Phx-Suns.Net

I watched Magic versus Pacers the other day. Frye just looks like an odd fit in Orlando and they don't really utilise him that well like the Suns did. They keep going on about veteran leadership that he brings, but they paid a high price for it. Think it was more a move like Milwaukee would make a few years back to try and sneak into 8th place in the East. They may very well be open to getting IT

Danimal wrote:I watched Magic versus Pacers the other day. Frye just looks like an odd fit in Orlando and they don't really utilise him that well like the Suns did. They keep going on about veteran leadership that he brings, but they paid a high price for it. Think it was more a move like Milwaukee would make a few years back to try and sneak into 8th place in the East. They may very well be open to getting IT

the frye - IT trade benefits both teams.

the suns fixes it's roster imbalance while welcoming back an old reliable, the magic finally gets a starting pg that can shoot.

Superbone wrote:

"A lot of things have changed," Dragic said. "As you can see we have three play-makers, I'm playing mostly off the ball, I'm not that involved on the pick and roll which is my game. But this is part of sports, the team is playing well, so you have to make some sacrifices for the team. As long as it's working."

This is the difference between Dragic and IT3. Dragic is willing to make sacrifices for the betterment of the team while Thomas just wants to play more. I'll take the team guy every time. We don't need prima donnas.

He should want to play more. That's his job. I wouldn't want a guy that is on a mediocre team and says he is happy playing 3rd fiddle. And although I would say Goran is more valuable than any guard we have, the stats clearly show we are more likely to rack up an assist on a possession where IT is on the floor than when Goran is. Or even Bledsoe. IT has a higher %Ast than any PG on our roster. And Goran had the lowest.

We need to find a way to get Goran back to being Goran. Right now he isn't helping us much.

I have no interest in paying Frye $8M 4 years from now. And what does that trade even get us? Our lottery team from last year? Does Frye solve our defensive rebounding problems?

We can be more creative than that.

and it would continue a strange trend of ours of getting back players we once let go

Shabazz wrote:I have no interest in paying Frye $8M 4 years from now. And what does that trade even get us? Our lottery team from last year? Does Frye solve our defensive rebounding problems?

We can be more creative than that.

I know, I know. I'm just dying to see what McD comes up with and how soon it will happen.

Shabazz wrote:I have no interest in paying Frye $8M 4 years from now. And what does that trade even get us? Our lottery team from last year? Does Frye solve our defensive rebounding problems?

We can be more creative than that.

IT for pau gasol?

lottery team? the suns were one game out of the playoffs, only behind dallas. with len, the suns now have three options at center.

Magic probably don't want another PG like IT because they are trying to give all of those minutes to Payton. My understanding is that they like him a lot and see him as their long-term fit at PG.

And Chicago loves Pau Gasol (and vice versa) and there's no way they are trading him for IT or anyone else.

Any trade we make should be to bring in a big that can rebound and should include Miles Plumlee in the outgoing package.

Plumlee isn't a starting center, but its worth having him off the bench. If Len becomes a true starter, Miles on the bench looks much better. It really is a shame that we didn't offer Frye something between what we wanted and he wanted - 6.5, maybe, because the continuity, familiarity, and floor spacing truly is missing this year.

Phoenix219 wrote:Plumlee isn't a starting center, but its worth having him off the bench. If Len becomes a true starter, Miles on the bench looks much better. It really is a shame that we didn't offer Frye something between what we wanted and he wanted - 6.5, maybe, because the continuity, familiarity, and floor spacing truly is missing this year.

First, Len already is a starting-level center.

Second, I agree we are missing something this year. But I would argue it isn't familiarity, or continuity. We basically changed out 1 guy from our rotation.

Third, I don't think it is simply floor spacing. Looking at our year/year differences across the board, it looks like we are basically the same except for defense. We are way down in steals and blocks and a bit down in rebounding. Our scoring, shooting (2s and 3s) and assists are about the same or better so far this year. But the other big drop is in FTAs. We are down 11% here but our opponents are up 14%. That is huge. And although our rebounding is only down 2% this year, our opponents is up 5%. Our steals are down 8% but opponents are up 10%. I know it feels like our offense is what is hurting us, the numbers say it is the defense that is killing us.

