Grantland: The Suns in Year 2 and the Ghost of Channing Frye

[Christine-In-AZ]

This team won't miss frye.
Dragic will though

Team will probably avg more points WITHOUT frye this year with additions of Thomas/Warren and Green off bench instead of starting.

Not to mention the rebounding and defense will be better.

Wow! You're really all in.

More than 50 Ws? And playoffs for sure? Sounds like you're saying that.

I'd like to hear why you believe the defense and rebounding will be "better".

[aIvin adams]

This team won't miss frye.
Dragic will though

Team will probably avg more points WITHOUT frye this year with additions of Thomas/Warren and Green off bench instead of starting.

Not to mention the rebounding and defense will be better.

Wow! You're really all in.

More than 50 Ws? And playoffs for sure? Sounds like you're saying that.

I'd like to hear why you believe the defense and rebounding will be "better".

our last best hope:

[NaturalBuns]

This team won't miss frye.
Dragic will though

Team will probably avg more points WITHOUT frye this year with additions of Thomas/Warren and Green off bench instead of starting.

Not to mention the rebounding and defense will be better.

Wow! You're really all in.

More than 50 Ws? And playoffs for sure? Sounds like you're saying that.

I'd like to hear why you believe the defense and rebounding will be "better".

Just because we avg more Rebs or points doesn't make us a 50win team.

Frye avged a amazing 5rebs a game!
Markieff avged 6 coming off the bench.

Markieff defense>frye help defense.

Yeah dragic will take the hit of missing frye but he will still
Be a good player and the addition of another 20ppg guy makes that totally obsolete.
Plus I'm hoping gerald green doesn't have to start half a season.

Your overrating frye

[Christine-In-AZ]

This team won't miss frye.
Dragic will though

Team will probably avg more points WITHOUT frye this year with additions of Thomas/Warren and Green off bench instead of starting.

Not to mention the rebounding and defense will be better.

Wow! You're really all in.

More than 50 Ws? And playoffs for sure? Sounds like you're saying that.

I'd like to hear why you believe the defense and rebounding will be "better".

Just because we avg more Rebs or points doesn't make us a 50win team.

Your overrating frye

Ok. More points, better rebounding & defense, but maybe no reflection in W/L. Ok.

Channing Frye's presence & play will be sorely missed, and his absence will be reflected negatively in the W/L column. I also think the FO made the right call by letting him go.

[NaturalBuns]

Wow! You're really all in.

More than 50 Ws? And playoffs for sure? Sounds like you're saying that.

I'd like to hear why you believe the defense and rebounding will be "better".

Just because we avg more Rebs or points doesn't make us a 50win team.

Your overrating frye

Ok. More points, better rebounding & defense, but maybe no reflection in W/L. Ok.

Channing Frye's presence & play will be sorely missed, and his absence will be reflected negatively in the W/L column. I also think the FO made the right call by letting him go.

Numbers do say the defense,rebounding and maybe scoring will
Be better

[Wannabe MEP]

How do Frye's 28.2 minutes per game get distributed?

1. Tolliver
2. Markieff
3. Len
4. Plumlee
5. Small-ball four (Marcus, Tucker)

If Tolliver becomes a legitimate Frye replacement with a cheaper price-tag, these threads can go away. He takes 20+ of those minutes, and the Suns are simply a better team as our young/inexperienced guys continue to improve.

If that doesn't happen, things get complicated. If Markieff, Len, and/or Plumlee are covering a lot of Frye's minutes, the Suns are abandoning a critical element of what made things work last season. I think that could get ugly.

The other option is to go small. Which I'd support. But I think I'd be in the minority on these boards.

[lilfishi22]

How do Frye's 28.2 minutes per game get distributed?

1. Tolliver
2. Markieff
3. Len
4. Plumlee
5. Small-ball four (Marcus, Tucker)

If Tolliver becomes a legitimate Frye replacement with a cheaper price-tag, these threads can go away. He takes 20+ of those minutes, and the Suns are simply a better team as our young/inexperienced guys continue to improve.

If that doesn't happen, things get complicated. If Markieff, Len, and/or Plumlee are covering a lot of Frye's minutes, the Suns are abandoning a critical element of what made things work last season. I think that could get ugly.

The other option is to go small. Which I'd support. But I think I'd be in the minority on these boards.

