Suns News: The Offseason

[carey]

Both those options suck.

[Cap]

Do the Suns need a combo guard?

We can survive with what we have, but Id feel more comfortable with a real shooter. With the roster as is, we will be seeing a lot of DJJ at shooting guard and a lot of Mike James at point when Bledsoe has his inevitable injury.

As long as "surviving" doesn't entail a lot of winning, we can survive with what we have.

[Superbone]

Do the Suns need a combo guard?

We can survive with what we have, but Id feel more comfortable with a real shooter. With the roster as is, we will be seeing a lot of DJJ at shooting guard and a lot of Mike James at point when Bledsoe has his inevitable injury.

It sounds like you're trying to win games. Why not just develop the guys we have? This year is Bagley or bust.

[O_Gardino]

Do the Suns need a combo guard?

We can survive with what we have, but Id feel more comfortable with a real shooter. With the roster as is, we will be seeing a lot of DJJ at shooting guard and a lot of Mike James at point when Bledsoe has his inevitable injury.

It sounds like you're trying to win games. Why not just develop the guys we have? This year is Bagley or bust.

Nah, I just like to have a balanced roster and a plan. Injuries happen, and you mostly can't predict them. It's just "funny" how we flipped from too many guards to not enough very quickly.

[Shabazz]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

[Wormwood]

Do the Suns need a combo guard?

We can survive with what we have, but Id feel more comfortable with a real shooter. With the roster as is, we will be seeing a lot of DJJ at shooting guard and a lot of Mike James at point when Bledsoe has his inevitable injury.

It sounds like you're trying to win games. Why not just develop the guys we have? This year is Bagley or bust.

This isn't a roster you plan to win games with... Bad on so many levels.

[O_Gardino]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

Awesome.

The biggest area of improvement for him since this time last summer is his attitude. He's still no Amare, but his posture is much better (he used to hunch much worse) and he looks less timid and more emotionally engaged.

[Cap]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

Awesome.

The biggest area of improvement for him since this time last summer is his attitude. He's still no Amare, but his posture is much better (he used to hunch much worse) and he looks less timid and more emotionally engaged.

Box line: 19 min, 4 pts, 2-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 reb, 1 ast, 0 stl, 2 blk, 0 to, 3 pf, team-worst -9 in a 6-point loss.

[Superbone]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

"Get that shite our of here!"

[AmareIsGod]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

Awesome.

The biggest area of improvement for him since this time last summer is his attitude. He's still no Amare, but his posture is much better (he used to hunch much worse) and he looks less timid and more emotionally engaged.

Box line: 19 min, 4 pts, 2-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 reb, 1 ast, 0 stl, 2 blk, 0 to, 3 pf, team-worst -9 in a 6-point loss.

Impressive!

[Shabazz]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

Awesome.

The biggest area of improvement for him since this time last summer is his attitude. He's still no Amare, but his posture is much better (he used to hunch much worse) and he looks less timid and more emotionally engaged.

Box line: 19 min, 4 pts, 2-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 reb, 1 ast, 0 stl, 2 blk, 0 to, 3 pf, team-worst -9 in a 6-point loss.

Details. Details. Did you see that block??

[Cap]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

Awesome.

The biggest area of improvement for him since this time last summer is his attitude. He's still no Amare, but his posture is much better (he used to hunch much worse) and he looks less timid and more emotionally engaged.

Box line: 19 min, 4 pts, 2-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 reb, 1 ast, 0 stl, 2 blk, 0 to, 3 pf, team-worst -9 in a 6-point loss.

Details. Details. Did you see that block??

Don't coaches generally advise against swatting into the third row?

[Superbone]

Bender highlights vs. Spain today:

Awesome.

The biggest area of improvement for him since this time last summer is his attitude. He's still no Amare, but his posture is much better (he used to hunch much worse) and he looks less timid and more emotionally engaged.

Box line: 19 min, 4 pts, 2-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 reb, 1 ast, 0 stl, 2 blk, 0 to, 3 pf, team-worst -9 in a 6-point loss.

