Suns News: The Offseason (2016)

[Superbone]

We know who's handling the ball on that team.

[UglyTruth]

Come on guys, really? Can we not put our heads in the sand and pretend like Booker shouldn't be starting and getting touches and bring groomed as a main option?

He still needs to learn to play defense.

And so does Knight? Booker isn't the one that has hundreds of lowlight reels of him on youtube getting his ankles broken by Kyrie Irving and many others or posterized by half the league....that would be Knight.

I can't believe anyone would advocate for starting Knight over Booker and use defense as the reason. Booker isn't any worse a defender than garbage Knight.

[carey]

For anyone interested in reading some grand coach-speak, Watson is answering questions over at the Suns facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/suns

[sunshoopjunky]

Post by Superbone » Wed May 18, 2016 10:43 pm
First run at getting Nash more involved.

I was thinking the same thing.

Post by Marty [Mori Chu] » Mon May 16, 2016 6:55 am
Like what Cap said, I guess I don't care as much who starts/finishes games, more about who gets how many minutes. If they find 25-30 minutes for Booker every night, I'm content.

I am with Cap and Mori on this as well if Booker gets the minutes it doesn't matter to me.

I do think tho that if we trade Knight we should really look at doing it in relation to our draft picks. For instance if we trade Knight and Price, to me, it would make sense to draft Dunn. If we tried something like in the other order. Draft Dunn and then look for a trade for Knight and Price then other teams will try and leverage our history of public player office relationships problems against us. They will be looking for the disgruntled player discount. I think that if we cant find a draft day or before agreed on trade for Knight then drafting Dunn would be a mistake.

I would also not be apposed to moving Bledsoe instead of Knight if it were to get us the appropriate return.
But I don't think we would get value out of him that would make this worthwhile because he is coming back from injury and as long as he is healthy I think he brings us more value then what we could get for him.

My hope is that Eric still has a chance to be an All Star and the ability to become more then an above average defender.
He needs to work on his early offense distribution. I think there are others that will agree with me that sometimes it seems like Eric spends the first 10 seconds of the shot clock getting ready to do something which allows the opposing defenses to get ready to defend said something. He is still young although his his knee history somewhat negates the value in that. With Eric going down last year are best bet is to keep him and that leads me back to moving Knight.

Alex Len had a few flashes this year of how well he can play. When Len is on fire he is impressive the problem is it does not happen enough. I am holding on to the fact that big men take time and when I look at the league Len's career tracking reminds me of LaMarcus Aldridge.
Alex has 189 regular season games under his belt.
That would put him around 50 games into his 3 season if not for injuries.
Aldridge was at 189 games played about halfway through 08-09 season.
By the end of that season Aldridge was averaging over 37 minutes a game.
Alex averaged over 23 this season that's a playing time difference of 14 min per game.
08-09 Aldridge scored .49 points per min 15-16 Len scored .39 points per min Advantage Aldridge for points.
08-09 Aldridge rebounded .20 boards per min 15-16 Len rebounded .33 boards per min Advantage Len on boards.
08-09 Aldridge blocked .027 shots per min 15-16 Len blocked .034 shots per min Advantage Len on blocks.
08-09 Aldridge stole .027 steals per min 15-16 Len stole ..021 steals per min Advantage Aldridge on steals.

I am not at all saying or trying to support that Len is as good a Aldridge. The only reason I picked Aldridge is because I seem to remember that he took sometime to really get the attention as being the star he is now.

I think that if Len can 1 secure the starting role and keep it this season, 2 get his averages up to the level they were at in March, and 3 stay healthy he has a shot at becoming a valuable player for us.

I would not be apposed to trading him in the event that we pick up someone like Okafor, or Whiteside Len needs 30 min a game to realize his potential.

I really like Warren as a piece of the puzzle. I am not sure if he will ever be a starter for us unless he really worked on his defense and even then I am not sure he has the quickness he needs to be able to guard above average NBA 3s. I do think that he could finish many games for us as a closer. If he does somehow become a 2 way player he could be a lot like the Matrix (minus the athleticism) was for us. We were able to get 20 points out of Marion without running any plays for him and typically we had him on their best player for defense. I think that is probably the ceiling for him. If he does not gain the defensive skills I think he can still be a Eddie House type spark plug off the bench that can put up 16 points before you realized what happened. I think his potential still outweighs his value in a trade for us.

I think that if we can not get value in a trade using 28 and 34 picks that using each for a different big to stash would not be a dumb thing to do. There is also the chance someone drops.

[Cap]

WRT your sig, SHJ, I don't think you should quote KJ as an authority on how people should treat each other.

[sunshoopjunky]

WRT your sig, SHJ, I don't think you should quote KJ as an authority on how people should treat each other.

Yeah your right might be to soon for a KJ quote.

[INFORMER]

Bogdan taking over with seven points in OT. 81 - 74 Fenerbahce.

Guy is so clutch.

The next Markieff Morris!