+1

That's a big "if". If he can give us 80% of what Frye gave us in about 20mpg, I definitely think we're going to be OK in conjunction with the internal improvements from our younger players.

If not, then yeah, I see a few guys like Dragic and Kieff, stalling in their improvements.

[King4Day]

Something to remember, if we did sign Frye to that same deal, it likely means we lose Morris or Bledsoe.
While I don't doubt it'll hurt to lose him, signing Frye to a long term big contract would have been a mistake.

We need to focus on youth and development. If this burns us really bad though, perhaps we talk to the Pels about a Green for Anderson type swap.

[aIvin adams]

Markieff defense>frye help defense.

getting punched in the face>getting punched in the balls

[aIvin adams]

Numbers do say the defense,rebounding and maybe scoring will
Be better

these numbers say (imo) that channing frye as a suns player correlated with the suns kicking butt.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/tea ... 4/lineups/

the only lineups with over 60 minutes which have a positive +/- include Channing Frye.

lineups with the morris bros were also very good (in less time obv), whether kieff was the C (ish tucker in the lineup) or kieff was the PF (plumlee in the lineup).

i think our FO was sold that the team can move on without Frye, and I have no reason to doubt that they are making the right bet. but if Frye would have been willing to sign here for four years at 3M a year? back to the bench, kieff. bc Frye in the lineup was a proven winner. Suns almost won 50 games last yr despite an injury to their best player (with all due respect to all-NBA guard Goran Dragic).


replacing Ish Smith with Isaiah Thomas is awesome. if we can replace Miles Plumlee w/ awesome-version Alex Len that would be awesome too and we could easily be better than last year. if kieff and marcus make jumps from last year we could be better than last year.

anyway we might be better than last year and i hope we are; nonetheless, losing Frye sucks according to the numbers in that link which i'm looking at.

[lilfishi22]

Something to remember, if we did sign Frye to that same deal, it likely means we lose Morris or Bledsoe.
While I don't doubt it'll hurt to lose him, signing Frye to a long term big contract would have been a mistake.

We need to focus on youth and development. If this burns us really bad though, perhaps we talk to the Pels about a Green for Anderson type swap.

I have absolutely no doubt, in the long term, letting Frye walk was the right choice.

[TheMoochinator]

Edit: I read that whole article thinking it was Zach Lowe. Nice to see another knowledgable basketball guy at Grantland. I think their best writers are basketball guys. I like reading Zach Lowe and apparently this guy Danny Chau for pro and Titus is hilariously awesome for college and Shane Ryan is also good for college. Simmons always has stuff that can be fun but usually also frustrating and homerish to read.

Most of their other writers either bore me, are too into themselves, think they are far funnier than they actually are, or only deal with regression instead of actual real information on things (Bill Barnwell).

One of their best writers though, and he is more of a big research and usually writes a good long piece, is Jonathan Abrams. He is REALLY good. His articles are usually long, and sometimes the subjects don't sound like the would be interesting, but if you take the time to dive in they are usually quite fascinating (although I admit I don't on some of them just because the subject doesn't interest me or I don't have the time, even though I'm 95% sure I'd love it).

Are..Are you me?

[lilfishi22]

Are..Are you me?

[TheMoochinator]

I'm not hoping for this, and I could easily see the Suns with 50 wins this year, but I think people need to really consider that we might regress.

The Frye concern is valid and has already been talked about, but I think it's fair to consider that last year we greatly benefited from a perfect storm of:

Chemistry
100% Buy-in & Effort
Career years from nearly every player

Those things aren't easily replicated.

Then when you consider that the top 8 west teams are still there.
- Denver is sure to bounce back after adding Afflalo and a year of comfort with Shaw.
-Pelicans were tough last year when healthy and Davis is only getting better.
-People like to joke about the Lakers too, but if Kobe is even 75% of what he was before the injury, they're not going to be pushovers.

I hope I'm just being pessimistic, I'm so tired of missing the playoffs.

[phrazbit]

Letting Frye go was the right move, I wouldn't want that contract for the next 4 years, hell I didnt like his old contract. But I don't see a reason our PF/C play will improve without him. He was a better defender, in both man to man and help situations than Morris. Morris rebounds slightly better but he is not a particularly good rebounder, and Marcus Morris is a pretty damn bad rebounder, as is Tolliver, so I'd say its a net-loss on the glass given how poorly the replacements are on the glass.

