letsgosuns wrote:bwgood77 wrote:letsgosuns wrote:The Spurs versus Clippers series was one of the best first round match ups in the history of the NBA. Almost every game was back and forth the entire time. This was basketball competition at its finest. The Suns organization should take note. Neither one of these teams have any kind of pathetically gimmicky dual point guard lineup or are undersized. The Spurs or Clippers would sweep the Suns in a best of seven series right now. Not even close. In fact, every top team in the league right now does not employ a dual point guard lineup. The only one that resembled a dual point guard lineup was the Mavs with Rondo and Ellis and that failed miserably. Suns gotta wake up already.
I agree it was a phenomenal series, but the reason they are great is because they have superstars and consensus #1 picks leading the teams. In the Clippers case, not only that consensus #1 pick, but a top 5 player in the NBA as well in Chris Paul.
I'm not saying I love the dual pg lineup, but simply saying we would be at their quality if we had a traditional SG is extremely short sighted.
I do not mean any random shooting guard brings the Suns up to elite level. I understand the need for stars. I am talking about the philosophy of how the team is utilized. If you took this year's Spurs roster and put those players in Suns uniforms with Hornacek, based on the way the Suns have done things, the team would start Tony Parker and Patty Mills and bring Danny Green off the bench. Their reasoning would be we want two ball handlers to be able to run the break. So instead of having a traditional lineup not at a disadvantage defensively, they would try to justify the pointlessness of having such a small backcourt. That is what I am saying. Hornacek purposefully wants a dual point guard system. He likes it. It makes no sense to me at all.
A big problem with what the Suns have done now by getting Knight is they have acquired another point guard in Knight that is too good to bring off the bench. He is a rising young point guard, just like Bledsoe. So the Suns immediately put themselves in a tough spot again. That situation of this guy is too good to bench, we have to play him. But then that screws over other players like Goodwin and Green who are natural shooting guards and it also messes up Bledsoe's game. Bledsoe will never fully reach his potential if he has to keep deferring to another point guard. Similarly to how Steve Nash requested a trade off the team because he was never going to get any better playing behind Jason Kidd and Kevin Johnson. Nash asked to run his own team and the Suns obliged his request. If that did not happen, he would never have become the player he was. (Btw, I am in no way comparing Bledsoe to Nash. I am only giving an example of what holding back a player's potential can do to stunt his growth.)
The actual structure of how the Suns want to build a team is the problem. They are starting their team off by saying, let's try something else that has never worked before but we want to do it anyway. The players do not like it but too bad. They will learn to adjust. (Hornacek basically said stuff like that throughout the season.) But why try to reinvent the wheel? This is common sense. Assuming talent is about equal, if Team A's players are bigger and stronger than Team B's players, who is going to win in a seven game series? The answer is obvious. Team A with the bigger and stronger players. Yet the Suns continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. They want this gimmicky, dual point guard team because it supposedly helps on the fast break. Since when does a team that solely relies on fast break points win a title. I have never seen it happen. Teams that have all stars and play the best defense in the league win championships. It is proven ever year. That is just the way it is.
Well it is kind of odd that McD did wanted to stick with the dual pg thing. Hornacek originally went with it due to the strengths of the roster he was given, and knowing it can work. I think it CAN IF they both can be elite shooters.
It worked with KJ and Hornacek because they were elite shooters. KJ not from 3, but his midrange pullup was money. Stockton and Hornacek too.
Many very good teams play with multiple ballhandlers though as the Suns did with Nash/Diaw, the Spurs with Parker, Manu, Diaw, the Heat with Wade and LeBron (AND another PG) and with Irving and LeBron. Harden is a SG who basically plays the PG position alongside another PG.
It really just boils down to the quality of the roster and how good the players are. The more guys that can handle the ball, the better, in my opinion, that way I don't cringe as often when someone brings it down the floor. But they need to be able to shoot, and size would be nice, but the 89-92 Suns were contenders and had two ballhandling guards that were 6'1 and 6'3. They ended up trading Hornacek for Barkley but really didn't fair any better (made one finals appearance but fewer WCF appearances than KJ with Hornacek). Many of the teams that knocked them out of the playoffs had more size, but it mainly boiled down, again, to more stars (Magic, Worthy, etc)...but of course they beat the Lakers in 5 in 90.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... O-LAL.html
