stadium but, it was live.

How do they social distance in the dugout?

That's Korea, not Japan. The regular season started this week. All sports teams are essentially arms of corporate conglomerates. That's why all of the teams have names like "Samsung Lions", "NC Dinos" and the team I support, "Lotte Giants". It offended my American sensibilities at first, but it really doesn't mean anything in the bigger picture.

Social distancing isn't really a thing here since the initial response to the virus back in late February has turned out to be one of the most effective in the world. 99% of people wear a mask when they go outside and they're still required for entering a lot of crowded indoor spaces, such as supermarkets. There are other safety measures that have become ubiquitous as well.

Students will start returning to school next week, and if you could observe a random day over here it would look the same as any other prior to the virus entering our lives. It turns out that I'm really lucky to be living here at this time, but unfortunately there's a massive population of thick-headed Americans who are preventing the same opportunity for those I care about back home.

[Nodack]

I thought it was Japan because it was Samsung and I thought they were Japanese but, I guess they are Korean. Shows how much I know. I can’t tell the difference between the languages looking at them though. Chinese, Japanese and Korean words look the same to me.

[Mori Chu]

The Suns Solar Panel podcast is doing a "trial" of Ryan McDonough. They're going through his time as Suns GM and evaluating whether he did well or poorly. Here's part 1:

[Split T]

Haha, is it in doubt? What’s the argument for him doing well? I guess I could listen, but outside of a couple decent trades(some of which made us better when that wasn’t his plan) and a couple draft picks, he was pretty much a failure across the board.

Here’s his wins:

Dudley for Bledsoe. Regardless of how the Bledsoe situation worked out, we won this trade.

The Isaiah Thomas signing. Great value. Though he butchered the aftermath.

Dragic for 2 1sts. Great value, though the trade only had to happen because he pissed off our best player to begin with.

Drafting Booker. Drafting Warren is probably a win too. We got Warren at 14 and he’s a top 10 guy from that draft.

He got a 1st out of Markieff, but after he created the reason to trade him in the 1st place.

Traded Scola for Green, Plummer, and a 1st. Can’t remember if we got a 1st out of that one, but either way it was good. Green was a big part of that 13-14 team.

Am I missing any?

Here’s his failures:

Dumping Gortat when that 13-14 team was very good and coulda used a solid 5

Mismanaging the Bled/Dragic/IT situation, forcing a Dragic trade.

Keeping the wrong one of the 3. Seriously, why did we even make the IT trade? IT was fine, he had no problems, and we dumped him for a late 1st?

Trading for Knight...giving up the Laker 1st to get him too.

Giving Knight that huge contract.

Drafting Bender, Chriss, Jackson. Not to mention trading up for Chriss and giving up Bogdon in the process.

Pursuing Aldridge and Lebron

Taking Ayton over Doncic.

Did he make any solid moves that weren’t necessitated by previous mistakes or that he didn’t later screw up?

I guess just drafting Booker.

[Superbone]

The Suns Solar Panel podcast is doing a "trial" of Ryan McDonough. They're going through his time as Suns GM and evaluating whether he did well or poorly.

I could save you a whole lot of time.

[Superbone]

Here’s his wins:

Dudley for Bledsoe. Regardless of how the Bledsoe situation worked out, we won this trade.

Ultimately, this was a HUGE loss. It is the biggest domino that caused us to come crashing down in time. I guess you could say resigning him for 70 mil was the big failure. Riding him out was a big time loss. I really only enjoyed the one year with MIP Dragic and the surprising 48 win season.