NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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Split T
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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by Split T »

Sounds like we needed some more structure. There’s something to be said for letting players play their way, but letting young, inexperienced guys do whatever they wanted was not a good plan. I think all those guys probably would have looked better under Monty.

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pickle
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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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Aztec Sunsfan wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 1:17 pm
Yeah, kinda of the same verdict about those three. We failed miserably developing Bender (perhaps a complete lack of intend), handled the keys too early to Chriss, wich mess up his head big time and blunt his development because of a shallow sense of entitlement and Jackson... oh my... what a trainwreck was that, you can not blame this one exclusively on the organization.
With all due respect, I don't know how you can *not* blame this exclusively on the organization. We drafted these players, we then developed them in the wrong way with an environment and coaching staff that clearly did not help them grow, and then we quickly got rid of them.

I'm not complaining too much about getting rid of them, but I am weary of us continuing to draft and then throw away young players and / or drafting replacement for them before we truly flesh out who these players are. If anything, I'd rather not draft another backup pg this year. If there's another Ja Morant, I'm all for getting him no matter what. If what we get is going to be a slight upgrade over Jerome, then maybe let's just see what Jerome becomes and use the pick on a 4.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by pickle »

Marvin Williams?

Teague?
Napier?

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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The Bobster wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 7:35 am
Chriss's improvement is mainly because he's taking better shots now (60% withing 3' of the basket compared to only 39% as a Sun). So he's not really horrible anymore.

Jackson, same thing. Not 77% of his shots were within 3' of the basket this year compared to 57% as a Sun.

It makes you wonder how much was the player and how much was the coaching staff not knowing how to get the most out of a player. Cedrtainly too much was asked of them at a young age, but were they also asking for the wrong things?
It's largely on the club to begin with - what does a bone headed rookie know about his game when it comes to the NBA? We started him and treated him like god's gift from day 1, which was totally idiotic.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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Mori Chu wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:14 am
I miss Bender but not the others. Chriss was a marginal talent and Jackson was a knucklehead who made bad decisions on offense. If Jackson could shoot 3s better I might have had more patience for him. But I'm so relieved that he's gone. He drove me crazy. Best wishes to all of them in their new situations, but good riddance.
Jackson's at .319% on 4.0 attempts this season which is pretty good for a third year player.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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pickle wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 12:06 am
Aztec Sunsfan wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 1:17 pm
Yeah, kinda of the same verdict about those three. We failed miserably developing Bender (perhaps a complete lack of intend), handled the keys too early to Chriss, wich mess up his head big time and blunt his development because of a shallow sense of entitlement and Jackson... oh my... what a trainwreck was that, you can not blame this one exclusively on the organization.
With all due respect, I don't know how you can *not* blame this exclusively on the organization. We drafted these players, we then developed them in the wrong way with an environment and coaching staff that clearly did not help them grow, and then we quickly got rid of them.

I'm not complaining too much about getting rid of them, but I am weary of us continuing to draft and then throw away young players and / or drafting replacement for them before we truly flesh out who these players are. If anything, I'd rather not draft another backup pg this year. If there's another Ja Morant, I'm all for getting him no matter what. If what we get is going to be a slight upgrade over Jerome, then maybe let's just see what Jerome becomes and use the pick on a 4.
Individually you can make a case for why we traded all of them when we did - Chriss and Jackon for being knuckleheads, Bender for being useless and too expensive for being useless.

But collectively it does look stupid.

But we were (are?) such a stupid ball club that we would have found a way to ruin any non-bonafide' star's entry into the league, so it's little surprise, with hindsight, what unfolded.

We might not be ruining rookies' NBA entry these days with Williams and Jones at the helm I don't think, but we still don't appear to understand the value of players either .. again revisiting the Jackson / Melton trade, and the Warren trade, we're just handing out players and picks like they fall off trees.

Anyway, it was their first moves as Coach / GM and they wouldn't be the first new regime to want to start fresh, so some leeway given.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by Indy »

3rdside wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:15 am
Mori Chu wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:14 am
I miss Bender but not the others. Chriss was a marginal talent and Jackson was a knucklehead who made bad decisions on offense. If Jackson could shoot 3s better I might have had more patience for him. But I'm so relieved that he's gone. He drove me crazy. Best wishes to all of them in their new situations, but good riddance.
Jackson's at .319% on 4.0 attempts this season which is pretty good for a third year player.
If you look at all players to ever take more than 3 3PA/G at any point in their first 3 years, his .319 would be 527 out of 626. So another way to say "pretty good" is "bottom 16th percentile."

