Suns News: Weeks 16-18 2/10-3/1

[O_Gardino]

Beyond Ayton's obvious imporovement on defense, I am happy that our best lineup is made of five players under contract for next season.

Now, the next jump should come from adding better rotation players than those already in place, which in theory is not hard when you look at Baynes, Saric, Kaminsky, Diallo, Carter, Okobo and Jerome.

But in practice, you have less than 30M to get a starter quality PF, a backup PG and a backup C/PF.

Not wasting the 2020 1stR and getting a contributor out of it would be huge, but it remains to be seen and JJones doesn't inspire a lot of confidence to me.

Unfortunately, Baynes, Saric, Kaminsky, and Jerome were some of our biggest moves of the offseason.

[Shabazz]

My favourite Ryan McD genius ever:

I think about this often.

[Superbone]

My favourite Ryan McD genius ever:

I think about this often.

It makes him look like a fool.

[Nodack]

Beyond Ayton's obvious imporovement on defense, I am happy that our best lineup is made of five players under contract for next season.

Now, the next jump should come from adding better rotation players than those already in place, which in theory is not hard when you look at Baynes, Saric, Kaminsky, Diallo, Carter, Okobo and Jerome.

But in practice, you have less than 30M to get a starter quality PF, a backup PG and a backup C/PF.

Not wasting the 2020 1stR and getting a contributor out of it would be huge, but it remains to be seen and JJones doesn't inspire a lot of confidence to me.

Unfortunately, Baynes, Saric, Kaminsky, and Jerome were some of our biggest moves of the offseason.

Those guys ended up hurt anyway too. Saric has time to redeem himself. Unfortunately they made that movie “White men can’t jump” about him.

Baynes saved us in the beginning of the season. There was a debate whether we wanted Ayton to start when he came back or not. He was the brightest Sun until he got hurt. He has barely been in the lineup since. He got hurt, came back shortly, got hurt and just now is joining the team again. Hopefully he is healthy and stays that way long enough to find his groove again and show it wasn’t a fluke.

Saric, Kaminsky and Jerome you can keep. At least Saric and Kaminsky were actual power forwards and that alone was a step up from last year.

[3rdside]

My favourite Ryan McD genius ever:

I think about this often.

It makes him look like a fool.

I mean, I'd read quotes from posters here about the supposed Boston stitch up, and on twitter, but I don't think I ever read actual quotes from him let alone seen a video.

It's the darndest thing with McD - I saw him on Scal and Pals right after the trade deadline and, the slightly arrogant smirk aside, he comes across as extremely credible, like seriously knowledgeable about players - their statistics, physical dimensions, strengths weaknesses etc, all off the top of his head.

But like the video shows, he just doesn't understand talent - at all. Bender instead of Murray, Chriss for a shit wasteful ton of assets, Brandon Knight, Josh Jackson even Alex Len .. dude just couldn't spot it. And when identifying it is literally the most important thing in your job, it's safe to say he was in the wrong one.

[ShelC]

I have a saying that just because someone can do the job, doesn't necessarily mean they're actually good at it. McD seems to fit that profile.

[Mori Chu]

McD always had us up to something, always working on deals and trades and asset management. In a way that was exciting and felt like he was a master schemer. But we would be awful year after year and the schemes never ended up paying off. And it isn't even a Hinkie type situation where the team prospered due to his decisions but it took until after he was gone to see the results. We actively needed to change course from McD's moves to get out of the hole he had put us in.

I was one of the last McDo defenders, but I don't miss him. I do sometimes wish our current FO had a guy like McDo working with them as an assistant to help them understand various asset values and push for various trades. But putting him in charge led to bad results for years.

[iLLmatic]

My favourite Ryan McD genius ever:

I think about this often.

It makes him look like a fool.

I mean, I'd read quotes from posters here about the supposed Boston stitch up, and on twitter, but I don't think I ever read actual quotes from him let alone seen a video.

It's the darndest thing with McD - I saw him on Scal and Pals right after the trade deadline and, the slightly arrogant smirk aside, he comes across as extremely credible, like seriously knowledgeable about players - their statistics, physical dimensions, strengths weaknesses etc, all off the top of his head.

But like the video shows, he just doesn't understand talent - at all. Bender instead of Murray, Chriss for a shit wasteful ton of assets, Brandon Knight, Josh Jackson even Alex Len .. dude just couldn't spot it. And when identifying it is literally the most important thing in your job, it's safe to say he was in the wrong one.

He thought he was smarter than everybody else. He would've picked Greg Oden over Kevin Durant.

[O_Gardino]

The Suns have a few lineups that have been pretty good overall.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/te ... 0/lineups/

Big sample sizes:
Rubio, Booker, Oubre, Bridges, Ayton == +18.6
Rubio, Booker, Oubre, Saric, Baynes == +6.5 (this is essentially breaking even)
Rubio, Booker, Oubre, Saric, Kaminsky == +4.6 (this is essentially breaking even)

Smaller sample sizes:
Rubio, Booker, Oubre, Bridges, Baynes == +30.1
Rubio, Booker, Bridges, Saric, Ayton == +11.5
Rubio, Booker, Bridges, Baynes, Ayton == +10.0

We don't have any bad lineups with a ton of minutes, but we do have a ton of bad lineups.

Smaller sample sizes:
Rubio, Booker, Oubre, Saric, Ayton == -6.3
Okobo, Booker, Oubre, Bridges, Ayton == -10.9
T Johnson, Booker, Oubre, Saric, Kaminsky == -25.0

The other lineups have way too few minutes to consider.

Booker is in all but 4 of our top 20 lineups, and none of them have more than 36 minutes. We haven't had a consistent bench lineup when Booker sits.
Rubio is only in 2 lineups with a net negative.
Ayton is only in 5 of the top 20 lineups, but all 5 are in the top 9 most common. He's missed a bunch of games, but when he plays we don't experiment with his lineups much. Monty hasn't asked him to anchor a lineup of bench guys yet.

There are several lineups that have played 30ish minutes that gain or lose a point per minute. I don't think that's meaningful, I just think it's a fun coincidence of the numbers.

[ShelC]

It just never ends:

[Superbone]

At least it's only the Clippers. Maybe Leonard will sit out to compensate.

[SunsRIt]

What does the tweet say?

[O_Gardino]

What does the tweet say?

"Kelly Oubre Jr. is out for tomorrow's game due to a right knee injury. No specifics listed on the injury."

[O_Gardino]

We are 2-0 with Oubre out this season. SF is the one position where we have enough depth that an injury doesn't hurt us too much.

[Superbone]

We are 2-0 with Oubre out this season. SF is the one position where we have enough depth that an injury doesn't hurt us too much.

More time for Cam.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

We are 2-0 with Oubre out this season. SF is the one position where we have enough depth that an injury doesn't hurt us too much.

But he is our starting PF at the moment, right? It would actually means more Saric.

[ShelC]

Yea I would think Cam gets the start?

[Aztec Sunsfan]

Cam and Bridges, would leave us extremely thin at the frontcourt, I think is Saric who gets the PF spot at tip off

[Flagrant Fowl]

At least it's only the Clippers. Maybe Leonard will sit out to compensate.

The Clippers play Denver and Philly in the two games after the Suns. If I were Doc Rivers, I would sit Kawhi against the Nuggets just to mess with them a bit. That means I'd also play him and George against the Suns.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Yea I would think Cam gets the start?

I think we'll see Saric back in the starting line up. Starting Cam in the front court against George and Kawhi when it's not necessary seems very unwise to me.