Game Day (Preseason): Lakers (1-3) @ Suns (3-1), Thurs 10/17/24

[Superbone]

Time: 7:00 pm AZ (7:00 pm PT/10:00 pm ET)
Place: Footprint Center, Phoenix, AZ
TV: AZ Family 3TV/TNT

The Suns and Lakers meet for one final tune up before the NBA season starts in earnest next week. Booker is set to play and Nurkic is a possibility. Could we maybe see the Suns projected opening night starting lineup? On a personal note, I will be at the game with a friend and his in-laws in from Spain who are big NBA fans.

https://www.nba.com/gamenotes/lakers.pdf
https://www.nba.com/gamenotes/suns.pdf

Go Suns!!!

Dis • cuss

[Mori Chu]

Can the Suns starters show up with half as much fire as the Suns bench showed against Denver? I'm curious to see how Nurk plays. I'm assuming his finger will still be taped and his shooting will be bad. I hope he doesn't try to shoot 3s tonight; I know he's trying to show that part of his game, but I bet he'd be way off if he took any with his bad finger. And in general I'm not sure I want to watch Nurkic shooting 3s, even healthy.

[ShelC]

I think he hurt the middle finger of his left hand so it shouldn't affect his shot too much. Catching the ball and finishing may be an issue.

[Split T]

Nurk kinda needs to shoot 3s…that’s how he becomes useful.

[Superbone]

Nurk kinda needs to shoot 3s…that’s how he becomes useful.

And from what I can tell, he's been instructed to from Bud.

[Carno]

Let's hope can make a few more than he did last season. Him complaining about Vogel stopping him from shooting was a bad look when he was hitting like 12% (it was really in the mid-20s, but it felt like 10%!)

[Split T]

Ya he didn’t make them last year at a good enough clip…but it’s hard when you don’t have the green light. It might’ve been the right call to stop him shooting them, but having the freedom to fire away whether you are making them or not helps. I’m not too worried about the regular season, so I’d let Nurk fire away…Will also help determine if we need to replace him at the deadline.

[Mori Chu]

I'll go on record as saying that I think it's a bad idea for Nurk to shoot 3s. He isn't good enough at them, and Nurk camping out at the 3-point line bricking 3s doesn't seem like a good use of him. I'd rather have him in closer to the paint, or setting screens, or facilitating offense part of the time, which he's good at doing. If we try to turn him into a 3-point camper, we'll pretty quickly decide he's useless, because he isn't a great defender and he won't hit the 3s at an efficient clip. But I do think this is likely what we will do with him, and therefore I suspect that by midseason we will be moaning about how Nurk sucks and how we wish we could trade / get rid of him.

[ShelC]

I think we at least need to try it and see if he can become a threat. I didn't think his form was too bad last year and it may just be about getting more reps. We need a big who can step out and draw opposing bigs out of the paint and also allow KD, Book and Beal more space to operate inside.

[Cap]

Nurk kinda needs to shoot 3s…that’s how he becomes useful.

And from what I can tell, he's been instructed to from Bud.

Nurk’s 3P% the last five seasons: .200, .400, .268, .361, .244. If the pattern holds, he’s due for a good season.

[Carno]

I'm hopeful he can turn it around, so I agree with Shel that he should be given a chance. Bud did turn Lopez's career around (at least one of them), though I fear that Nurk does not self-reflect enough on his faults to improve on them.

[Split T]

Problem is Nurk isn’t good enough at anything else offensively. He’s actually a decent defender(in drop). He can be a bit of a playmaker, which I’m happy to let him keep doing. The problem is we need him to be a scoring threat in someway. If he’s close to the basket, his man will just help off him as he’s a terrible finisher. They’ll also help off him if he can’t shoot, but he needs to be better at one of those(shooting or finishing).

If he doesn’t improve at one of them, he’s not good enough defensively to be playable. I assume he’ll be fine in the regular season, but come playoff time we will see a team do what Minny did and just ignore him.

[The Bobster]

Nurk was the best rebounder in the league last year - and that leaves a pretty big hole when he's on the bench.

[Split T]

True…Plumlee is pretty good…Oso not so much…Just depends on if the increased rebounding is worth a drop in offense

[ShelC]

[ShelC]

Crazy that Nurk's turned into a 50% 3pt shooter this preseason.

[Wally_West]

Davis shooting 4/5 from 3 is some fluke ass bullshit lol

[TOO]

Dirkic out here ballin.

[Drewsprocket]

Dirkic out here ballin.

And finishing.

[Wally_West]

Did Grayson eat Nurk’s fat?

Dude looks like he just survived the harshest Russian winter of the 1830s.