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We lost this game in the Oso minutes. Lost the the lead multiple times when he was the 5. Can’t rebound, can’t score, too small to defend bigs.

Not sure what defense that was by Grayson

Heartbreaker

Will that was brutal… 1 point lead with the ball and we give up an easy 8 foot floater to Ja with no resistance and we end up with two difficult contested 3s…would have loved Book driving into the paint on those.

The last two Suns possessions were complete garbage. Attempted "hero ball" of the worst kind.

Wally_West wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 29, 2025 9:19 pm

We lost this game in the Oso minutes. Lost the the lead multiple times when he was the 5. Can’t rebound, can’t score, too small to defend bigs.

Exactly. He CANNOT BE ON THE COURT. PERIOD.

Wasted a brilliant performance by Mark Williams, CG.

Bookers heroic 3 efforts were terrible. And Grayson Allen has the heaviest feet in the league. He is so fucking bad at defense.

specialsauce wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 29, 2025 9:32 pm

Wally_West wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 29, 2025 9:19 pm

We lost this game in the Oso minutes. Lost the the lead multiple times when he was the 5. Can’t rebound, can’t score, too small to defend bigs.

Exactly. He CANNOT BE ON THE COURT. PERIOD.

Wasted a brilliant performance by Mark Williams, CG.

Bookers heroic 3 efforts were terrible. And Grayson Allen has the heaviest feet in the league. He is so fucking bad at defense.

I don't think we can overstate how bad the Ayton trade was. Not because Ayton is worth a damn, but for the prize of the trade being Grayson fucking Allen and losing Toumani in the process is just...bad.

Whiffing on two chances to send him to Indiana (trade, sign/trade) really put the wheels in motion landing us the basketball purgatory we're going to spend the next decade in.

Welcome to the Uncanny Valley Boyz era.

Book heated up too late. If you get just a mid Booker game in the first couple quarters, you probably win this game.


I get we want to bring our rookies up slowly but this just silly. We ain’t going anywhere clearly, just fucking playing them and live with the mistakes.

Booker is just completely miscast as the Sun/Moon/Stars type guy, unless you want your franchise to be bad. He'd be an excellent #2 guy who can take on the primary role in stretches, on a good team with a real top-15 level player and the right supporting pieces. Like Jamal Murray, or Jaylen Brown, or prime Khris Middleton, to take a few examples of guys from recent champions. But the organization has decided that they'll sink or swim with him. Mostly, outside of a couple of Chris Paul years, it's been sinking.

On the positive side, the Williams acquisition looks good right now, so long as he can stay healthy. Royce O'Neale might be garnering some trade value for himself. Gillespie looks like a rotation-level NBA player, a guy who can be in your top 9 and not be an embarrassment.

Everything else is pretty bad. Last year's rookies haven't improved much, if at all (Dunn), or have shown that they're not playable (Oso). This year's rookies are sitting, or playing in meaningless blowout minutes. The team doesn't look well-organized or -coached on either end of the floor. Even "hustle" and "playing hard" have waxed and waned in the game minutes that I've seen, although the overall effort probably looks better than the worst parts of last season.

It's just going to be a bad year. I didn't want to be right when I picked 22-27 wins in the poll before the season. But I think that's where it's headed.

Just terrible we couldn’t offload Grayson and Royce. Trade value only going to get worse. Just get what you can for them and let the kids play. It what it is.

At least the Dodgers lost

I really like the effort so far this season. So far, I am impressed with Ott's game management outside of some of his lineup choices. I like the heart and the physicality we play with. I respect Booker's loyalty; he is saying all the right things and deserves every penny he can get for how he has stuck by us.

With that contract comes a great amount of responsibility. It's the difference between a star and a superstar. I will get back to that in a minute.

I like the pace we have been playing with, but I think we need to fully commit to it. I don't like Grayson bringing the ball up as often. I don't like our offensive priority. I don't mind the threes, but we need to learn to go at the basket to force the defense to collapse and then kick out for the three so that we have rebounders for misses. If Gillespie could learn continue to penetrate deeper into the paint while maintaining his dribble, I think he has the IQ to be our starting PG if we want to run. I loved how he got Williams the ball at the end. It's something we need to do to keep our bigs happy, regardless of whether they are having a killer game or not.

I would like to see us at least have stretches where we go to the rim for a dunk, layup, or foul for multiple possessions in a row. Once the opponent adjusts, start kicking out for threes.

Booker is still getting warmed up, but the reality is no excuses for superstars. That time out with under 3 seconds on the shot clock and the challenge he asked for both cost us a time out we needed to get a play set up after Ja scored at the end. But without the defense, Book had the time down the floor before, it would not have mattered.

