Should Suns continue with the 2 PG system or no?

[Revived]

IMO we should get rid of it and try and get a true SG (6'5 or taller and can move well without the ball). I get that it worked with Hornacek and Stockton and Hornacek and KJ but we don't live in those times anymore. There's a reason why none of the other 29 teams in the NBA are trying to do this and no, the reason's not because we're smarter than rest of the NBA.

Our options are to either keep Bledsoe and let Knight go despite giving up a likely top 10 pick and a recent top 20 draft selection for him. Or trade Bledsoe for a nice draft pick/asset and run with Knight as the PG and find a more traditional SG. Or I guess trade both and start the back court over from scratch but this seems least likely obviously.

That's my 2 cents on this topic.

Whether we like it or not, seems like Suns will continue to push this 2 PG lineup on us. However, are you for or against it?

[Saberestar]

I voted no.
I think that this 2 PG system works if you have two amazing players at those positions. If you have Paul and Westbrook you can be a contender with two PGs on your starting five, that is for sure.
Bledsoe and Knight.... I think they are not that great, their decision making is poor and their court vision is not good enough.
Hopefully we make a good trade and sign a great SG.

[bwgood77]

It all depends on the alternative of who we get. Yes, I'd rather have Curry and Thompson. But like I mentioned before, many teams play with two ballhandlers...they might not be called point guards, but Irving/LeBron, Wade/Dragic, OKC when they had Westbrook/Jackson, Harden/Beverly, Ellis/Rondo or Felton or Nelson, etc.

It really doesn't matter what you call positions...you just need the best players possible. Many people think Knight is more of a SG anyway.

But with the situation we are in right now, unless we can trade one for a stud 2, I play a protypical SG 32 minutes a game, and play each of the PGs 32 mpg.....that way we have a traditional lineup out there for 2/3 of the game, and they are only playing together for 16 minutes. And we never have a REALLY subpar backup pg out there.

[Revived]

It all depends on the alternative of who we get. Yes, I'd rather have Curry and Thompson. But like I mentioned before, many teams play with two ballhandlers...they might not be called point guards, but Irving/LeBron, Wade/Dragic, OKC when they had Westbrook/Jackson, Harden/Beverly, Ellis/Rondo or Felton or Nelson, etc.

It really doesn't matter what you call positions...you just need the best players possible. Many people think Knight is more of a SG anyway.

But with the situation we are in right now, unless we can trade one for a stud 2, I play a protypical SG 32 minutes a game, and play each of the PGs 32 mpg.....that way we have a traditional lineup out there for 2/3 of the game, and they are only playing together for 16 minutes. And we never have a REALLY subpar backup pg out there.

Yea but none of those teams had undersized backcourts though. We can't think "best players possible" and then just put a bunch of really good PGs together and expect it to work. Do you think a prime AI-Nate Robinson backcourt would work? Or a prime AI-IT backcourt? IMO, hell no.

There are prototypical SGs out there. Maybe we just need a SF that can handle the rock a little bit, your right but if you think about, other than Curry, nobody else on Warriors starting lineup is really good ball handlers. Same with the Clippers other than CP3, even though Blake has good handles for a PF. For Houston, its basically Harden and that's it. Beverly isn't a good ball handler neither is Terry at age 38.

If we can somehow get a guy like a Khris Middleton or Wes Matthews in FA or a guy like Devin Booker in the draft for the SG spot, we're good.

[letsgosuns]

It all depends on the alternative of who we get. Yes, I'd rather have Curry and Thompson. But like I mentioned before, many teams play with two ballhandlers...they might not be called point guards, but Irving/LeBron, Wade/Dragic, OKC when they had Westbrook/Jackson, Harden/Beverly, Ellis/Rondo or Felton or Nelson, etc.

It really doesn't matter what you call positions...you just need the best players possible. Many people think Knight is more of a SG anyway.

But with the situation we are in right now, unless we can trade one for a stud 2, I play a protypical SG 32 minutes a game, and play each of the PGs 32 mpg.....that way we have a traditional lineup out there for 2/3 of the game, and they are only playing together for 16 minutes. And we never have a REALLY subpar backup pg out there.