Another note, based on PER, we have 1 elite player, 3 above average, and one more right at the average. Those are, in order, IT, Green, Keiff, and Bledsoe, then Len.

And IT is actually a top 15 player in PER if you toss out the guys that haven't even played 250 total minutes yet.

Then you get to the slightly below average guys of Goran and PJ, then the not very good category of Marcus and Miles. The only other guy with meaningful minutes is Tolliver and his PER is less than half of the league average.

We are not a well balanced team when it comes to player efficiency, and the ones carrying that load are IT, Green, Keiff and Bledsoe.

Indy wrote:
He should want to play more. That's his job. I wouldn't want a guy that is on a mediocre team and says he is happy playing 3rd fiddle. And although I would say Goran is more valuable than any guard we have, the stats clearly show we are more likely to rack up an assist on a possession where IT is on the floor than when Goran is. Or even Bledsoe. IT has a higher %Ast than any PG on our roster. And Goran had the lowest.

We need to find a way to get Goran back to being Goran. Right now he isn't helping us much.

that's the problem with relying solely on stats to make judgments re players.

unlike last year where goran was the lead PG in the 2nd unit (and the lead starting PG when bledsoe went down), this year the guy was the designated shooting guard whether he's playing with bledsoe or thomas.

as for thomas' assist per possession, he's the ONLY pg in the second unit, yes? (like steve nash, as long as you handle the ball most of the time, you'll get plenty of assist opportunities on a per minute basis.)

SDC wrote:

Indy wrote:
He should want to play more. That's his job. I wouldn't want a guy that is on a mediocre team and says he is happy playing 3rd fiddle. And although I would say Goran is more valuable than any guard we have, the stats clearly show we are more likely to rack up an assist on a possession where IT is on the floor than when Goran is. Or even Bledsoe. IT has a higher %Ast than any PG on our roster. And Goran had the lowest.

We need to find a way to get Goran back to being Goran. Right now he isn't helping us much.

that's the problem with relying solely on stats to make judgments re players.

unlike last year where goran was the lead PG in the 2nd unit (and the lead starting PG when bledsoe went down), this year the guy was the designated shooting guard whether he's playing with bledsoe or thomas.

as for thomas' assist per possession, he's the ONLY pg in the second unit, yes? (like steve nash, as long as you handle the ball most of the time, you'll get plenty of assist opportunities on a per minute basis.)

I gotta agree with SDC on this one.

Shabazz wrote:Any trade we make should be to bring in a big that can rebound and should include Miles Plumlee in the outgoing package.

keep plumlee and throw in warren.

The stat about Dragic's assist rate being so low is bogus because Dragic is basically playing SG 99% of the time right now. He isn't being asked to pass it; he's supposed to get himself open and wait for a pass and then shoot. If anything, it's a freaking miracle that the guy has 4 assists a game, given that he's barely even asked to do that any more. These stats about the 3 PGs fail the Eye Test big time. Most likely to get an assist when IT has the ball? Yeah, right. Something's rotten in Denmark.

Mori Chu wrote:The stat about Dragic's assist rate being so low is bogus because Dragic is basically playing SG 99% of the time right now. He isn't being asked to pass it; he's supposed to get himself open and wait for a pass and then shoot. If anything, it's a freaking miracle that the guy has 4 assists a game, given that he's barely even asked to do that any more. These stats about the 3 PGs fail the Eye Test big time. Most likely to get an assist when IT has the ball? Yeah, right. Something's rotten in Denmark.

Guys, the assist rate isn't the player's assist rate. It is the rate the team ends a possession with an assist while he is on the floor. Think about that for a moment.

And I get all the Goran defenders. He is my favorite player on the team too. And I have seen every game except one, and 3 in person. I even said I don't feel like what is happening on the court matches what the stats are saying. But I'm going to start paying a lot more attention to those things as i watch the games.

I'm not saying "Goran sucks!" I'm saying that our team is structurally flawed and it is affecting Goran the most.

There's two quick fixes that will improve the team's play with the current personnel -

1 - Make Len the starting center. The only drawback in this is that he's still foul-prone, but you might as well have him use all six fouls. Plumlee hasn't improved any since the start of last season - but he still has value as a big man off the bench.

2 - Run more of the offense through Dragic. I don't know whose idea it was to run so much of it through Bledsoe, but it stagnates the offense too much when they get so predictable.

