Suns 2022 Off-Season Thread

[Split T]

I just think bringing Ayton back would be detrimental to the team. I don’t think we want him, he doesn’t want to be here, he doesn’t want to play the way we want him to play.

A lot of assumptions being made here. I don't know if any or all of it is true. Of course frustrations are going to bubble up for everybody the way our playoffs ended. I hope cooler heads prevail and we make the right decisions based on all the actual parameters. I can't imagine Ayton doesn't like playing with his teammates and doesn't want to be here.

Yes I am making assumptions, I’ll admit that. Not trying to pass it off as fact. Just my opinion. Certainly things can be fixed or maybe they aren’t that broken, and I trust JJ and Monty there. But with my assumption that we don’t really want Ayton and Ayton doesn’t really want to stay is what I based my opinion on trading him off of.

[Split T]

If "not working" means winning 60 games a year with occasional trips to the Finals sprinked in, sign me up.

I personally want to win a title and don’t think our current core(Paul, Booker, Bridges, Crowder, Ayton, Cam J) is gonna do it. A 3rd creator is a must and it gets very hard to find that if you keep Ayton on a max. You could do it with Bridges, but I’d choose to keep Bridges over Ayton. Especially since he just tweeted he loves it here this morning.

[The Bobster]

If "not working" means winning 60 games a year with occasional trips to the Finals sprinked in, sign me up.

I personally want to win a title and don’t think our current core(Paul, Booker, Bridges, Crowder, Ayton, Cam J) is gonna do it. A 3rd creator is a must and it gets very hard to find that if you keep Ayton on a max. You could do it with Bridges, but I’d choose to keep Bridges over Ayton. Especially since he just tweeted he loves it here this morning.

See, I am the other way around - I think Ayton has a much higher ceiling than Bridges does. I think he has a higher ceiling than Booker does too.

Will he ever get to his ceiling? Probably not, but I do think he's going to be much better than he is now in a few years just by developing some consistency on offense.

[Split T]

Maybe, that’s where we’re different, I don’t believe a Ayton gets much better than he currently is

[The Bobster]

Maybe, that’s where we’re different, I don’t believe a Ayton gets much better than he currently is

Hey, it's okay to disagree - even the professionals probably differ on him.

I think Ayton has all the physical tools to be a dominant scorer, defender and rebounder, but I can see why some people don't think he'll ever meet that potential.

There's risk involved if you bet on him reaching that potential, but there's also a huge risk if you trade away a player with all those tools (like Golden State did when they gave up on Robert Parish years ago).

[SunsRIt]

Maybe, that’s where we’re different, I don’t believe a Ayton gets much better than he currently is

25 and 12, with defense, is a very real(and likely in my opinion) possibility.

[JeremyG]

Against Dallas we were 2-1 when he played less than 25 minutes and 1-3 when he played more than 30, so I guess it would’ve been smart to play him less.

Nope, just get him more involved in the offense.

Funny how you want to punish him for scoring 20 points in 22 minutes in a 30-point blowout victory.

I wasn’t being serious…I just didn’t think your stat told the whole story either. It’s on Ayton as much as anyone to create his scoring opportunities.

Same stats for Paul…

Suns went 6-0 when he scored 19 or more
1-6 when he scored 17 or less

Paul can score whenever he wants.

Ayton can't pass himself the ball.

(Sorry, you set that up too well. )

I don’t think your response is as gotcha as you think. Part of Ayton’s problem is he can’t create himself and that makes it harder to get him scoring touches. He is dependent on Chris Paul…but doesn’t my stat show that the suns played better when Paul looked for his shot instead of looking for Ayton?

In reality it’s a much bigger picture. You can’t just take how many points they scored and say we’d be better off if we forced it more to Ayton. It could simply be that we won when Ayton played better and made his shots or was more aggressive. It says nothing about how many touches he got or what defense was played against him.

When it comes down to it, Ayton just isn’t a good fit here. He doesn’t seem happy to just play a role as a rim running big who gets the ball in the post when he seals his man or gets a mismatch. CP3 has made less talented bigs look very good doing that.

Now I don’t blame Ayton for wanting to be more, but he’s got to do it within the offense. I’m not interested in changing the offense to try and accommodate Ayton’s wants. We did that when we brought Shaq in and that was the 1 year in the Nash/Amare run that we didn’t even make the playoffs. It makes zero sense with CP3 as our pg.

Lol, that's because Shaq was old. You don't think we could have made the playoffs if he was younger?

How does it make sense to get rid of your 24-year old future star to accomodate a 38-year old CP3? That's insanely risky. Even if CP3 is playing at a high level next year, he certainly won't be in two years from now. One injury next year and your entire plan goes down the tubes.