[gosuns]

Bogdan taking over with seven points in OT. 81 - 74 Fenerbahce.

Guy is so clutch.

The next Markieff Morris!

Don't worry, he s been well disciplined by his coach at Fenerbahce who yelled at him after every mistake or even because of lack of attention on a play. Two different worlds, you rarely see public displeasure by a coach like that in the NBA.

[Superbone]

Bogdan taking over with seven points in OT. 81 - 74 Fenerbahce.

Guy is so clutch.

The next Markieff Morris!

Don't worry, he s been well disciplined by his coach at Fenerbahce who yelled at him after every mistake or even because of lack of attention on a play. Two different worlds, you rarely see public displeasure by a coach like that in the NBA.

One of these things is not like the other.

[Danimal]

two quick things:

there was an article on azentral which had a footnote saying we wouldn't get the heat pick next year since they traded their pick this year so because you have to use a pick every x number of years, we would get it a year later. That doesn't seem right to me, like a kind of loop hole teams to exploit when trading picks

also with Hornacek going to NY can we trade them Tucker since honacek seems to rate him so very highly they would surely overpay. Finally free up some minutes for TJ

[Superbone]

The Heat pick may be better a year later anyway.

[Mori Chu]

The Heat pick may be better a year later anyway.

They probably have to let Whiteside leave, right? I wouldn't be shocked if they were worse next year. Though Winslow will be another year older and could make a leap.

[JCSunsfan]

The Heat pick may be better a year later anyway.

They probably have to let Whiteside leave, right? I wouldn't be shocked if they were worse next year. Though Winslow will be another year older and could make a leap.

they are going to do everything they can to keep him.

[Wally_West]

Interesting tidbit from Ken Berger in his Horncacek artice from last week.

Then Hornacek was left to resolve the messy matter of having three point guards on the floor at the same time when the team added Isaiah Thomas to a backcourt that already had Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe. The results were not only awkward, but also unsuccessful. The Suns dipped to 39 wins the following year, and Hornacek's fence-mending with Dragic was for naught.
Within days of Hornacek having a heart-to-heart with Dragic and securing a commitment from the Slovenian point guard to re-sign with the Suns as a free agent the following summer, the Suns shipped him to Miami in a three-team trade, a person familiar with the situation told CBS Sports.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/knick ... mes-dolan/

[ShelC]

Given what was put out there by Dragic, I'm fine with him being traded even with this coming out now. He just as easily could've had another change of heart and left via free agency so we got what we could. Would we really have maxed him out anyways? Would he have been worth it? Given how he was handled, didn't seem like he was part of our future anyways.

[Indy]

Given what was put out there by Dragic, I'm fine with him being traded even with this coming out now. He just as easily could've had another change of heart and left via free agency so we got what we could. Would we really have maxed him out anyways? Would he have been worth it? Given how he was handled, didn't seem like he was part of our future anyways.

It is too easy to play would've/could've with all the moving pieces, but I would be happier with an over-paid Goran + over-paid Bledsoe + under-paid Thomas vs an overpaid Bleds + overpaid Knight - Lakers pick + two Miami picks.

I think the Goran/Bledsoe pairing was so much better than what we have now. And honestly, I think the Goran/Booker backcourt would have pushed Bledsoe back to 3rd guard soon. I wouldn't have too many complaints if that was our back court rotation instead of the same thing but with Knight in place of Goran, and having to add Price because of our 3 primary back court guys, only 1 is a good at getting his teammates involved (and he isn't even one of our PGs).

[Ring_Wanted]

I just wanted to have Goran Dragic on the Suns. He was the best thing that happened to this team since the prime of Steve Nash. Shame on everybody involved.

[Superbone]

Within days of Hornacek having a heart-to-heart with Dragic and securing a commitment from the Slovenian point guard to re-sign with the Suns as a free agent the following summer, the Suns shipped him to Miami in a three-team trade, a person familiar with the situation told CBS Sports.

What?!

[Superbone]

Given what was put out there by Dragic, I'm fine with him being traded even with this coming out now. He just as easily could've had another change of heart and left via free agency so we got what we could. Would we really have maxed him out anyways? Would he have been worth it? Given how he was handled, didn't seem like he was part of our future anyways.

It is too easy to play would've/could've with all the moving pieces, but I would be happier with an over-paid Goran + over-paid Bledsoe + under-paid Thomas vs an overpaid Bleds + overpaid Knight - Lakers pick + two Miami picks.

I think the Goran/Bledsoe pairing was so much better than what we have now. And honestly, I think the Goran/Booker backcourt would have pushed Bledsoe back to 3rd guard soon. I wouldn't have too many complaints if that was our back court rotation instead of the same thing but with Knight in place of Goran, and having to add Price because of our 3 primary back court guys, only 1 is a good at getting his teammates involved (and he isn't even one of our PGs).

This.

[Superbone]

I just wanted to have Goran Dragic on the Suns. He was the best thing that happened to this team since the prime of Steve Nash. Shame on everybody involved.

+1