There are some obvious regression candidates, we had career years all over the place. But I think our depth is improved so that if the two most obvious guys regress (Dragic and Green) we have guys who can make up for it.

I don't think Dragic's year was flukey, but if Bledsoe stays healthy and with the addition of Thomas we won't be leaning on him near as much. Combine that with that he already looks tired as a result of no offseason, I think his numbers will dip a little.

But I said it early, the most important thing is Bledsoe and Dragic stay healthy. With those two out there at the same time we are easily a playoff team.

[lilfishi22]

The argument for potential regression is valid.

The guys who potentially could regress:
Dragic - Loss of Frye, Bledsoe back healthy (19/5.5/48fg% w EB, 22/6.4/53fg% wo EB)
Green - replicate career year? Bledose back healthy and IT means less guard minutes
Kieff - more minutes but against better starting competition. Loss of Frye
Plumlee - career year which ended with him hitting the rookie wall. Can he elevate his game?

Lower stats =/= worse team but it could mean the players are less effective.

[Miklo]

The argument for potential regression is valid.

The guys who potentially could regress:
Dragic - Loss of Frye, Bledsoe back healthy (19/5.5/48fg% w EB, 22/6.4/53fg% wo EB)
Green - replicate career year? Bledose back healthy and IT means less guard minutes
Kieff - more minutes but against better starting competition. Loss of Frye
Plumlee - career year which ended with him hitting the rookie wall. Can he elevate his game?

Lower stats =/= worse team but it could mean the players are less effective.

So I was going to ask about the mention of Dragic's regression earlier, but I think this partially resolves my confusion.

My big question earlier was going to be what we mean by regression, because I think of regression as more of a skills-based concept (most frequently resulting from age or injury). It seems like what we're talking about here is regression of statistical production.

I agree with that; we'll probably have a few guys drop off for various reasons.

From your list, Dragic and Green's biggest concern is minutes. Dragic also got a boost from Frye, but I think the biggest question is what his role is going to be (and whether Bledsoe stays healthy as it reflects on said role). The same goes for IT if you compare to last season, and maybe to Bledsoe (for the games he played). And the minutes/playing time thing goes back to the whole reality that we are overly stacked on guards and thin in the middle.

Kieff, I'd believe could look a little worse too with the loss of Frye. He also has an opportunity to match or beat last season though, right? Feels like there's a chance this thin-in-the-middle rotation could play out into him getting a big role and continuing to develop his pro game.

Plumlee I'm just not very high on as far as overall talent, and that's coming from having followed him since the end of high school because Duke. He played better for us last season than he ever played at Duke, which gave me some hope that his game might just oddly be better suited for the professional level, but I also would be totally shocked if he is able to further elevate his game to any significant degree. He's a career serviceable backup center, if I had to take a bet right now. I do hope he proves me wrong.

So yeah, then the ultimate question is whether these guys' potential regression has an effect on our W/L. I think it does, but mostly because of what it represents. Unless we're going to go super small, our roster is just way too unbalanced. I realize I'm being kind of a Negative Nancy about this but I just look at other NBA teams and see too many holes on our side. I'm really not that negative on the team as a whole, and think they will be fun to watch. I just don't feel confident about 50 wins.

[rsavaj]

Zach Lowe and Amin Elhassan talking about Phoenix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEodJ34ano4

starting at 45:58

[bwgood77]

So I was going to ask about the mention of Dragic's regression earlier, but I think this partially resolves my confusion.

My big question earlier was going to be what we mean by regression, because I think of regression as more of a skills-based concept (most frequently resulting from age or injury). It seems like what we're talking about here is regression of statistical production.

I agree with that; we'll probably have a few guys drop off for various reasons.

From your list, Dragic and Green's biggest concern is minutes. Dragic also got a boost from Frye, but I think the biggest question is what his role is going to be (and whether Bledsoe stays healthy as it reflects on said role). The same goes for IT if you compare to last season, and maybe to Bledsoe (for the games he played). And the minutes/playing time thing goes back to the whole reality that we are overly stacked on guards and thin in the middle.