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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Indy wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:09 am
3rdside wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:15 am
Mori Chu wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:14 am
I miss Bender but not the others. Chriss was a marginal talent and Jackson was a knucklehead who made bad decisions on offense. If Jackson could shoot 3s better I might have had more patience for him. But I'm so relieved that he's gone. He drove me crazy. Best wishes to all of them in their new situations, but good riddance.
Jackson's at .319% on 4.0 attempts this season which is pretty good for a third year player.
If you look at all players to ever take more than 3 3PA/G at any point in their first 3 years, his .319 would be 527 out of 626. So another way to say "pretty good" is "bottom 16th percentile."
You're cherry picking filtering the number of shots as there's plenty of decent or good shooters who've had equivalent or worse third year shooting %'s that didn't shoot as much, and Jackson being in only his third year - while he's still finding his feet - is in some ways more important than straight 3PA or 3Pt%.

e.g filtering by:

- 3rd year
- <.320%
- 3PA > 1.5

Brings up plenty of good shooters, for all or good parts of their career:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... rder_by=ws

Random 3rd year observations:

- T J Warren .265% on 1.48 shots, .375% this year
- D'Angelo Russell .324% on 5.8 shots, .354% this year
- Carmelo Anthony .243% on 1.9 shots, .371% this year

That all being said, I have also over remembered what .319% is - it's definitely not 'pretty good', but it's not too bad either imo ... and certainly not bad enough to rule him out from becoming decent.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by Indy »

I am not saying he will end up being an awful 3 point shooter. I only included attempts because you did in your praise. And 1.5 is a lot less than the 4 he is was taking this year. Either way, just pointing out that <32% is well below league average, while 4 attempts per game is well above league average.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by pickle »

3rdside wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:43 am
pickle wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 12:06 am
With all due respect, I don't know how you can *not* blame this exclusively on the organization. We drafted these players, we then developed them in the wrong way with an environment and coaching staff that clearly did not help them grow, and then we quickly got rid of them.

I'm not complaining too much about getting rid of them, but I am weary of us continuing to draft and then throw away young players and / or drafting replacement for them before we truly flesh out who these players are. If anything, I'd rather not draft another backup pg this year. If there's another Ja Morant, I'm all for getting him no matter what. If what we get is going to be a slight upgrade over Jerome, then maybe let's just see what Jerome becomes and use the pick on a 4.
Individually you can make a case for why we traded all of them when we did - Chriss and Jackon for being knuckleheads, Bender for being useless and too expensive for being useless.

But collectively it does look stupid.

But we were (are?) such a stupid ball club that we would have found a way to ruin any non-bonafide' star's entry into the league, so it's little surprise, with hindsight, what unfolded.

We might not be ruining rookies' NBA entry these days with Williams and Jones at the helm I don't think, but we still don't appear to understand the value of players either .. again revisiting the Jackson / Melton trade, and the Warren trade, we're just handing out players and picks like they fall off trees.

Anyway, it was their first moves as Coach / GM and they wouldn't be the first new regime to want to start fresh, so some leeway given.
I generally agree, and I also agree that the team is not *that* stupid that it would get rid of good players (the TJ Warren trade baffles me though) for no reason. So of course these individual moves can all be justified. It's the fact that we end up having to make all these moves that bothers me as it demonstrates a consistent inability to draft good players and / or develop players with potential.

I kind of started this discussion with the mentioning of Chriss, Bender, Josh, etc, but I want to get back to my original point again, which is that, if we had invested a first rounder in Jerome last year, I hope we can give him a real chance before we draft another PG in the first round to supplant him, especially since we also have Okobo and Carter who we are "developing".

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by Aztec Sunsfan »

pickle wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 12:06 am
Aztec Sunsfan wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 1:17 pm
Yeah, kinda of the same verdict about those three. We failed miserably developing Bender (perhaps a complete lack of intend), handled the keys too early to Chriss, wich mess up his head big time and blunt his development because of a shallow sense of entitlement and Jackson... oh my... what a trainwreck was that, you can not blame this one exclusively on the organization.
With all due respect, I don't know how you can *not* blame this exclusively on the organization. We drafted these players, we then developed them in the wrong way with an environment and coaching staff that clearly did not help them grow, and then we quickly got rid of them.