Well Ellis/Rondo really did not work out. Beverly is not the main ball handler. He is a role playing point guard in the same style that Derrick Fisher was on the Lakers. Play defense and catch and shoot. I thought Wade and Dragic looked terrible together. They did not even play well enough to make the playoffs in the East.

However, I think the bottom line is this: players are not as good today as they used to be. KJ/Hornacek and Stockton/Hornacek were so far superior compared to the majority of guards in the league today. KJ was amazing and Hornacek was a dead eye shooter. Bledsoe does not play with effort half the time and is out of control. Knight is, idk enough about Knight yet. I just know that any combination of Bledsoe/Dragic/Thomas did not work this past season. If you have proven all stars that are truly great players with high iq's, then they should be able to play together. Bledsoe, Dragic, or Thomas are neither great nor have high iq's.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like the Suns are lost. They have accumulated so many players that are mediocre and their only hope for stardom is through their rookie players or a trade. Yet if you had a star player and were going to trade him, would you trade him to the Suns? I would not. What do the Suns have that is attractive? Teams that trade their stars want top five picks. Unless the Suns get lucky in the draft lottery, they will be picking 13th. That draft pick is not enough to entice a team with a star. I have no idea what the Suns are going to do.

[bwgood77]

Yea but none of those teams had undersized backcourts though. We can't think "best players possible" and then just put a bunch of really good PGs together and expect it to work. Do you think a prime AI-Nate Robinson backcourt would work? Or a prime AI-IT backcourt? IMO, hell no.

There are prototypical SGs out there. Maybe we just need a SF that can handle the rock a little bit, your right but if you think about, other than Curry, nobody else on Warriors starting lineup is really good ball handlers. Same with the Clippers other than CP3, even though Blake has good handles for a PF. For Houston, its basically Harden and that's it. Beverly isn't a good ball handler neither is Terry at age 38.

If we can somehow get a guy like a Khris Middleton or Wes Matthews in FA or a guy like Devin Booker in the draft for the SG spot, we're good.

Hey, I told you I wasn't happy with the trade, but it is what it is and I am going to hope for the best instead of whine about it because that doesn't do anyone any good other than depress the fanbase more. McD isn't going to cave in because of complaints. He is building assets. Last year it did seem to work with a first year starter in Bledsoe with Dragic and a subpar stretch four along with Plumlee and Tucker....think about how that group sounds right now, and they were on a 55 or so winning pace before Bledsoe got injured. Was that sustainable? I don't know? Was it your ideal lineup for the ongoing future? No.

I advocated trading Bledsoe for Knight, Middleton and a top 3 protected pick when he was holding out and Milwaukee fans chimed in and said the pick would have to be more heavily protected. No one here wanted to do it. I didn't really want to do it unless Bledsoe was trying to force his way out, but it was my best idea. Back then Middleton was a bit more undiscovered, but now he is going to get a close to max deal. Yes, I wanted him but now it is unrealistic.

I don't really know why you would be so against having two pgs that can rotate and play the minutes when the other sits, and have a good big SG play 32 minutes, which is average with one of them...and do the double pg system for 16 minutes when needed. Those are the players we have. I would trade one of them for value, but dumping one for crap isn't ideal. I'd trade one for Butler, Thompson or a great SG, but probably not for Green or an avg SG. We can dream about what we want but lets think about what is realistic given the landscape of where our team is right now.

The consensus of analysts was that Wesley Matthews would be offered 4/80 before he got injured...they actually said 85, and that sounds incredibly excessive to me, but since he got injured, maybe we could get him, but who knows what he is like when he comes back? And I don't know how we carve out the cap space...if we trade the twins we don't have PFs.

[Revived]

Yea but none of those teams had undersized backcourts though. We can't think "best players possible" and then just put a bunch of really good PGs together and expect it to work. Do you think a prime AI-Nate Robinson backcourt would work? Or a prime AI-IT backcourt? IMO, hell no.

There are prototypical SGs out there. Maybe we just need a SF that can handle the rock a little bit, your right but if you think about, other than Curry, nobody else on Warriors starting lineup is really good ball handlers. Same with the Clippers other than CP3, even though Blake has good handles for a PF. For Houston, its basically Harden and that's it. Beverly isn't a good ball handler neither is Terry at age 38.