Kieff, I'd believe could look a little worse too with the loss of Frye. He also has an opportunity to match or beat last season though, right? Feels like there's a chance this thin-in-the-middle rotation could play out into him getting a big role and continuing to develop his pro game.

Plumlee I'm just not very high on as far as overall talent, and that's coming from having followed him since the end of high school because Duke. He played better for us last season than he ever played at Duke, which gave me some hope that his game might just oddly be better suited for the professional level, but I also would be totally shocked if he is able to further elevate his game to any significant degree. He's a career serviceable backup center, if I had to take a bet right now. I do hope he proves me wrong.

So yeah, then the ultimate question is whether these guys' potential regression has an effect on our W/L. I think it does, but mostly because of what it represents. Unless we're going to go super small, our roster is just way too unbalanced. I realize I'm being kind of a Negative Nancy about this but I just look at other NBA teams and see too many holes on our side. I'm really not that negative on the team as a whole, and think they will be fun to watch. I just don't feel confident about 50 wins.

When I mention regression I do so more in the context that the analytical community uses it these days, which means that if you vastly exceed expectations or past performance in a year, it is likely or at least very possible that you will regress a little back toward your past performance and they may refer to it as an outlier for a guy. I have seen someone refer to this also as the plexiglass principle, which I had to look up.

It is used a ton by basketball analytic writers and a TON by Bill Barnwell from Grantland about the NFL, so much that I think it is overkill because he never does he expert evaluaton of performance and only talks about that kind of stuff.

I think there is a place for it, but personally, I don't think it applies too much to the Suns for several reasons.

First, the Suns largely consisted of very young players that didn't really have a past performance that they vastly overachieved...they basically had no past NBA experience in starting roles with big minutes.

Second, they never played for Hornacek who vastly exceeded expectations as a coach, so his baseline has been set pretty high to begin with.

Third, Bledsoe wasn't healthy half the year.

I used to love reading all of Hollinger's stuff on espn insider, and it was well worth paying what I pay to read it, but after he left it mostly sucked. But Kevin Pelton is pretty good. He referred to the plexiglass principle with the Suns once in an espn chat. I kind of called him out on it on twitter recently saying "I know you think the Suns will regress, but..." and he responded with "It's not so much that I think they WILL actually regress in play but that the West has gotten even tougher."

If you feel like reading what people mean these days when they talk about regression and if you ever hear about the plexiglass principle, check out this article....you can probably start at about at the 5th paragraph that starts with "Six years...." It might make you think about the Suns this past year....it almost sounds like he is talking about them in the next few paragraphs even though he is talking about the 2008 Mariners.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/fanta ... principle/

[NavLDO]

It's not so much that Kieff can most likely replicate Frye's 3PT shooting and add him his offensive dynamism, it's that you can't have Frye and Kieff on the floor together any more which was one of our most productive front court duos. Tolliver will need to step up big time and hit those 3's at a decent clip if we want to maximise Kieff's potential because Kieff was terrible when he was settling for long 2's and 3's two seasons ago. We need Kieff doing his damage in the mid-range and the paint while someone like Tolliver or Mook camps out at the 3.

Kieff/Frye together was deadly.

Re: Frye vanishing for long stretches, that's true. But teams still had their guys stick to him, even if he was going through a cold stretch. Amin Elhassan said that other teams' scouting reports always had "DON'T LEAVE FRYE" sprinkled in multiple times. Even if the guy wasn't hitting his shots, he still had a gravitational pull that few bigs in the leagues have.

Even if his detractors are right and Frye is more myth than actual production, what matters is that opposing defenses bought into the myth, and as a result our team's production was much better with Channing on the floor.

And while easier said than done, Tolliver needs to build the myth of Tolliver early in the season. And he can do that with a solid preseason and early regular season play.

I know that's doubtful, but it appears Horny is starting Tolliver, and that Tolliver is providing the spacing required for Goran/EB to be successful. If he stays with that plan, and it works, then we might have one of the cheapest starting PFs in the NBA! But seriously, Horny, with playing Tolliver early and often, can build that myth, I believe.

Sucks for Kieff, as he's yet again relegated to that 6th man role, but if he gets his minutes at the 5 as well, I doubt he'll complain.

Am I looking at this the right way, or is this all a "pipe dream" and I'm missing a crucial part of Frye's game that in no way can Tolliver match?