I'm not complaining too much about getting rid of them, but I am weary of us continuing to draft and then throw away young players and / or drafting replacement for them before we truly flesh out who these players are. If anything, I'd rather not draft another backup pg this year. If there's another Ja Morant, I'm all for getting him no matter what. If what we get is going to be a slight upgrade over Jerome, then maybe let's just see what Jerome becomes and use the pick on a 4.
You have guys like Booker and Bridges flourishing in the middle of adversity, so yeah, there are some percentage of the failure clearly on those guys’ shoulders. Obviously a good organization should be able to contain the character flaws on their players, and the Suns clearly lack big time on this, not only visible on Chriss and Jackson, but on the Morrii brothers fiasco as well. ”Exclusively” is the key word here, as in, “blame to share”, not ”the team was flawless with this guys”. Was the team the biggest blunder? Yeah, I would say so.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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pickle wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 12:20 am
3rdside wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:43 am
pickle wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 12:06 am
With all due respect, I don't know how you can *not* blame this exclusively on the organization. We drafted these players, we then developed them in the wrong way with an environment and coaching staff that clearly did not help them grow, and then we quickly got rid of them.

I'm not complaining too much about getting rid of them, but I am weary of us continuing to draft and then throw away young players and / or drafting replacement for them before we truly flesh out who these players are. If anything, I'd rather not draft another backup pg this year. If there's another Ja Morant, I'm all for getting him no matter what. If what we get is going to be a slight upgrade over Jerome, then maybe let's just see what Jerome becomes and use the pick on a 4.
Individually you can make a case for why we traded all of them when we did - Chriss and Jackon for being knuckleheads, Bender for being useless and too expensive for being useless.

But collectively it does look stupid.

But we were (are?) such a stupid ball club that we would have found a way to ruin any non-bonafide' star's entry into the league, so it's little surprise, with hindsight, what unfolded.

We might not be ruining rookies' NBA entry these days with Williams and Jones at the helm I don't think, but we still don't appear to understand the value of players either .. again revisiting the Jackson / Melton trade, and the Warren trade, we're just handing out players and picks like they fall off trees.

Anyway, it was their first moves as Coach / GM and they wouldn't be the first new regime to want to start fresh, so some leeway given.
I generally agree, and I also agree that the team is not *that* stupid that it would get rid of good players (the TJ Warren trade baffles me though) for no reason. So of course these individual moves can all be justified. It's the fact that we end up having to make all these moves that bothers me as it demonstrates a consistent inability to draft good players and / or develop players with potential.

I kind of started this discussion with the mentioning of Chriss, Bender, Josh, etc, but I want to get back to my original point again, which is that, if we had invested a first rounder in Jerome last year, I hope we can give him a real chance before we draft another PG in the first round to supplant him, especially since we also have Okobo and Carter who we are "developing".
For a bad ball club to be drafting questionable character guys says much about Ryan McDonough. He knew we had character / cultural issues from the Morris Brother's days yet he soldiered on ignorant of the likely repercussions.

Okobo looks a dud, Carter a bench player - TJ possibly might come on but he's not stopping me drafting another PG I don't think. PG is the most valuable position in the league these days so it pays to be covered there.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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I don't know if I'm able to separate McDonough from the team, as I for one have no information on whether McDonough truly had free reign to do what he wished or if others were looking over his shoulder, or what not. The only way I can see this is that the organization as a whole has failed miserably in recent drafting. Yes, Booker turned out well. I'm not sure I can give the organization credit for that one, but hey, why not. We've still managed to mess up three straight top picks. It's extra painful to see guys like Sabonis, Fox, Isaac, Adebayo becoming key contributors to their respective teams, and the fact that many on this very board pining for at least Sabonis and Fox during those drafts. The only thing that keeps me sane is my firm belief that even if we drafted those guys we probably would've messed them up anyway.

