A critical Eric Bledsoe thread

[Herman4MVP]

No bash thread, just a few things I noticed about our talented young player Eric Bledsoe.

- he has this "too cool" demeanor and lacks some urgency and passion in certain situations
- he pouts and looks like a spoiled brat very often (on the court and bench)
- when we play well he engages and shows his potential, when we suck he disappears
- he jokes and chats with opponents, even if we are getting blown out (Miami/LeBron for example)
- he settles for jumpers way too often - his strength is attacking the rim
- he seems to have very limited stamina - I guess too much muscle mass, he is out of breath constantly
- he holds the ball for the first 12 seconds while doing nothing - ISH is doing a better job at pushing the tempo
- he does this stupid Chris Paul "rolling the ball down the court before picking it up" - so annoying
- he sometimes tries to draw a foul just running into 2 or 3 defenders (reminds me of James Harden)
- when not getting the foul call he just turns the ball over, plus he often just lets a defender take it away
- I am almost certain he is going to demand a MAX contract, because he thinks he deserves it, but he does not
- I am also certain we will see him and LeBron on one team sooner or later - they love each other


I noticed the body language on Goran all season - I know he would never admit it but there were a couple of instances where you could clearly see he was pi**ed off at Bledsoe. Mainly because of the mentioned slowing down of the offense and sometimes careless handling of the ball.

Hornacek took him out with around 8:45 to go in the 3rd quarter yesterday, after another careless turnover, so he was fed up with him aswell. As soon as Dragic pushed the tempo again, we played a lot better offensively.

Also, Gerald was really angry and disappointed at the end of that game - he showed it with some facial expressions and he also had some words on the bench. I noticed Bledsoe walking by him and Gerald seemed to direct some of his anger at him and maybe some other teammates. Of course, Eric didn't give a fokk, he just sat there with his same poker face, never fed up or disappointed.

When Bledsoe was hurt (again) earlier this year, Goran stepped up big time and let's finally admit it - we did not need him to win. We were fine without him, Dragic and Green were a great team on the floor.
And stop it with the "we could have needed Bledsoe tonight" and the "we lost because Eric wasn't playing". That is just not that simple - when he is playing with heart, yeah - we are a different beast on the court.

If he has another lackluster day, teams don't have to worry about the constant threat around the basket and with his slower PG style we rarely get some easy opportunities. That's why Jeff has put in Ish Smith a couple of times the last few games, because he actually is running and setting up the offense as fast as he can. Bledsoe seems too lazy to run at times.

He won us 2 or 3 games - the game winner against Utah, plus 2 games where he scored 12 and 15 in the fourth quarter (if I remember correctly) which is great but let's be honest, that is not really worth a max contract. Goran has given everything he had on the court this year. He plays with 110% every game and if he has a bad night, he still keeps trying to be helpful in any way on the court.

Archie Goodwin can provide a lot of things that Bledsoe currently does - I am not joking or trolling.
Archie gets to the rim a lot, he just needs to add some weight, but he seems to have great instincts and a lot of nice moves. He also gives a lot of effort on defense already and has this "no fear", "I want to prove I belong here" attitude on the court. Him and Bledsoe are both way too inconsistant with their long range shot, so another similarity.

=> Do I want him as a Suns player in the future? Sure, why not - maybe he will improve like Goran did and maybe he will work on his flaws and become the superstar he certainly has the potential to be.
But after his injuries and his overall performance I would not sign him at a higher price than 10million per year. Everything above should lead to a "bye bye, have fun with LeBron in Miami".

Sorry, but I have had it with players who come here and don't seem to give the full effort we should expect from an NBA player (Vince Carter and Gortat say hi) which has a nice life because of this rare opportunity.
I just know if he was on one of the "big" contending teams, he would show a LOT more.

Am I the only one who thinks that way? lol - if so, don't attack but discuss, please.

[spanishninja]

yeah I don't know what it is, he's very jekyll and hyde. one minute he fits in seemlessly with the guys, chestbumping and high fiving, next minute he seems completely uninterested. Really though, every Suns fan out agrees that Dragic is the heart of this team, and we are not really sure where Bledsoe fits in. This was the case even early on before his big injury, when he was performing very well, so it's not really a product of on-court stuff I don't think. I'd like to think that he's already "one of us", but games like last night have me questioning this big-time. Also for a guy built like a tank he is a little too fragile for my taste. Maybe I'm just comparing him to Goran, who is one tough SOB.

