Game Day: Trail Blazers (8-17) @ Suns (13-11), Sun 11/15/24

[ShelC]

This team is going nowhere fast.

[Wally_West]

Nurk and a 2nd to WAS for Jona and Bey(out for year)



Call it in

[TOO]

Robert Williams would be so great on this team

If his knees were healo, absolutely.

Robert Williams is injured a lot…sounds like he’d fit right in. Call the trade in.

I think he's got the same thing Brandon Roy has, or very little degenerating cartilage left in his knees, he'll never be healthy.

I’d take that over this version of Nurk everyday.

Not enjoying Nurk getting bodied by a rookie?

[Wally_West]

[Cap]

Credit where it’s due: Nurk has 14 boards, which is as much as the next three Suns combined.

[Wally_West]

Credit where it’s due: Nurk has 14 boards, which is as much as the next three Suns combined.

Yep. He’s playing solid in the 4th… and if I’m Portland, I’m thinking he’d be perfect backup and mentor Clingan.

I’m trading Robert Williams and Banton for him straight up.

[ShelC]

Nurk was sleepwalking most of the game. No real urgency from the team in general, played to the level of the competition.

[Wally_West]

Bummer Tyus is just a rental.

[JeremyG]

Nurk and 3 2nds for Robert Williams and Banton.


Call it in.

Too much for a guy who plays 12 min.

…per season?

[Split T]

Bummer Tyus is just a rental.

Can’t Ishbia give him like a 0 down, 0% mortgage on a 10 million dollar home

[specialsauce]

The blazers are just lucky the Himmy trade hasn't been finalized yet

[Mori Chu]

Tyus has been playing really well lately. I like him a lot. Not a great defender but I love his court vision and passing and playmaking. We might develop a functional offense by the end of the year if we actually ran it through him.

[Split T]

I love Tyus and he does a great job, but I understand why we don’t play him like we did CP3…Tyus doesn’t draw the defense to him like that. The best way to get easy shots is to force the defense to put two people on the ball and Tyus doesn’t demand that…Book and KD do, so the ball is going to end up in their hands. We can run them through off ball sets, but running Tyus PNR sets over and over just isn’t going to happen and would be too easy to defend imo.

[ShelC]

Postgame Quotes and Videos

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[ShelC]

Nothing over the past two games against bottom feeders has me convinced this team is capable of any noise. Even with KD, we're not good enough defensively or have any kind of reliable offense possession after possession. We don't get stops, we hope the other team misses. We either make our jumpers or we don't. Nurk looks like he's done. Good 4th qtr, but he just look slower than ever and not really engaged most of the game. Disappointed with KD continuing to shoot 3s despite being so off. I know he's KD so you want him to keep shooting, but it's all 1on1 with him. We never work him in the post or get him going downhill. When he's leading the 2nd unit, it's just 1on5. Even Bud called a TO when the offense stalled after he held the ball for about 8 seconds and passed it off to Allen with the rest of the team standing around. "Random offense" works in the flow of the game but in the halfcourt, you need something reliable.

Looks like Book is hitting his stride and Royce is the kind of roleplayer we need with the starters. Whether it's Beal or Jimmy (theoretically), I think we're better with a 3+D roleplaying JYD than another "star" in the lineup.

I liked how our bench played and think there's just a better balance with this overall group of Allen, Dunn, Monte and Plum/Oso. If we could pull back a bit more on KD and Book and bump up Monte/Allen/Monte's minutes it'd be that much better.

[Ring_Wanted]

Bummer Tyus is just a rental.

Can’t Ishbia give him like a 0 down, 0% mortgage on a 10 million dollar home

Indeed probably a rental, but with an owner who wants to spend many things are possible. All will depend on what the market is for Jones after this season, namely if there is a bag for him larger than the MLE. If he can't find that, another 1 year min contract with the Suns gives Jones early Bird rights, so after next year, entering his age 30 season he can sign for 105% of the average salary ($11.9M in 2023) over 4 years, for a total of something north of $50M/4. In comparison, the Non-Taxpayer MLE starts at $12,8M, so not that big of a gap, if you are willing to disregard the first year of course (wink wink).

[wpmiller42]

I love Tyus and he does a great job, but I understand why we don’t play him like we did CP3…Tyus doesn’t draw the defense to him like that. The best way to get easy shots is to force the defense to put two people on the ball and Tyus doesn’t demand that…Book and KD do, so the ball is going to end up in their hands. We can run them through off ball sets, but running Tyus PNR sets over and over just isn’t going to happen and would be too easy to defend imo.

I get the intent behind that, but I think we can get creative and use an offense that caters to our personnel better. Nurk sets great screens... so him and Tyus should be in more Spain pick and roll formations and Horns sets. There's no reason to let 10 seconds go off the shot clock because Book has to navigate a double team.

I think we're getting too trapped in analytics telling us what we should be doing instead of looking at our personnel and finding an offense to highlight their strengths.

And I'd love to see Beal come back (if we keep him) in a 6th man type role and let him get his rhythm against 2nd tier defenders with the offense focused on him.

[Split T]

I definitely think Beal off the bench makes sense. Royce in his place has much better success.

I do think we can run some Spain pnr with Tyus/Nurk. I’m not opposed to more Tyus…just don’t think it can be the foundation of our offense.

[Superbone]

We all agree about Beal off the bench. It has the secondary benefit of maybe making him more apt to approve a trade.

[Cap]

I like the idea, if Beal can still be considered “Big 3,” of not playing the Big 3 together much if at all in the first three quarters. That way we can keep two of them on the floor at all times and still have them only average about 24 minutes each through three.

Our “bench lineup” would have KD/Book, Beal, Plum, Dunn/Oso and Grayson/Monte. That’s four bench players, but a passable starting lineup that should do well against most benches. Works similarly if you swap Royce and Dunn. Hold off on the change until you know who the fifth starter is going to be; we don’t want a revolving door.