I don't think the refs have really figured out how to call our games yet. Hopefully, the whistles will get better as the season goes along.

I like Ott's timeouts in this game. I think if Book had not wasted 2, we would have been in good shape. I think we had open lanes down the wings that we should be driving into both in transition and out of the basket. I think Bokker's game is best suited for getting into the bonus earlier.

Way funner to watch so far this season.

Point Grayson is dogshit. He infuriated me multiple times late in this game.

sunshoopjunky wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 29, 2025 10:27 pm

...

Booker is still getting warmed up, but the reality is no excuses for superstars. That time out with under 3 seconds on the shot clock and the challenge he asked for both cost us a time out we needed to get a play set up after Ja scored at the end. But without the defense, Book had the time down the floor before, it would not have mattered.
...

I like Ott's timeouts in this game. I think if Book had not wasted 2, we would have been in good shape.

The short clock timeout when he went to the floor and tried to save a possession was okay. It's the kind of thing that happens a lot, and it's hard to know exactly what the clock is and it generally makes sense to try to save a possession. The challenge, though, was awful. He had made a bad defensive play on the three, was clearly in the shooter's landing area, and was never going to get it overturned. The coaches need to be okay with telling Book that he's wrong when he tries to insist on a bad challenge. It's part of the job to not just defer to the supposed superstar player every time.

And it's nice to think that, with a timeout left after the breakdown and the easy Ja bucket, the team would have run a better play. But it might've just ended up a 30-foot contested heave anyways. This generation of players that revere Kobe Bryant so much probably wouldn't want it any other way.

Booker needs to get his killer instinct back. Where did it go?

Superbone wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 29, 2025 10:42 pm

Booker needs to get his killer instinct back. Where did it go?

I don't think he's had that for several seasons now. He's got his numbers and had the odd moment like the game winner against the Knicks in the Garden a couple of seasons back, but when's the last time you can remember him being the assassin he was when CP3 was around?

This is what we needed at the 4th quarter buzzer.

SunsSince92 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 29, 2025 11:59 pm

Superbone wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 29, 2025 10:42 pm

Booker needs to get his killer instinct back. Where did it go?

I don't think he's had that for several seasons now. He's got his numbers and had the odd moment like the game winner against the Knicks in the Garden a couple of seasons back, but when's the last time you can remember him being the assassin he was when CP3 was around?

Yup.... hence why I suggested we traded him. He's peaked, and we're in no position to be paying some superstar the kind of money he's making for the product we have on the court. Should have traded him this last off season and still need to trade him. He was great for a while but he doesn't "align" with where our team is. If we're going to be sub 40 win team, why are we paying a guy the supermax? Just dumb. He's NEVER going to carry this team and won't ever be that guy.

Sucks to lose that one, especially the way it ended but you could feel it headed that way all game. We just couldn't get stops when we needed to. Even when we had the lead we could never really break it open. Ja broke our defense down and it seemed like all 5 guys were collapsing onto him leaving shooters open all game. Book was ice cold in the first half, came on in the 2nd half but it wasn't enough.

Agree that Oso (-7) can't be the only big out there. I'd try him at the 4 but he's not a 5. Give those minutes to Richards or throw Khaman out there for a few possessions. Livers (-12) is literally just running around chasing the ball and NHD (-9) is useless. We're down 2 starters with Green and Brooks so Livers and NHD hopefully won't be seeing any minutes soon. And if we need a body out there I'd rather see a 6-9 Fleming who's active and can maybe disrupt some things inside than those two.

I thought Dunn's minutes were solid, 9 and 6 and pushed the ball in transition off rebounds, attacked the basket and hit a 3. Ott went with offense down the stretch with CG, Book, Allen, Royce but maybe Dunn could've helped on the perimeter when we needed it.

I didn't mind PointGrayson just to bring the ball up and get it to Book. Better than Book initiating and passing off to Allen (Brooks when he's out there) but we're just at a disadvantage defensively with him out there against other starters. And it's impossible having him, CG and Book trying to guard on the perimeter.

Another thing that's annoying is how many dumb plays we make. A lot of low IQ plays and just bad fouls or TOs. Royce has had at least 2 touch fouls on guys in transition that are just bad fouls. Wrap them up or don't foul at all.

Williams with another strong game but it's tough him being the only big out there. Just don't know how we solve that one any time soon.

Wish we could've seen better set plays at the end of the game. Blame Book all you want but where's our coach with an end of game play to get someone open or free someone up down low for a better shot.

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