If we can somehow get a guy like a Khris Middleton or Wes Matthews in FA or a guy like Devin Booker in the draft for the SG spot, we're good.

Hey, I told you I wasn't happy with the trade, but it is what it is and I am going to hope for the best instead of whine about it because that doesn't do anyone any good other than depress the fanbase more. McD isn't going to cave in because of complaints. He is building assets. Last year it did seem to work with a first year starter in Bledsoe with Dragic and a subpar stretch four along with Plumlee and Tucker....think about how that group sounds right now, and they were on a 55 or so winning pace before Bledsoe got injured. Was that sustainable? I don't know? Was it your ideal lineup for the ongoing future? No.

I advocated trading Bledsoe for Knight, Middleton and a top 3 protected pick when he was holding out and Milwaukee fans chimed in and said the pick would have to be more heavily protected. No one here wanted to do it. I didn't really want to do it unless Bledsoe was trying to force his way out, but it was my best idea. Back then Middleton was a bit more undiscovered, but now he is going to get a close to max deal. Yes, I wanted him but now it is unrealistic.

I don't really know why you would be so against having two pgs that can rotate and play the minutes when the other sits, and have a good big SG play 32 minutes, which is average with one of them...and do the double pg system for 16 minutes when needed. Those are the players we have. I would trade one of them for value, but dumping one for crap isn't ideal. I'd trade one for Butler, Thompson or a great SG, but probably not for Green or an avg SG. We can dream about what we want but lets think about what is realistic given the landscape of where our team is right now.

The consensus of analysts was the Wes would be offered 4/80 before he got injured...they actually said 85, and that sounds incredibly excessive to me, but since he got injured, maybe we could get him, but who knows what he is like when he comes back? And I don't know how we carve out the cap space...if we trade the twins we don't have PFs.

I'm not saying dumb Bledsoe for crap. I'm saying we could possibly land a top 5 pick in the draft for him, which in my opinion at least, is far from crap. If we do that, we could keep Knight at PG and move forward with perhaps a SG in the draft at either #5 or #13 or the free agency. If we wanna blow it up and go towards developing players rather than winning, then perhaps Goodwin starts at SG.

[bwgood77]

I'm not saying dumb Bledsoe for crap. I'm saying we could possibly land a top 5 pick in the draft for him, which in my opinion at least, is far from crap. If we do that, we could keep Knight at PG and move forward with perhaps a SG in the draft at either #5 or #13 or the free agency. If we wanna blow it up and go towards developing players rather than winning, then perhaps Goodwin starts at SG.

If we could get a top 5 pick for Bledsoe I'd probably be for it, but it's not a guarantee that we'd get a better player. Towns, likely yes. Okafor, probably yes but we do have Len and he would be purely offense with no D. Russell maybe. Mudiay, high upside but could bust. Porzingis, imo might fit best other than Towns, but still, no sure thing.

But the key thing is, I can't imagine a team trading a top 5 pick for Bledsoe. Picks and rookie contracts are extremely valuable right now, and most of those teams can't turn things around immediately anyway. The only teams that might consider trading for a vet are the Knicks and Magic, and the Magic don't need a PG, and the Knicks have a good chance of getting the top pick. If they traded a high pick for Bledsoe, the fans would revolt. They are seeking a star for a pick like that. Not a guy like Bledsoe who doesn't fit the triangle anyway. You need a great leader, and good ball handling PG who is money from 3 in that system, and Melo will be primary ballhandler, like Jordan and Kobe were in the system.

[Damkac]

Honestly I don't know. It depends on what pg's you want to mix. Will at least one be able to defend against taller opponent? Will they provide good spacing? Will one of them be able to play of the ball when the other one is playing with the ball? Will it not affect chemistry negative?

I would like to trade Bled for high pick but not because I don't like 2 pg system but because it may make the team better in long term.

One thing for sure: no 3 pg system ever!

[kennydorglas]

I'd keep this system w/ 2 ballhandlers... I just dont care about 'position' anymore.
That's the essential info about it.

