Suns News: The Offseason

[ShelC]

No....just, no.

[Indy]

Hey guys, if you were going to get stabbed with a rusty, ten-inch, dull, serrated knife into your kidney, which kidney would you prefer?

[carey]

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

No one.

and who would struggle?

Everyone else.

[Indy]

Ven diagram of the above:

00

[Aztec Sunsfan]

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.

THIS.

I think on Atlanta and Boris Diaw when it comes to Bender. Too young, far from home, in a league entirely above what he used to know in every sense. We waited for Alex freaking Len FOUR years to "blossom" into a solid QO player (and still had people talking about extending his scholarship with a raise), but we are dismissing Bender after just one year? Come on, give him a break. The pick is already used on him, let's maximize the time available to make iut work.

[carey]

Where will his big minutes come from though? That's what I keep coming back to. I agree that he needs a good 25 minutes per game. How will he get them? Unless it's at C he's going to get most of those minutes at backup PF and even then TJ Warren might take a few away from him as well.

[Indy]

Where will his big minutes come from though? That's what I keep coming back to. I agree that he needs a good 25 minutes per game. How will he get them? Unless it's at C he's going to get most of those minutes at backup PF and even then TJ Warren might take a few away from him as well.

This is the key. He can't get better sitting on the bench, or playing spot minutes here and there. He needs the kind of commitment to playing time that Chriss got last year. If he is going to get that, it means it will have to be at C (with Tyson sitting, Alex not coming back, and Big Sauce getting most minutes there).

I don't see how it works out to get him the minutes he needs to progress (barring major injury/trade). I can't see Watson sitting Chriss. And like carey said, I expect TJ to be getting some minutes at 4 with JJ at the 3.

[Superbone]

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?

Yuck.

[Superbone]

Hey guys, if you were going to get stabbed with a rusty, ten-inch, dull, serrated knife into your kidney, which kidney would you prefer?

LOL! That about sums it up.

[Mori Chu]

Where will his big minutes come from though? That's what I keep coming back to. I agree that he needs a good 25 minutes per game. How will he get them? Unless it's at C he's going to get most of those minutes at backup PF and even then TJ Warren might take a few away from him as well.

Mostly at center, a bit of backup PF maybe. Why wouldn't we have time for him? Our center rotation isn't exactly star-studded. Chandler is transitioning into mostly a locker room / mentorship guy with spot playing duties, and Williams (though I like him) is not starter material and won't hog 30+ minutes a night. There are minutes there for Bender. And at PF he can slip in behind Chriss in many games.

[Mori Chu]

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?

I would struggle to remain a Suns fan.

[Shabazz]

I don't think we'll start the season with all 3 of Chandler, Williams and Len on the roster. Or at least we won't go too long into the season with all of them. I wouldn't be surprised to see Chandler moved in the next few weeks.

[Shabazz]

H/T to someone on the RealGM board, but it looks like RJ Hunter was working out with the team today. He's here (first pic) between DJJ and James Jones. I wonder if we're giving him a tryout or he just happens to be in town and is working out informally.
https://twitter.com/Suns/status/905530781128286208/photo/1?https://twitter.com/Suns/status/905530781128286208 It's also the first evidence of Chandler doing anything with the team this summer.

[Hermen]

I didn't watch the game but today Bender was +34 in 28 minutes (most minutes, second highest +/-) and had 10 points (4/6 fg, 2/2 3pt), 6 rebounds, 4 asists, 1 steal, 2 blocks. Granted, it was a blowout.

And not sure if someone already mentioned it, but the Bogdanovic we traded is having a very good tournament, averaging 21 points, 4.3 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 2 steals per game. He looks like the leader of the Serbian team, but they are missing a few stars (including Jokic, Teodosic, Bjelica).

[ShelC]

Bogdanovic is a player. I wish we'd have kept him, but not sure where he would've played with Booker at the 2. Maybe they could've switched off at the 2/3, would've been dynamite offensively.

[Split T]

Really curious how he plays this year in Sacramento. I never put a whole lot of value in him, but he looks like he could be a good player. Would you rather have skal/bogdon or Chriss right now? I left out papagiannis because I have zero interest in him.

[ShelC]

I'm a believer in Bogdan, Skal had a nice summer and I'm down on Chriss so I'd take those two. I never really thought we had interest in bringing Bogdan over so I didn't care that we flipped his rights. We'll probably regret it tho.

[TOO]

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

No one.

and who would struggle?

Everyone else.

I think the triangle is better than whatever Watson calls an offense. No interest in Jackson, but I would like to see how this team operated with that (or any) offensive scheme that isnt just Booker or Bled pounding it for 20 seconds.

[Ring_Wanted]

Yeah, Bogdanovic is a player. Haven't stopped lamenting that we added him to that trade. That's what made the Chriss trade a miss to me at the time. Could have been a great addition off the bench with his IQ, playmaking and shooting.

[Superbone]

Chriss' stock has gone way down due to summer league. I sure hope it can recover during the season. He was really coming on toward the end of last season so that's why his summer league regression was so painful.