The Phoenix Suns and the escape from basketball purgatory

[Shabazz]

I've mentioned this before, but I'd feel better about our future prospects if we had taken that New Orleans offer. This upcoming draft is looking insanely talented in the top 6-7 and if Mark Williams is our center of the future, adding Peterson, Dybantsa, Boozer, Ament, Brown, Wilson or Peat to our core would have positioned us quite nicely for the future.

[Split T]

I don’t want to jump the gun, but I also have wondered what if we just drafted Cedric Coward. He looks awesome so far.

[ShelC]

Or Ryan Kalkbrenner. A few impact rookies playing right now.

[Superbone]

There will always be more good rookies coming along as well as draft picks available for trade or purchase.

[Shabazz]

I think one of the keys to getting good, though, is taking advantage of desperate teams, like other teams have taken advantage of us. Teams like Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, and Sacramento may make panic trades and we need to try and capitalize.

[Danimal]

I think one of the keys to getting good, though, is taking advantage of desperate teams, like other teams have taken advantage of us. Teams like Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, and Sacramento may make panic trades and we need to try and capitalize.

I would say some of those teams are stupid and desperate.
Just need to find which gm is in the final year of their contract and will overpay to make a marginal push or a new gm more focused on making his own mark than getting the best value when trading out his current players.

[Uncle_Gene]

Domantas Sabonis is great. Back to the basket low post presence, can shoot threes, and led the league in rebounding a season ago.

Sacramento Kings just can't stop anybody. They're a bad defensive team. They brought in Drew Eubanks. He can shoot and his rebounding is okay, but he's not a defensive stopper. They traded Jonas Valanciunas (a true center who's a decent defender) for Saric (a PF who can rebound and shoot threes). The King's got worst defensively, that's why I've been the shambles they're in. They can score and there's no doubt about that, but on the defensive end, they can't stop anybody.

[Superbone]

Domantas Sabonis is great. Back to the basket low post presence, can shoot threes, and led the league in rebounding a season ago.

Sacramento Kings just can't stop anybody. They're a bad defensive team. They brought in Drew Eubanks. He can shoot and his rebounding is okay, but he's not a defensive stopper. They traded Jonas Valanciunas (a true center who's a decent defender) for Saric (a PF who can rebound and shoot threes). The King's got worst defensively, that's why I've been the shambles they're in. They can score and there's no doubt about that, but on the defensive end, they can't stop anybody.

I still can't believe they gave up Fox.

[Mori Chu]

I still can't believe they gave up Fox.

And Haliburton...

[Uncle_Gene]

They even traded Davion Mitchell who is a good defensive player.

[pickle]

I have a different impression of a lot of these players than you guys do. Sabonis is a great offensive hub, and in the right system he can shoot more, and I think he has the ability to do so. But defensively he's a bit of a disaster and he really would cap any team's ceiling unless he's making around 20-25 mil a year and accepts a more diminished role. I'd almost rather get him when he's 33 and let him run the second unit than have him as one of the top 2-3 paid players on a team right now.

The NO trade package would've been great, but we didn't take it, and now we have Malauch. I wouldn't compare Maluach to Kalkbrenner as Maluach is an incredible story and I have no reason to doubt that he will improve, but he's just too raw right now and at least 4 years younger than Kalkbrenner. We also made a bunch of moves to get Flemming and I think he can be a very impactful defender, but we are just having too much success right now to run the rookies and allow them to make mistakes, which I don't disagree with. We could have gotten Kalkbrenner with that pick, but long term I also think Flemming has much higher upside.

The Davion Mitchell point is a great one though. Not so much that Kings suck, we already established that, but that in the right system players can become more than they are. Miami is clearly one of those systems, and OKC another. I want Ishbia to spend his money on the off court developmental system, get the best shooting and skills coaches we can so that our players become more. I don't know if he's already done this, but all of Colin, Ryan, Grayson, and Royce have shown improvement so I am cautiously but fairly optimistic on this going forward.

[Superbone]

And to answer the thread title, we've already escaped basketball purgatory as evidenced by this season. This is fun. The last two seasons were not. Especially last season. Especially especially the last half of last season. THAT was basketball purgatory. Rock bottom. We are in the process of climbing out of the hole.

[iLLmatic]

Nothing against Jalen Green but maybe the hamstring injuries are sign from the basketball gods that he's not supposed to be here. Like when KD slipped in warmups before his first game. Or the Beal nonsense. He's not a Suns-type of player. Move his salary for a PF like JJJ or Franz Wagner. Memphis and maybe Orlando will shake things up this year. Offloading guys Royce and Richards won't bring much back in value, at least not enough to really elevate us. JJJ and Franz might be pipedreams but those are the kinds of guys you target with Green's contract.

You really don’t want green on this team do you?

[pickle]

I think Shel’s made his position quite clear. Orlando is playing better now and they won’t move on from Franz. I don’t want JJJ.

[TOO]

Nothing against Jalen Green but maybe the hamstring injuries are sign from the basketball gods that he's not supposed to be here. Like when KD slipped in warmups before his first game. Or the Beal nonsense. He's not a Suns-type of player. Move his salary for a PF like JJJ or Franz Wagner. Memphis and maybe Orlando will shake things up this year. Offloading guys Royce and Richards won't bring much back in value, at least not enough to really elevate us. JJJ and Franz might be pipedreams but those are the kinds of guys you target with Green's contract.

You really don’t want green on this team do you?

People loved Cam Johnson who I'm pretty sure was older than Green is now when he was drafted. People act like Green is some finished product.