Details. Details. Did you see that block??

Don't coaches generally advise against swatting into the third row?

Yeah, they prefer the 5th row or greater. Come on. That would have been almost impossible to keep in bounds unless he was able to one hand grab it.

[carey]

Guys, mark this down as the day I officially started worrying about Dragan. I've been one of his biggest supporters here. However his play for Croatia has been even worse than Summer League. I'm worried he doesn't have much of a competitive drive and that's going to render him too timid to succeed in the NBA. He might be more Zarko than I would have hoped. He has got to start asserting himself. He needs to shoot much better too. These 2 point games where he shoots 25% from the field are getting old.

https://twitter.com/KellanOlson/status/905429879943946240 Welp, Kellan seems to be where I'm at.

[ShelC]

Good basketball players find ways to make their presence know and be impactful regardless of who they're playing with. I'd honestly throw Bender inside at the 5spot and let him sink or swim. I think he could be more effective inside with his length.

[O_Gardino]

Guys, mark this down as the day I officially started worrying about Dragan. I've been one of his biggest supporters here. However his play for Croatia has been even worse than Summer League. I'm worried he doesn't have much of a competitive drive and that's going to render him too timid to succeed in the NBA. He might be more Zarko than I would have hoped. He has got to start asserting himself. He needs to shoot much better too. These 2 point games where he shoots 25% from the field are getting old.

https://twitter.com/KellanOlson/status/905429879943946240 Welp, Kellan seems to be where I'm at.

Bender and Chriss are both risky picks - it has always been possible that neither of them turns out to be a good NBA player. For Bender, if his shot starts falling he will be good enough. If he starts taking guys off the dribble, then he will be very good. He will never need to be an alpha guy who thrives in isolation play. He is already a pretty good defender.

I worry about our leadership. We have a ton of guys who thrive with ball movement (Bender, Chriss, Warren, Jackson, Len to a lesser degree) but we run an offense that doesn't really get guys moving or get the ball moving. Is it Watson? Is it Bledsoe? I think it's a little of both. Hopefully we see more movement this year.

[Mori Chu]

I am more optimistic than some about Bender. I just keep coming back to Bender's age and lack of experience. He's 19; he was born in freaking 1997 for Pete's sake. He got only 13 minutes a game in the 2016-17 NBA season, and that came very sporadically and came along with a serious injury. He was yanked around and had his competition (Chriss) heavily favored over him in the lineup by our coach.

I totally agree that his numbers are bad so far, and that we need to see more from him. But I just haven't seen him have much of a chance to grow and show us what he's capable of. And again, he is soooooooo young; I don't know what people expect from a 19-year-old making such huge adjustments along with recovering from injury.

I say throw him out on the floor for big minutes and let's see how much he can grow this season. If you draft 19 year old Euro big men, you have to expect that they will take some time to develop. I do think that whenever I watch Bender, the "eye test" tells me that he has a lot of little impacts on the game even if they don't lead to gaudy stats. He seems to defend well and position himself well, challenge shots well. On offense he doesn't score much but he moves the ball and screens and moves his body around, does little things. I feel like he is often doing good things out there on the floor and is a soft net positive, or at least doesn't do a lot of bad things or screw things up. He also doesn't demand/hog the ball nor chuck up shots, which is a quality we need in some of our big men given the guards and wings we have on our roster. I like having Bender out on the floor. I say give the kid a bunch of minutes and let's see what we have.

[bajanguy008]

Let me just lead with how annoyed I am that I can't find a stream for these games, thought they would be on FIBA Youtube channel smh

Anybody had better luck than me ?

[In2ition]

Let me just lead with how annoyed I am that I can't find a stream for these games, thought they would be on FIBA Youtube channel smh

Anybody had better luck than me ?

My WatchESPN feed works great, no problems or complaints.

[O_Gardino]

Weird idea just to get people talking:

If Sarver were to hire Phil Jackson as Pres of BBall Operations, who would thrive with the triangle and who would struggle?