Why not build for the future? Maybe change the offense just a little bit to accomodate your future All-Star center? Or actually pass him the ball the multiple times per game that he seals his man and calls for the ball? Or actually run more plays for him within your offense?

[Split T]

Maybe, that’s where we’re different, I don’t believe a Ayton gets much better than he currently is

25 and 12, with defense, is a very real(and likely in my opinion) possibility.

How do you think he gets to 25?

He’s been 16-18-14-17 in his first 4 years. Have we ever had a 25 ppg scorer that doesn’t create his own shot at times?

[JeremyG]

If Ayton would just start attacking the basket off the dribble from the high post every now and then, he’d get his scoring opportunities. The one area I think the suns could have tried to use him more was in the short roll. There was a few times where we gave it to him and he made things happen. He’s just often too slow to make the play. He’ll catch and freeze…but when he’s caught and just gone, he showed me some stuff.

Truth is he’s just not a .5 guy unless he’s catching in the paint or is set from midrange. If he catches on the move outside of the paint, he doesn’t keep the ball moving and doesn’t attack. There’s a reason we kept bringing back a guy like Frank, that’s a role Frank shines in and I think Monty would like his big to be able to do that. They even specifically said they thought that’s what they were getting in Jalen. Thought he was a Jerami Grant like player.

I don't think it's fair to ask a player to do something they're not comfortable or good at, and then when they don't/won't/can't do it, hold it against them. DA is not a face-up, attack-off-the-dribble big. He never will be, that's not his game. He's a classic, low post, back-to-the-basket big who's also gotten better at facing up. But he's not AD, KAT, or Giannis so it's not as easy as saying "If he would only...". We need to stop expecting that kind of offense from. I don't know why fans are fixated on that aspect of his game. Would you complain about Shaq or Ewing or DHow not being able to take their guy off the dribble from the 3pt line? Is that a stable of Embiid's game? TimD did it every now and then, but his bread and butter was getting to his spot on the block and working from there.

We know DA can shoot 70-80% in the paint on post ups, bunnies, short roll shots and dumpoffs/lobs/PnR finishes. If that's not what the Suns are looking for or want to spend $30mil a year on, that's their decision. Just like it was the Suns' decision to move on from Stix because he wasn't the face-up 4 they envisioned - even tho he's proven to be a pretty good 5.

I understand we run the .5 offense and why Monty likes guys like Dario and Frank. I get that DA isn't that kind of frontcourt player, but I'd rather us find some happy medium where DA is screening and rolling as well as getting legit post up opportunities where he can either score easily or kick out to shooters. It doesn't need to be either/or. It doesn't need to be MikeD's 7SOL or Porter's Shaq-centric offense. I think we work very hard on the perimeter to generate shots when we could probably get easy looks on kickouts from DA if we post enough and teams are forced to double, especially when we have a clear advantage in the paint.

So, do we take advantage of what these guys do best or are we focusing too heavily on what they aren't?

You make good points and I mostly agree with you. We shouldn’t make Ayton be something he’s not if he doesn’t want to. But I also don’t think we should pay him the max if he doesn’t fit the offense we want to run. Post up offense has proven to be one of the more inefficient things you can do, there’s a reason the nba as a whole went away from it.

Maybe Ayton is one of the very few that can be efficient at it, but I’m not gonna pay him the max to find out. From what I’ve seen, Ayton doesn’t like to fight for position with the ball. If he doesn’t establish position first, he’s going to pass it out or take his baseline turnaround jumper. Everything he does is just about avoiding fouls and avoiding the defense. Defenses can kind of dictate what he does and that’s a problem. A max player should dictate what the defense does. Embiid forces you to double him because he’s so powerful and aggressive attacking the rim.

Ayton is a finesse low-post big…I’m just not sure we’ve ever seen that as a high level player and I’m not sure how it would work. If his contact aversion is who he is, he’s much better off adding off the dribble skills. That’s why we talk about it often, he’d turn into the perfect big man for us if he could dribble and short roll play make. But I understand it’s not who he is, that’s why I think we should trade him. Well that and I don’t believe he loves basketball. At the least, he’s no basketball sicko like Paul, Booker, Bridges, and Crowder.

You mean like the most efficient in the league? https://www.nba.com/stats/players/touch ... HES*GE*2.0

As for the non-underlined bolded part: then you've missed at least a whole season. You've never seen him work his way with the ball to the position he wants for his hook shot?

[Split T]

Nope, just get him more involved in the offense.

Funny how you want to punish him for scoring 20 points in 22 minutes in a 30-point blowout victory.

I wasn’t being serious…I just didn’t think your stat told the whole story either. It’s on Ayton as much as anyone to create his scoring opportunities.

Same stats for Paul…

Suns went 6-0 when he scored 19 or more
1-6 when he scored 17 or less

Paul can score whenever he wants.

Ayton can't pass himself the ball.

