Suns News: Week 11 1/4-1/10

[Mori Chu]

Practice player at best. Probably a waste of time/money.

[carey]

Coro drops a column about Booker: http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/n ... /78392940/

[Ring_Wanted]

Thomas playing the best among the three PGs

This.

Meh. We know who they are. This season the have produced:

20.9ppg, 6.9apg, 3rpg, 2.7 TOs @41.5 FG%, 32.7 3pt%, 88.7 FT%.
vs
20.4ppg, 6.1apg, 4rpg, 3.5 TOs @45.3 FG%, 37.2 3pt%, 80.2 FT%.

Only ballhandler guard (plus Turner) = higher totals but lower %s.
Two starting PGs = lower totals (for the good and the bad, assists/TOs), better efficiency.
Defensive ability (albeit intermitent effort) vs exploitability.

Also worth noting: one plays for a coach who is approaching guru status vs lame duck HC.

We are certainly living dark times as a franchise, but I won't lose any sleep over IT4 playing well in Boston or the small return his trade fetched. He played well here too. The problem was not talent, but fit and chemistry. And lack of foresight, of course.

[Mori Chu]

Can I say, I don't really care how "well" Isiah Thomas is playing in Boston. I hated his game and am extremely glad he's gone. I'm not saying I like Knight, or that I like Bledsoe, or that we got a good deal for Thomas, etc. etc., I'm just saying that I don't think you can just look at Thomas's stats in Boston and conclude that we kept the wrong guy or that he's a great player.

Thomas puts up impressive individual numbers, but he had complete tunnel vision. He NEVER passed the freaking ball!! You can point me to some stat about him getting a few assists a game or whatever, but I watched the freaking guy so many times just come down the floor, and come hell or high water, he was going to shoot it. He didn't care if his teammate was open; he didn't try to work the ball around the court, find the hot hand, exploit the mismatch. He was jacking it up because that's what he had decided to do. I HATE guys who play like that. To varying degrees, Bledsoe and Knight also tend to play that way. You can't have your PG play like that unless he is literally one of the very best players in the NBA, like maybe Russell Westbrook. Even Steph Curry, with all his transcendent shooting prowess, knows how to pass the ball when he has a teammate with a better shot.

Good riddance to Isiah Thomas. He can average 30 ppg for the Celtics en route to a 3-peat for all I care. He's a bum and I didn't want him here, end of story.

[OE32]

I liked IT. Certainly, I'd rather have him on the team than whomever we'll get out of that Cavs pick.

[Superbone]

IT was also bad in crunch time situations. I remember a key turnover with the Suns and then saw the same thing for Boston in the game they should have beat the Warriors.

[Ring_Wanted]

vs Memphis?

[Cap]

I liked IT. Certainly, I'd rather have him on the team than whomever we'll get out of that Cavs pick.

Put it this way: would we rather have IT@$7M+LAL pick, or AASE@$14M+CLE pick? I think it would have been much better to keep IT and not trade for AASE.

[azsportsfan]

Would have been much better to not have pursued IT in the first place - was a domino move, I feel, that ended badly.

[Mori Chu]

I liked IT. Certainly, I'd rather have him on the team than whomever we'll get out of that Cavs pick.

Put it this way: would we rather have IT@$7M+LAL pick, or AASE@$14M+CLE pick? I think it would have been much better to keep IT and not trade for AASE.

I wanted to dump IT but keep the Laker pick. I would much rather have both back than what we now have.

[Cap]

The bigger question is not why we signed IT, but why IT signed with us. That contract was a steal. Surely he could have gotten more by playing the market, and with a much less awkward fit for his talents than a team that already had Bledsoe and Dragic but not much of a front court.

[carey]

I'm already sick of hearing about the damn Lakers pick. If the KT trade is a barometer I only have to listen to you guys whine about it for the next 8 years.

There's things we can do to improve the team and we will be picking pretty high ourselves. Knight is still salvageable as a player. You can't win in the playoffs with IT as your PG. In a microwave 6th man role? Sure. Beyond that? He's way too much of a defensive liability.

