Phx-Suns.Net

Split T wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 15, 2025 10:26 am

Shabazz wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 14, 2025 11:58 pm

I really want us to start giving him 5-6 real minutes a game. I think he could become quite useful for us.

Some very encouraging highlights. Did anyone watch that game at all, would be interesting to know if he struggled in any areas, because the highlights are very solid . Hope he can put a few together and get some nba minutes after Maluach didn’t seem to have a big game in the box score. Did he show any glimpses?

IMO Fleming is the rookie I most want us to find some minutes for. I also want to see Maluach play, but he is extremely young and raw and we also have 2-3 other playable centers ahead of him. I versatile PF/SF like Fleming would really be a nice addition to our roster if we could get him ready for real minutes.

L'il Oso!

Grayson out tomorrow night. Along with Green.

pickle wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 15, 2025 7:22 pm

We waited what 5 seasons for ayton to try something like that

Devin Booker and the new-look Suns are no joke without Kevin Durant | Opinion
Greg Moore

https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/ ... 237760007/

Highlights:

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A first-time general manager, a first-time head coach and a young team owner walk into an offseason and decide to gut a franchise …

No, I’m not talking about Ryan McDonough, Igor Kokoskov and Robert Sarver.

And I’m not setting up a punchline that ends with the Phoenix Suns looking like a joke.

This is just me, a guy who’s covered the team since 2017, noticing that the trio of Brian Gregory, Jordan Ott and Mat Ishbia might be on to something.

The Phoenix Suns are playing hard, working together and winning games, reflecting a wholesale culture change that’s been fun to watch the past few weeks.

Let’s start with NBA.com’s hustle stats: Entering midweek, the Suns were top 10 in deflections, defensive loose balls recovered and percentage of defensive loose balls recovered.

The Suns are diving on the ground like somebody dropped a gold ring near a sewer grate.

Last year, the Suns were among the worst in the league in all of those stats, including a dismal second-worst in deflections.

Sheesh. Was anybody even trying to stick their hand in a passing lane?

It’s also what happens when you replace Mike Budenholzer with a coach who isn’t asleep on the bench.

And have you looked into the eyes of Jordan Ott? I have, and I’m not sure he ever sleeps. Talk about attention to detail, Ott has a stare that makes me think he can count the pebbles on a basketball from 30 feet away.

I am curious, 4 weeks in, what everyone thinks about our team. I’m not trying to call anybody out, and this might not age well given our tougher opponents upcoming, but I’ve been thrilled with the effort I’ve seen on the court these past few games and even if we don’t win I can still really appreciate the tenacity, spirit, and camaraderie.

Before the season started a lot of us wanted to move on from Royce and Grayson, myself included. Do we still feel that way? I feel like both of them really found new dimensions to their games at this stage in their careers. Grayson has become a solid ball handler who eeks out every ounce of his athleticism to attack the basket with resolve any time he’s run off the three point line, to the point where I think he’s a B+ to A- secondary ball handler now, and I didn’t see that coming. Royce has developed into a very consistent 3 point shooter to the point where I think his shot is going in every time he launches with 3 feet of space whereas in past seasons it was more about if he was on a heater for that game. And he’s also been more decisive with his pump fake and drive game.

At this point I am glad the warriors didn’t take the Royce and a couple of seconds offer for Kuminga and I no longer want to run these guys out the door unless some contender makes an offer we can’t refuse.

pickle wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 16, 2025 6:57 pm

I am curious, 4 weeks in, what everyone thinks about our team. I’m not trying to call anybody out, and this might not age well given our tougher opponents upcoming, but I’ve been thrilled with the effort I’ve seen on the court these past few games and even if we don’t win I can still really appreciate the tenacity, spirit, and camaraderie.

4 weeks in, I think we are exceeding my personal expectations, and I am happy to see that. I think this group vibes much better than last year's group despite the decrease in top-end talent. I like a lot of our role players and young guys. I really like Mark Williams and hope he can stay healthy; if so, we have a real diamond in the rough as our starting center, a top 7-8 center in the league IMO. Our athleticism and defense have been pretty good, and the overall energy and flow has been great.

But I still consider our ceiling to be a play-in or low-playoff team that is unlikely to be able to win a playoff series or make much noise. And it could be worse than that. Ultimately I don't know how much better this team can get without any of our own picks. In the years for which we have swaps, I guess the best-case scenario we end up not swapping because the other teams' picks are worse than ours, so we get a pick in the middle of the 1st round, like 16th or 18th or something. We might be able to find talent at that spot. But that's only every other year, the other years we just have no 1st round pick at all.

If our young rookies turn into absolute studs, like Maluach or Fleming or somebody, we could have the potential to go up a level. But I haven't seen it yet. They show tiny flashes but not enough to get excited yet. I'm willing to be patient.

I don't think the team's over-performance so far changes my overall stance that we are fucked. Not having picks for so many years is going to really hurt, even if we are a decent team today. I really hope I'm wrong and the team finds a way to compete and improve despite its lack of draft assets. I also think we are in for a tough stretch where we are likely to lose most of our next 5-6 games, so we should revisit this discussion when we are likely under .500 and see how we feel then. (Or if I'm wrong about that, come dunk on me and tell me what a stupid loser I am.)