(Sorry, you set that up too well. )

I don’t think your response is as gotcha as you think. Part of Ayton’s problem is he can’t create himself and that makes it harder to get him scoring touches. He is dependent on Chris Paul…but doesn’t my stat show that the suns played better when Paul looked for his shot instead of looking for Ayton?

In reality it’s a much bigger picture. You can’t just take how many points they scored and say we’d be better off if we forced it more to Ayton. It could simply be that we won when Ayton played better and made his shots or was more aggressive. It says nothing about how many touches he got or what defense was played against him.

When it comes down to it, Ayton just isn’t a good fit here. He doesn’t seem happy to just play a role as a rim running big who gets the ball in the post when he seals his man or gets a mismatch. CP3 has made less talented bigs look very good doing that.

Now I don’t blame Ayton for wanting to be more, but he’s got to do it within the offense. I’m not interested in changing the offense to try and accommodate Ayton’s wants. We did that when we brought Shaq in and that was the 1 year in the Nash/Amare run that we didn’t even make the playoffs. It makes zero sense with CP3 as our pg.

Lol, that's because Shaq was old. You don't think we could have made the playoffs if he was younger?

How does it make sense to get rid of your 24-year old future star to accomodate a 38-year old CP3? That's insanely risky. Even if CP3 is playing at a high level next year, he certainly won't be in two years from now. One injury next year and your entire plan goes down the tubes.

Why not build for the future? Maybe change the offense just a little bit to accomodate your future All-Star center? Or actually pass him the ball the multiple times per game that he seals his man and calls for the ball? Or actually run more plays for him within your offense?

We went to the finals and then won 64 games leading the league, that’s why I’m not building for the future. We spent 10 years building for the future and I’d rather actually win. These last two years were probably our best shots and we blew it. Just bringing back the same team and trying again won’t work next year. I don’t think we’d have such a wide open race as the last two years were.

Someone has to go to bring in another piece and I vote for the guy who doesn’t seem to fit, has focus and motivation questions, and wants to get paid. He also doubles as the guy who teams might look at as the most valuable.

[JeremyG]

11. Only trade Ayton if he says he insists on being traded. Otherwise, match the max offer he receives and continue with him. He has improved his offense every year. A hook and a deadly jumper out to 15 feet. Everybody says Kal is the best defender, but Ayton is the anchor of our defense. People get passed the perimeter defender and go the other way when they see Ayton at the rim. If you don’t want issues with him guarding the 3 then don’t switch. I didn’t see Kal even slow down Luka and he is supposed to be able to guard 1-4. That sure don’t happen against Dallas.

I hate to say it, but I think the Chris Paul window is closed. If you bring in somebody else or keep Ayton I don’t think Chris Paul is leading this team to a title. He has broken down in the playoffs the last 2 years.

You went the wrong way, in your scenario it’d be more like a 0 or 1

I thought we saved 0 for Jeremy. In fact, it shouldn't be a number, just his name.

Actually, I would be a 0.5. Remember I said if the Bucks called and offered Giannis, I would trade Ayton today.

[Split T]

We’ll call the space between 0 and 1 the Jeremy zone

[JeremyG]

I wasn’t being serious…I just didn’t think your stat told the whole story either. It’s on Ayton as much as anyone to create his scoring opportunities.

Same stats for Paul…

Suns went 6-0 when he scored 19 or more
1-6 when he scored 17 or less

Paul can score whenever he wants.

Ayton can't pass himself the ball.

(Sorry, you set that up too well. )

I don’t think your response is as gotcha as you think. Part of Ayton’s problem is he can’t create himself and that makes it harder to get him scoring touches. He is dependent on Chris Paul…but doesn’t my stat show that the suns played better when Paul looked for his shot instead of looking for Ayton?

In reality it’s a much bigger picture. You can’t just take how many points they scored and say we’d be better off if we forced it more to Ayton. It could simply be that we won when Ayton played better and made his shots or was more aggressive. It says nothing about how many touches he got or what defense was played against him.

When it comes down to it, Ayton just isn’t a good fit here. He doesn’t seem happy to just play a role as a rim running big who gets the ball in the post when he seals his man or gets a mismatch. CP3 has made less talented bigs look very good doing that.

Now I don’t blame Ayton for wanting to be more, but he’s got to do it within the offense. I’m not interested in changing the offense to try and accommodate Ayton’s wants. We did that when we brought Shaq in and that was the 1 year in the Nash/Amare run that we didn’t even make the playoffs. It makes zero sense with CP3 as our pg.

Lol, that's because Shaq was old. You don't think we could have made the playoffs if he was younger?

How does it make sense to get rid of your 24-year old future star to accomodate a 38-year old CP3? That's insanely risky. Even if CP3 is playing at a high level next year, he certainly won't be in two years from now. One injury next year and your entire plan goes down the tubes.

