Game Day: Suns (3-13) @ Bulls (4-13), Wed 11/21/18

[Superbone]

It turns out that WE are ones that are easy.

[Democritus]

Goodbye, my silly hopes and dreams. Welcome to the realm of nightmares starring Ariza as a Zombie and Ayton as a pussy 3 times a week

[iLLmatic]

So glad I put nothing down on the Suns in Vegas for over 30 games. What a disaster this team is.

[Superbone]

So glad I put nothing down on the Suns in Vegas for over 30 games. What a disaster this team is.

Yeah, me too...

[carey]

Ariza is straight stealing money right now. Same for Anderson but at least he's benched. Ariza otoh is shooting a career low from the field and certainly hasn't helped the defense at all.

[carey]

Ayton gets another double-double.
Big deal.
At this rate, he's more Walt Bellamy than David Robinson ...

I've worried from the start that we burnt a 1st round pick on Enes Kanter. He's young still so maybe there's time to toughen him up, but... maybe not. We desperately need Zion. Some bull ass mother fucker that plays his ass off every night and will straight run over dudes. We don't have a single guy like that on the team.

[djy2j]

Suns on a pace for 15 wins.
That would be the worst record in franchise history.

Suns not winning 15 games with this current lineup and rotation. If you are tanking them use the word "developing" so fans atleast know. Without that I can't make excuses for Igor anymore. He's hovering in the Watson zone with his coaching and player usage.

Hate to say it but Zion doesn't fix any of the problems with this team. This team is so far beyond adding a player to fix things. We have the #1 pick and we make him invisible on offense.

[Mori Chu]

I don't think Zion is what we need, exactly. I think we need a PG to lead the offense who can pass like a madman and set everybody up. We need Ricky Rubio.

Then we need a 3-and-D PF who can also play defense. We basically need what Bender was supposed to be but isn't.

Then we need about 3-4 more random rotation guys who you can actually play and not have them kill you on one or both ends of the floor.

Then we need a coach who will know how to play all of those guys together.

I have no faith in our front office to fix this mess.

[bajanguy008]

Lots of comments sticking it to the players which is absolutely fair but I was of the waiting at least 20 games fore judging Igor mindset but man I think his subs been
We have some flawed players but I think Igor combinations aren't helping matters. there are times when the offense definitely looks better now when he has certain lineups in , for example the Canaan n Crawford backcourt in 2nd quarters like it's a thing which is so crazy

[LazarusLong]

Ariza is straight stealing money right now. Same for Anderson but at least he's benched. Ariza otoh is shooting a career low from the field and certainly hasn't helped the defense at all.

Ariza has usually been a very solid complementary player on good teams.
Throwing a bunch of money at him does not transform him into a "go-to" guy, especially on a team bereft of talent.
Again, another fatal miscalculation on the part of management.

[ShelC]

It's not even about him being a "go-to" guy, it's about his supposed impact as a vet. As you said, he's a complementary player so his impact is minimal without someone to get him easy/open shots. If we had drafted Fox as our PG (or had anyone competent at point), then I could see the value in Ariza as a veteran shooter and defender who's been battle tested and could hit big shots in winning time. But there's hardly any been any winning time this season.

And again, you draft two SFs the past two years and then say, "We need a veteran SF for 15mil"?

[Mori Chu]

It's not even about him being a "go-to" guy, it's about his supposed impact as a vet. As you said, he's a complementary player so his impact is minimal without someone to get him easy/open shots. If we had drafted Fox as our PG (or had anyone competent at point), then I could see the value in Ariza as a veteran shooter and defender who's been battle tested and could hit big shots in winning time. But there's hardly any been any winning time this season.

And again, you draft two SFs the past two years and then say, "We need a veteran SF for 15mil"?

I have been posthumously defending McDo a lot on here. But not getting any PG this offseason, and then throwing that money at Ariza, is just about criminal.

[Robot]

I can see some of the ideas Igor is going for, but I don’t think he has any sense of the importance of personality development. Chemistry development and bravado. He’s overly technical, it reminds me of Hornacek - it’s a really limp coaching approach that puts all the faith in the system not th players, so if he feels the system needs Cannan he puts him him.

The most key things here is Ayton needs to have the offense fed to him in the paint, his shit attempts are stupidly limit d and if he doesn’t get how to do it on his own yet, he needs the offense to maximize his shots in the paint til he figures it out and builds confidence. He seems young and gentle but he is extremely skilled and smart, his knowledge of th game is almost too selfless and that prob ties into his apparent lameness at times especially on d. Tim Duncan was calm too but he knew how to get where he was going, so there is some math involved. He gets open for shots all the time and doesn’t get the pass. He has to learn how to get involved on a denfensive play even if he is drawing fouls right now.

These guys need to live played together and winning and losing with heart, I think the stupid rotations are hurting that, they seem disconnected.

I think they need a coach who is strong willed and versed in the psychology of the players mindset as it exists in 2018 I feel like Igor isnr connecting and that swag is never being harnessed. It’s obvious our best starting line up was what we went with against the 76ers. Good or bad, that team needs to love each other and vibe off each other.

-R

[iLLmatic]

It's not even about him being a "go-to" guy, it's about his supposed impact as a vet. As you said, he's a complementary player so his impact is minimal without someone to get him easy/open shots. If we had drafted Fox as our PG (or had anyone competent at point), then I could see the value in Ariza as a veteran shooter and defender who's been battle tested and could hit big shots in winning time. But there's hardly any been any winning time this season.

And again, you draft two SFs the past two years and then say, "We need a veteran SF for 15mil"?

I have been posthumously defending McDo a lot on here. But not getting any PG this offseason, and then throwing that money at Ariza, is just about criminal.

And yet the majority of the folks on this site thought it was a good idea at the time. Mind blowing.

[Split T]

There was actually quite a few people who were against the Ariza signing. It wasn't my first choice, but I thought it made sense and couldn't hurt. We still had Knight at the time and I had some underserved optimism about him. When we traded Knight, I assumed another trade was coming, but it still hasn't.

Grading the off-season as a whole, the Ariza signing now looks pretty bad. He's not helping us win and just getting in the way of our future core. Don't recall which pg's were available, but we'd be much better off if we had spent at least some of that money on a competent pg.

[LazarusLong]

I'm sure management sold Ariza on the myth that he was coming to an improving team with a bright future.
After playing for championship contenders, it has to be frustrating for him to find himself in this hot mess.

"And again, you draft two SFs the past two years and then say, "We need a veteran SF for 15mil"? "
Sort of like drafting two project power forwards in the same draft ...

[SDC]

james jones can start by trading for teodosic first, then on dec 15, he has three options: jeremy lin, goran dragic or markelle fultz.

[INFORMER]

I think we need to keep Ariza in the mix starting and trying to keep his value up until he's traded. Can't bench him and risk devaluing him or having him become an issue.

Agreed.

[INFORMER]

It's really getting to the point for me where I don't like watching Booker play. Just makes so many dumb decisions. He's a wonderful shooter, but he does little else for me right now.

Feel free to roast me.

He's not a point guard.
...And he's not yet a max contract sort of player.
That's not on him ... that's on a desperate, tone-deaf management that lacks basketball smarts. Sarver, McD, et al.

The Suns knew they had to max him, to make them look like they care. Its has parallels to Minnesota giving Wiggins a boat load of money for no reason other than they felt they had to.

I think Booker showed us a lot more than Wiggins ever did for Minnesota. But yeah, right now, it definitely doesn't look like a good deal for the Suns.

[INFORMER]

Warren and Booker are both so one dimensional. :/

I love the improvements Warren has made, but on a winning team, he needs to be a super sixth man.