[BurningHeart]

Many players do the "roll before picking it up" thing. In fact, we saw that a lot in the last decade.

[Herman4MVP]

Many players do the "roll before picking it up" thing. In fact, we saw that a lot in the last decade.

Yeah, but that doesn't make it right...
Eric and Chris Paul just do it way too often and I just wanna punch somebody if I see it

[Jdiddy701]

Lol

[Zelaznyrules]

I disagree with most of the comments about Bledsoe. I agree he pounds the ball too much at times and it sometimes causes the offense to stagnate. I don't agree at all with the body language and the comments about his emotions. He isn't your typical outgoing superstar. He's not at all like Kobe, he's more like Tim Duncan. I watch every game and I never see him displaying negative emotions although he isn't always overtly positive. I see him with Goran and I see two players that genuinely like each other and like playing together.

Yes, he's going to demand the max. And yes, he's going to get it somewhere. If it's elsewhere we'll have let a borderline superstar walk for nothing. I'm a little tired of seeing that happen. We might not have had a reasonable option when we parted ways with Amare but hopefully that won't be the case here. And other than a couple of players you could make a case that all the other max players are overpaid. You still need them to compete at the highest level even if they aren't at Lebron's level.

We didn't lose to the Lakers because of Bledsoe, that was very much a team effort (or lack thereof). When Eric plays well this team shines defensively and when he's absent this team eschews defense. I hope he improves his all around offensive game but I'd keep him in Phoenix for his defense alone even at the max. We've never had trouble finding players that can score. But not since Dennis Johnson (or maybe Larry Nance) have we had a player impact our defense the way he does. Not even Jason, Cliffy or PJ have made this much of a difference. And that's why I love Bledsoe. Not because of his drives to the basket but for the impact he has on the other 4 positions defensively.

[Revived]

I don't think Bledsoe likes runnning a super fast paced offense. I think he prefers a more slowed down half court style game or moderately fast offense.

[Zelaznyrules]

I don't think Bledsoe likes runnning a super fast paced offense. I think he prefers a more slowed down half court style game or moderately fast offense.

I don't know that he dislikes running a fast paced offense but I think you're right, he's far less comfortable doing it. Dragic OTOH has taken to it with a flourish, probably because he spent some time in the Nash offense. Early in the year you could hear Jeff exhorting Bledose to pick up the pace and I though he did fine with it when he remembered to force the tempo. But he slips back to that slower pace almost automatically.

[RaisingArizona]

Counterpoint: Compare our record to when he's playing verses when he was injured.

/thread.

[Revived]

I don't think Bledsoe likes runnning a super fast paced offense. I think he prefers a more slowed down half court style game or moderately fast offense.

I don't know that he dislikes running a fast paced offense but I think you're right, he's far less comfortable doing it. Dragic OTOH has taken to it with a flourish, probably because he spent some time in the Nash offense. Early in the year you could hear Jeff exhorting Bledose to pick up the pace and I though he did fine with it when he remembered to force the tempo. But he slips back to that slower pace almost automatically.

Yea which is weird because didn't the Clippers run a pretty fast paced offense when he was in LAC?

But yea Dragic enjoys pushing the ball in tempo a lot more than EB.

[spanishninja]

Counterpoint: Compare our record to when he's playing verses when he was injured.

/thread.

I think our success with him in the lineup is more due to having reliable backup PG play than anything else. He does give us that, most of the time. Maybe he's still more comfortable running the offense against opposing second units due to most of his experience being a bench player.

[Herman4MVP]

OK, I wanted to take the time to make clear I don't mind Eric on our team - at all (if he shows the effort).
Maybe I was a bit harsh in my first post

Yes, without him our record is far worse but like spanishninja said, it has a lot to do with a rotation guy missing and the fact that we have only one slasher on the court at that time.

I just can't lose the feeling that Eric is just using this Suns team to show the league (and some of his more preferred destinations) that he is as good as his hype, while already thinking of signing for a more marketable team.

Of course he needs to do that in order to get paid for his talents, but I just don't think he wants to stay here in the long run.