Why not build for the future? Maybe change the offense just a little bit to accomodate your future All-Star center? Or actually pass him the ball the multiple times per game that he seals his man and calls for the ball? Or actually run more plays for him within your offense?

We went to the finals and then won 64 games leading the league, that’s why I’m not building for the future. We spent 10 years building for the future and I’d rather actually win. These last two years were probably our best shots and we blew it. Just bringing back the same team and trying again won’t work next year. I don’t think we’d have such a wide open race as the last two years were.

Someone has to go to bring in another piece and I vote for the guy who doesn’t seem to fit, has focus and motivation questions, and wants to get paid. He also doubles as the guy who teams might look at as the most valuable.

I didn't mean "build for the future" as in not try to win now. By "build" I meant "don't destroy your future."

[JeremyG]

What are the rumors? I'm behind on this thread.

That Paul and Monty had a sort of falling out. Or the rumor that Paul was playing hurt. If the former is true it probably had to do with how to handle the latter.

If Paul and Monty had a fight, and Ayton and Monty had a fight...who's the common denominator there?

[JeremyG]

If "not working" means winning 60 games a year with occasional trips to the Finals sprinked in, sign me up.

I personally want to win a title and don’t think our current core(Paul, Booker, Bridges, Crowder, Ayton, Cam J) is gonna do it. A 3rd creator is a must and it gets very hard to find that if you keep Ayton on a max. You could do it with Bridges, but I’d choose to keep Bridges over Ayton. Especially since he just tweeted he loves it here this morning.

See, I am the other way around - I think Ayton has a much higher ceiling than Bridges does. I think he has a higher ceiling than Booker does too.

Will he ever get to his ceiling? Probably not, but I do think he's going to be much better than he is now in a few years just by developing some consistency on offense.

If he is on a team that appreciates and utilizes him, there is no doubt.

[Indy]

If "not working" means winning 60 games a year with occasional trips to the Finals sprinked in, sign me up.

I personally want to win a title and don’t think our current core(Paul, Booker, Bridges, Crowder, Ayton, Cam J) is gonna do it. A 3rd creator is a must and it gets very hard to find that if you keep Ayton on a max. You could do it with Bridges, but I’d choose to keep Bridges over Ayton. Especially since he just tweeted he loves it here this morning.

See, I am the other way around - I think Ayton has a much higher ceiling than Bridges does. I think he has a higher ceiling than Booker does too.

Will he ever get to his ceiling? Probably not, but I do think he's going to be much better than he is now in a few years just by developing some consistency on offense.

By 'ceiling' do you mean, if he changed his complete identity and drive while also adding skills he has never shown? Or do you mean by just standard progression you see year after year from someone going from year 4 to 5 to 6?

I ask because I don't think there is a basketball analyst out there that would agree that Ayton has a higher ceiling in this league than Booker.

[Split T]

What are the rumors? I'm behind on this thread.

That Paul and Monty had a sort of falling out. Or the rumor that Paul was playing hurt. If the former is true it probably had to do with how to handle the latter.

If Paul and Monty had a fight, and Ayton and Monty had a fight...who's the common denominator there?

Coming for Monty huh? I’m not even gonna entertain that

[Split T]

If "not working" means winning 60 games a year with occasional trips to the Finals sprinked in, sign me up.

I personally want to win a title and don’t think our current core(Paul, Booker, Bridges, Crowder, Ayton, Cam J) is gonna do it. A 3rd creator is a must and it gets very hard to find that if you keep Ayton on a max. You could do it with Bridges, but I’d choose to keep Bridges over Ayton. Especially since he just tweeted he loves it here this morning.

See, I am the other way around - I think Ayton has a much higher ceiling than Bridges does. I think he has a higher ceiling than Booker does too.

Will he ever get to his ceiling? Probably not, but I do think he's going to be much better than he is now in a few years just by developing some consistency on offense.

By 'ceiling' do you mean, if he changed his complete identity and drive while also adding skills he has never shown? Or do you mean by just standard progression you see year after year from someone going from year 4 to 5 to 6?

I ask because I don't think there is a basketball analyst out there that would agree that Ayton has a higher ceiling in this league than Booker.

Ya, call me when Ayton is 1st Team All-NBA

[JeremyG]

What are the rumors? I'm behind on this thread.

That Paul and Monty had a sort of falling out. Or the rumor that Paul was playing hurt. If the former is true it probably had to do with how to handle the latter.

If Paul and Monty had a fight, and Ayton and Monty had a fight...who's the common denominator there?

Coming for Monty huh? I’m not even gonna entertain that

He shouldn't take any of the blame or responsibility for the disastrous ending to the season?

[Indy]

Everyone on the team should, starting with Jones on down.