[pickle]

I don't think IT could have gotten that contract easily around the league. He's definitely a problem player, great numbers, awkward fit, no matter who you are. Boston is okay playing him right now because he's clearly the best player on the court and they aren't looking to win now. But say they package some people and picks to get another star...

IT can do okay in a microwave role, but then his ego has to be able to deal with that. For him to want to start, and then to be selfish with the ball and want to shoot every time in order to put up the numbers that showcase him as a starter-caliber player, that will always rub people the wrong way. Plus despite the league generally going for smaller and faster players, IT pushes that to a bit of an extreme. If he had long arms or averaged 2+ steals a game, then people might consider him a starter quality pg on a true championship contender. Given his current game, he'll always be a starter for some team looking outside in.

And I don't miss him. I'm okay with getting a first rounder for him. I won't touch the Knight trade.

[Mori Chu]

I actually think having IT will set Boston's rebuild back. He's just good enough to get them either a low playoff spot or barely miss the playoffs. They have a ton of assets that are like lottery-protected 1st-round picks. They will never get over the hump with a bunch of 16th picks and medium-caliber players. They need one or two great assets, not twelve mediocre assets.

[carey]

I actually think having IT will set Boston's rebuild back. He's just good enough to get them either a low playoff spot or barely miss the playoffs. They have a ton of assets that are like lottery-protected 1st-round picks. They will never get over the hump with a bunch of 16th picks and medium-caliber players. They need one or two great assets, not twelve mediocre assets.

They absolutely have a great asset. They are owed Brooklyn's 2016 first rounder which is unprotected and will definitely be top 3.

[pickle]

Also I guess you can have good players from every draft position, and by having more picks, the chances of hitting them are higher. The scouting department absolutely deserves credit for each successful pick, but then the players themselves are X-factors as well.

Being a low-seed playoff team with youth makes them an attractive destination to free agents or guys getting traded too. If the Suns had a team like the Celtics, that is to say, very well respected coach and smart front office, then I'd want for the team to push for the playoffs every year rather than tank like the Sixers, because I would want the young players to know what it feels like to play meaningful games.

[Ring_Wanted]

I actually think having IT will set Boston's rebuild back. He's just good enough to get them either a low playoff spot or barely miss the playoffs. They have a ton of assets that are like lottery-protected 1st-round picks. They will never get over the hump with a bunch of 16th picks and medium-caliber players. They need one or two great assets, not twelve mediocre assets.

They absolutely have a great asset. They are owed Brooklyn's 2016 first rounder which is unprotected and will definitely be top 3.

Heh if I were the Nets I'd call the Celtics and tell them that unless they send me a couple of picks and one or two prospects, I am pursuing large trades for vets using JJ's contract. In other words, have them to pay for me to stay bad. This could take the form of a monster overpay for Thaddeus Young, for instance. The reverse godfather offer!

[Ring_Wanted]

Being a low-seed playoff team with youth makes them an attractive destination to free agents or guys getting traded too. If the Suns had a team like the Celtics, that is to say, very well respected coach and smart front office, then I'd want for the team to push for the playoffs every year rather than tank like the Sixers, because I would want the young players to know what it feels like to play meaningful games.

This is what the surprising 13-14 season meant to me, and the mindset I had entering 14-15. By last season's trade deadline, that was gone the second Dragic was traded, although there was still a ray of hope for the roster. Not the case anymore after the dumbness and the erectile dysfunction we have witnessed. At this point, our best course of action is without doubt tanking for the highest possible pick. Maybe the '16 draft doesn't have the depth of other years, but with a top5 pick you open up basically every trade alley. McD himself knows pretty well from the Jeff Green-Ray Allen move.

[pickle]

Agreed. The 13-14 season was good. The tinkering that followed with a front office that lacks vision/conviction/guts sucked ass and probably will continue to spell doom for this team for the foreseeable future. Sigh.

[Shabazz]

WHY IS MARKIEFF MORRIS STILL ON THIS TEAM???