As long as he is here, I just want the kind of effort Goran, Gerald and Tucker (with his 884k salary) are showing.
If only he would have shown up against the Lakers...we needed him but he did not deliver, so we are behind Dallas and Memphis once again.

[Zelaznyrules]

OK, I wanted to take the time to make clear I don't mind Eric on our team - at all (if he shows the effort).
Maybe I was a bit harsh in my first post

Yes, without him our record is far worse but like spanishninja said, it has a lot to do with a rotation guy missing and the fact that we have only one slasher on the court at that time.

I just can't lose the feeling that Eric is just using this Suns team to show the league (and some of his more preferred destinations) that he is as good as his hype, while already thinking of signing for a more marketable team.

Of course he needs to do that in order to get paid for his talents, but I just don't think he wants to stay here in the long run.

As long as he is here, I just want the kind of effort Goran, Gerald and Tucker (with his 884k salary) are showing.
If only he would have shown up against the Lakers...we needed him but he did not deliver, so we are behind Dallas and Memphis once again.

Nobody showed up in LA, that game wasn't in any way about Bledsoe. He only played the first five minutes and while he sat on the bench the Lakers went on a billion to nothing run. Look at the +/- stats and you'll see it was the Goran/Channing pairing that killed us. But there wasn't a single player on our team that came out focused. If you had to point at one player for that loss, aim the finger at Channing Frye. They left him unguarded at the three point line and everytime one of our guards penetrated they ran up against an extra big man in the lane because of it. It's hard to drive in that much traffic.

And if a backup point guard explains the difference between our record with and without Bledsoe than backup point guard is the most underpaid position in all of sports. We play defense some of the time when Eric is out there. We play no defense when he isn't. That's the difference in our results. We won a grand total of 4 games by holding an opponent under 100 points during Eric's two month absence. We've done that 5 or 6 times already in his short time back.

Eric isn't perfect and it's quite possible he leaves us for some preferred destination. If that happens I'll put on my scorned fan hat and he shall feel my wrath but until then, I think I'll just enjoy how much better we play when he plays well. Which, so far, has been far more often than not.

[bwgood77]

Many players do the "roll before picking it up" thing. In fact, we saw that a lot in the last decade.

Yeah, but that doesn't make it right...
Eric and Chris Paul just do it way too often and I just wanna punch somebody if I see it

It just depends on whether or not we need to save time on the clock. If so it's fine, but just for the hell of it it's annoying, especially if you want to be a fast paced team that catches the D off guard...in that case rolling the ball up even hurts.

[bwgood77]

I think it's working pretty well. I don't think he deserves the max, but I'd rather pay him the max than let him leave for nothing.

But if McD traded Dragic because he wants to keep Bledsoe as our pg of the future (after paying him near max or max), I wouldn't be happy AT ALL.

With just Bledsoe and no Dragic, this team would be well under 500. If Dragic had been out instead of Bledsoe for the same time frame, I think we would be well out of the playoff race.

[Revived]

Bledsoe isn't anywhere close to Dragic imo. Dragic is on a whole another level.

[JMac1]

My probem with Bledsoe is he doesn't play with fire. He desn't show me that he wants it on a consistent basis. He doesn't (no body for that matter) take the team by the tail and rally them up, helping them realize when they re jacking around liethe Laker game. He is missing major leadership/max quality characteristics.

[LukasBMW]

I agree with all your points and I have the same feelings.

But as another poster mentioned, our record with Bledsoe is great, but we were only a .500 team without him.

The biggest annoyance to me is the amount of times he flops or gets fouled while driving to the hoop and just lays on the ground while everyone else runs back on defense.

[Saberestar]

Am I the only one who thinks that way? lol - if so, don't attack but discuss, please.

Great post.
I agree with you about a ton of things that you have said ....but at the same time, with all of his imperfections,Bledsoe is a GREAT player. He is not Durant, or even Dragic right now, but he is the best player we can have right now in the NBA because we have no choices to adquire a better one. And I think he is woth more than 10M per year...probably 12-13M per year is fair enough for both sides.

[Jdiddy701]

I agree with Bledsoe at times showing like he doesn't want it but it's obvious we are legit with him in the lineup. Without him, we need Green to make unbelievable shots for us to win on a consistent basis.