It also pains me endlessly that we took Ayton over Doncic and Mikal over SGA. I love Mikal and still have high hopes for Ayton, but I would rather have gotten the other two.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by 3rdside »

Bad organisations have bad characters and bad characters are in bad organisations - one is the other as the other is one, I guess you could say in an appropriately fuzzy way.

Sarver's the main bad character but he's not going anywhere, but getting rid of McD was his first step in the right direction - you simply can't, imo, absolve him, the GM, for the drafting disaster we've witnessed over the last few years.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by Indy »

I can't imagine a world where our FO talks Sarver into taking a different guy than he wants. He may not have a strong opinion in a certain spot, but in the end, if he wants a guy, we are drafting that guy.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by O_Gardino »

pickle wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 12:20 am
....

I kind of started this discussion with the mentioning of Chriss, Bender, Josh, etc, but I want to get back to my original point again, which is that, if we had invested a first rounder in Jerome last year, I hope we can give him a real chance before we draft another PG in the first round to supplant him, especially since we also have Okobo and Carter who we are "developing".
I've made the same point with many of our redundancies over the last decade, but in this case I don't think any of our guys project as starters. We have 4 guys who are a long long way from being able to handle 30 minutes. If we have a chance to get a guy with potential to start and possible be an all-star, we need to take that guy. For what it's worth, there probably won't be a PG who moves the needle for me when it's our turn to pick.
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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by Aztec Sunsfan »

Indy wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 5:29 am
I can't imagine a world where our FO talks Sarver into taking a different guy than he wants. He may not have a strong opinion in a certain spot, but in the end, if he wants a guy, we are drafting that guy.
In such case, you do what Steve Kerr did: Step down from the job and leave such hardheaded owner.

If Ryan was truly over ruled so many times, but he swallowed and stay on office, then he has bad character issues as well. Perhaps the average guy can't talk Sarver into staying out of the decisions, but that's also why they collect those nice hefty checks. Do your Job and keep on check the guy that hire you to do so. Not easy, but that's a problem that almost every coach and GM around the league have on various degrees.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by Indy »

Aztec Sunsfan wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:49 am
Indy wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 5:29 am
I can't imagine a world where our FO talks Sarver into taking a different guy than he wants. He may not have a strong opinion in a certain spot, but in the end, if he wants a guy, we are drafting that guy.
In such case, you do what Steve Kerr did: Step down from the job and leave such hardheaded owner.

If Ryan was truly over ruled so many times, but he swallowed and stay on office, then he has bad character issues as well. Perhaps the average guy can't talk Sarver into staying out of the decisions, but that's also why they collect those nice hefty checks. Do your Job and keep on check the guy that hire you to do so. Not easy, but that's a problem that almost every coach and GM around the league have on various degrees.
Didn't Steve just not re-sign a new contract? I don't remember him quitting and therefore forfeiting his remaining salary. Did he sign more than a 3 year contract to start?

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

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He left when Sarver low balled him after our WCFs appearance. But I do remember Kerr also saying he wanted to get into coaching because being an exec was boring to him.

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Re: NBA FA 2020 & Suns FA targets

Post by pickle »

O_Gardino wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:40 am
pickle wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 12:20 am
....

I kind of started this discussion with the mentioning of Chriss, Bender, Josh, etc, but I want to get back to my original point again, which is that, if we had invested a first rounder in Jerome last year, I hope we can give him a real chance before we draft another PG in the first round to supplant him, especially since we also have Okobo and Carter who we are "developing".
I've made the same point with many of our redundancies over the last decade, but in this case I don't think any of our guys project as starters. We have 4 guys who are a long long way from being able to handle 30 minutes. If we have a chance to get a guy with potential to start and possible be an all-star, we need to take that guy. For what it's worth, there probably won't be a PG who moves the needle for me when it's our turn to pick.
I'm not saying I think Okobo and Carter (or Melton before that) are the answer. My point is, if we weren't so sure that Jerome was the answer last year, why did we draft him then when we had two guys on the bench that could develop into more if given proper coaching and opportunity? If we are so ready to give up on Jerome now and adding another middling PG prospect in this year's draft, then we made a mistake trading the 2020 pick for the pick used to take him. I prefer not to have too much redundancy in positions that require development. If we don't think Jerome is the answer, or Okobo, as much as it pains me to say, we should cut our losses and move on. If we do that, then I'm okay picking up another pg in this year's draft.

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