Suns News: 2019 Off-Season

[AmareIsGod]

"I'm Kelly Oubre. Number 4. Phoenix Suns."

Number 3.

I think I heard "small forward" and typed "4", lol

That'd still be wrong as SF is 3 PF is 4!

Lol. Not a translation of SG is 2. SF is 3. PF is 4. But forward sounds like the number 4, sort off, and I was just going off my poor memory of what he said, with small forward (focus on the word forward) = 4 and why I put that in my quote, incorrectly.

[AmareIsGod]

Not in Phoenix. Here we play our small forwards at the 4

Lol. Truth.

[carey]

538 has us winning 35 next season.

[JCSunsfan]

538 has us winning 35 next season.

And finishing 12th in the WC. Tough conference.

[Cap]

Edit 2: Those Rubio highlights are dazzling. Wow!

Edit 3: Those Oubre highlights are dazzling. Wow!

Didn’t see it, but I’ll take your words for it. Nice to have players for a change who don’t mind putting in the time at the hair salon.

[Superbone]

538 has us winning 35 next season.

Welcome to the club.

[AmareIsGod]

I'd jump for joy if we win 35 games!

[SunsRIt]

Funny thing is we almost definitely will play faster than those 2004-2005 suns and shoot more 3’s. Hard to imagine any team ever being as fast as we were compared to the rest of the league back then.

I remember running circles around Shaq and Miami back in the day. I remember a specific game where it seems to me we were up 30 points at half time if I remember right.

That’s what devastated me about all the injuries in 2006. Knowing that we would have destroyed the Heat in the Finals.

2006 was the year to me too.

1994 & 1995 were the years for me. We had Barkley and there was no Jordan to contend with.

[The Bobster]

Funny thing is we almost definitely will play faster than those 2004-2005 suns and shoot more 3’s. Hard to imagine any team ever being as fast as we were compared to the rest of the league back then.

I remember running circles around Shaq and Miami back in the day. I remember a specific game where it seems to me we were up 30 points at half time if I remember right.

That’s what devastated me about all the injuries in 2006. Knowing that we would have destroyed the Heat in the Finals.

2006 was the year to me too.

1994 & 1995 were the years for me. We had Barkley and there was no Jordan to contend with.

The 1979 game 7 home loss to the Sonics in the Western Conference Finals.

Everybody knew the winner of the West was going to win the title against the depleted Bullets.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

538 has us winning 35 next season.

Welcome to the club.

Portland at 41-41? It’s that their projection on them?

[carey]

An important read. Especially for those of us who hated the off-season moves: https://arizonasports.com/story/2013598 ... etainment/

There's a link to the audio the quotes were pulled from in the piece also.

But Jones stands by the moves: Arguably it was addition by subtraction.

Jones said he could have done a better job communicating the team’s goals. Maybe that would have softened the criticism.

Phoenix viewed the losses this way: It used the open salary cap space to sign free agent point guard Ricky Rubio and re-sign forward Kelly Oubre Jr. to round out a starting unit around Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton.

“Every decision that we make, right or wrong, we have to make it with those two guys in mind, knowing the players they play with have to complement or help them or push them to be better,” Jones said.

Trading Warren and Jackson opened more nearly $18 million in salary next year alone.

“Our goal was to get a good player, a point guard. It was to preserve financial flexibility for the next few years, it was to increase the maturity of our team,” Jones said. “If you look at that (trade), Josh is a great talent, but he’s a young guy. If you look at T.J., T.J. is at a different place in his career. And at the small forward position, we have a lot of depth.

“We have Mikal (Bridges), we have Kelly, we have Cam, and whether or not (Warren would) be able to play and provide the punch that we need for him to feel appreciated and to excel, versus the opportunity for growth for the rest of our guys, it was a decision we had to make,” Jones added. “And when you couple that with the future money, it just became a decision we needed to make in the best interest of the team. That’s taking away nothing from those guys as players, but as a team those are the best transactions for us.”

Jones clearly didn’t agree with the McDonough-led front office.

McDonough pulled a quick rebuild after one summer on the job, trading for athleticism and talent by landing Eric Bledsoe, among others, to set Phoenix up for a 48-win season in 2014-15. But after that, from the Isaiah Thomas acquisition that caused a point guard squeeze to targeting talented-but-volatile personalities in the draft like Josh Jackson, things didn’t go the Suns’ way on the court.

Now, it’s clear Jones will sacrifice talent, athleticism and skill for fit. Based on the Suns’ records the past four years, he has a right to reevaluate how his team values basketball players.

“I think a lot of times people overemphasize talent,” Jones said. “They view talent in a bubble. I think we’ve had individual talent (in the past).

“I think for the first time in awhile we have collective talent, where the talent of our guys complements each other seamlessly.”

[Ring_Wanted]

I remember running circles around Shaq and Miami back in the day. I remember a specific game where it seems to me we were up 30 points at half time if I remember right.

That’s what devastated me about all the injuries in 2006. Knowing that we would have destroyed the Heat in the Finals.

2006 was the year to me too.

1994 & 1995 were the years for me. We had Barkley and there was no Jordan to contend with.

The 1979 game 7 home loss to the Sonics in the Western Conference Finals.

Everybody knew the winner of the West was going to win the title against the depleted Bullets.

Sucks to think that with a little of luck here and there, PHX could be looking at 3-5 titles.

[Superbone]

[Superbone]

[ShelC]

Caught the presser which was actually encouraging to me. Whether or not you agree with the moves, there's a plan in place to add certain kinds of players that fit together to play a certain way. I've said for years that we always had a bunch of talent that never fit together, which Jones mentioned specifically. That's why as much as was made about giving TJ away, we added (or Jones thinks so) players who were better fits overall.

And it was refreshing to hear a guy like Monty talk basketball clearly and logically. No grandiose inspirational speeches, no general philosophies or motivational quotes, no "first, we gotta turn these boys into men" nonsense. I think Monty will do well with this team early on.

[jonh]

Caught the presser which was actually encouraging to me. Whether or not you agree with the moves, there's a plan in place to add certain kinds of players that fit together to play a certain way. I've said for years that we always had a bunch of talent that never fit together, which Jones mentioned specifically. That's why as much as was made about giving TJ away, we added (or Jones thinks so) players who were better fits overall.

And it was refreshing to hear a guy like Monty talk basketball clearly and logically. No grandiose inspirational speeches, no general philosophies or motivational quotes, no "first, we gotta turn these boys into men" nonsense. I think Monty will do well with this team early on.

I can appreciate focusing more on fit--I just wish it wasn't such an extreme view, where talent appears to no matter at all in comparison to fit.

[Indy]

538 has us winning 35 next season.

Welcome to the club.

Their model predicted 26 wins last year and 47 wins for the Bucks.

[ShelC]

I think we're in a situation where the moves needed to be extreme just to start fresh and begin moving the needle. McD probably would've still been holding onto TJ waiting for a conditional 1st rounder he might not get until February because of "value". I get it, but would it have come at the cost of more confusion with roles at the start of the season and a logjam at SF? Sometimes you just gotta rip it off like a band-aid and move on.

[ShelC]

[jonh]

"We’re fully committed to their development," McDonough said. "They’re two of the youngest players in the draft, two of the three youngest guys in this year’s draft class, so we’ll be patient with them. But they have some unique skills and I think they may be ready to make an impact sooner than some people think.”

https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/ ... /86358898/