Of course there are a couple of things they could do transaction-wise to make the team better (mainly acquiring another dependable C/PF who can guard people in the post and rebound), but there will be more opportunities to address that in December when the summer free agent signings are tradeable.

But before we get to panicky, let's keep in mind that the winning % this year (.588) is pretty much identical to last year (.585).

Indy wrote:

Mori Chu wrote:The stat about Dragic's assist rate being so low is bogus because Dragic is basically playing SG 99% of the time right now. He isn't being asked to pass it; he's supposed to get himself open and wait for a pass and then shoot. If anything, it's a freaking miracle that the guy has 4 assists a game, given that he's barely even asked to do that any more. These stats about the 3 PGs fail the Eye Test big time. Most likely to get an assist when IT has the ball? Yeah, right. Something's rotten in Denmark.

Guys, the assist rate isn't the player's assist rate. It is the rate the team ends a possession with an assist while he is on the floor. Think about that for a moment.

I believe it. IT and Gerald may be ball hogs, but Bled and Dragic habitually refuse to pass to the big on the P&R. I know, I know, when a big was switched onto Steve Nash, Steve was money on the J. I get it. But guess what - when Ty Lawson is guarding Alex Len, you pass him the damn ball. I DON'T CARE if he doesn't catch it or if he fails to score. That's how offense works!! You get him the ball so he can develop, so the team can develop. At this point, no joke, I wish Tyler Ennis were our starting PG, because at least then I'd get to see how other players look on offense.

Our offense at this point is - the guards/wings pass the ball back and forth at the top of the three-point line, and one of them takes a jumper. Or we P&R and the guard gets turned back because the other team knows the big is not going to receive the pass. The three PG system isn't working because all our guards are so starved for touches that they can't pass up the opportunity for a shot.
It's fugly, and I thought Hornacek knew better. At this point, I think the biggest portion of blame has to fall on the Coach. He's overly deferential to his vets and relies on a system that doesn't appear to work for his players.

Indy wrote:

Phoenix219 wrote:Plumlee isn't a starting center, but its worth having him off the bench. If Len becomes a true starter, Miles on the bench looks much better. It really is a shame that we didn't offer Frye something between what we wanted and he wanted - 6.5, maybe, because the continuity, familiarity, and floor spacing truly is missing this year.

First, Len already is a starting-level center.

Second, I agree we are missing something this year. But I would argue it isn't familiarity, or continuity. We basically changed out 1 guy from our rotation.

Third, I don't think it is simply floor spacing. Looking at our year/year differences across the board, it looks like we are basically the same except for defense. We are way down in steals and blocks and a bit down in rebounding. Our scoring, shooting (2s and 3s) and assists are about the same or better so far this year. But the other big drop is in FTAs. We are down 11% here but our opponents are up 14%. That is huge. And although our rebounding is only down 2% this year, our opponents is up 5%. Our steals are down 8% but opponents are up 10%. I know it feels like our offense is what is hurting us, the numbers say it is the defense that is killing us.

Another note, based on PER, we have 1 elite player, 3 above average, and one more right at the average. Those are, in order, IT, Green, Keiff, and Bledsoe, then Len.

And IT is actually a top 15 player in PER if you toss out the guys that haven't even played 250 total minutes yet.

Then you get to the slightly below average guys of Goran and PJ, then the not very good category of Marcus and Miles. The only other guy with meaningful minutes is Tolliver and his PER is less than half of the league average.

We are not a well balanced team when it comes to player efficiency, and the ones carrying that load are IT, Green, Keiff and Bledsoe.

I think we all agree that our record obscures how bad we've actually been. When we finally play the playoff teams in the west, we're likely to get handled.

I agree about the defense - and it's mostly interior defense, with other teams' centers lighting us up on the regular. Alex needs to start not because of how well he's been doing, but because of how bad Plumlee's sucked: the refs are treating him like Mark West, so it's not all his fault. But 2-guards have also been killing us. Every other night, Goran gets abused by the other team's 2. I actually like how the Morrises have looked on D: it's the 2 and 5 that are killing us.

Extremely disappointing season so far. I don't have an emotional attachment to the vets on this team, so I'm open to trading any of them. I bet McD is too. December 15 can't come soon enough.