If we can get a taller guy who can do it (Harden, Batum, Parsons, Hayward, Diaw, Griffin, Gasol, etc.) fine. But they're hard to find.

I know they're grooming Goodwin to play in that role, Bogdan Bogdanovic can do it too.
So I'd stick w/ their plan and see what happens. We already know it's very effective and people around the league are using it like crazy after our 'cinderella' season.

[Superhuman]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/suns/status/596725252824166402[/tweet]
Traditionally could mean a lot of things but hopefully they're thinking about moving Bledsoe or Knight.

[RunDogGun]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/suns/status/596725252824166402[/tweet]
Traditionally could mean a lot of things but hopefully they're thinking about moving Bledsoe or Knight.

It might be tough to move Knight. If he signs a five year deal with us (probably the best offer he can get, and only way to get the fifth year), we can't move him for a bit.

[Revived]

Suns Still Believe In Two Point Guard System

The Phoenix Suns still believe they can run a two point guard system.

Phoenix entered last season with Eric Bledsoe, Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas, but traded away Dragic and Thomas in February. The Suns have Bledsoe and Brandon Knight on long-term contracts.

"The system is good so long as there’s buy-in from the players," Ryan McDonough said. "We value guys who can push the ball in transition, score in transition, and if that’s not there, can get into early offense and run a pick-and-roll. I think the more guys you have on the floor who can do that, the better.

"I think the issue last year was we had three pretty high-level players who all wanted the ball in their hands," McDonough said. "But again, 48 games into the year we were 28-20 despite losing a few games at the buzzer. So it’s not like [playing two point guards] didn’t work or was a disaster, as some people believe. It didn’t work as well as we would have hoped and the players didn’t accept it as well as we would’ve hoped and we had to deal with the repercussions of that."

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/238903/Suns-Still-Believe-In-Two-Point-Guard-System

[Mulhollanddrive]

I actually think it's a smart system as long as it's used appropriately.

Firstly, the back up PG usually runs about 15 minutes, and usually there's a huge drop off in quality. If you have 2 top level PGs, you can have a quality PG on floor all the time running the same set ups.

The 2nd PG (ideally both really), has to be hybrid who can play PG and spot up SG in the various line ups, and we have had that with Dragic and Knight.

You then need both guards to be above average defenders for their height, as in total they will be shorter than a traditional G line up, and a SF defender to cover any superstar wings. Bledsoe, Knight, Tucker fit that prototype.

What you get in ball handling with PGs, you compromise with pure shooting and size/defence, so you need to balance that out, and I think McDonough has said he wants more wing shooting and size.

[saintEscaton]

Ok this is a long post but...

Going back to the short lived maligned Three Headed Hydra Experiment as nearsightedly unsustainable and ugly as it was to watch we can't deny its effectiveness when used situationally in spurts with a small ball lineups. Surprisingly Dragic,Bled andIT where all in the Top 8 in seeing the largest decrease in Time of Possesion% relative to the year before.(Yet where was the ball movement?We were league bottom in per game assists at 29th) Take into consideration that when only one of them was on the court at a time they were playing alongside our bench which might have skewed the real plus or minus data negatively.However Dragic saw the least individual number of minutes (7%) as the only ballhandler but was the most efficient of them all even with a higher usage rate in the limited time. But of course he was priamrily utilized as an off the ball spot up shooter as his minutes of possesion per game also dropped by 40%. So for the most part we were rolling out 2 PGs in the "dual playmaker" system, something we will continue with the addition of Knight who will relieve Bled and share facilitating duties with him.



The problem with our halfcourt offense is Horny doesn't like to call timeouts to break the flow of the game and only seems to draw up plays when its do or die clutch time. We where second in pace because most of our offense was generated through easy transition buckets and early field goals made within ten seconds of the shot clock, So usually this means players have the go ahead to improvize on the fly even though they can't execute to the tee or react accordingly to defensive adjustments. This results in PnR sets where a big gets set to a initiate a high screen only to turn into stagnant ISO-ball possesion where Kieff posts up the PG for a turnaround midrange J after the defensive switch or the penetrating guard hits the open lane but resorts to taking a heavily contested layup because he is too indecisive to recognize the mismatch and make the tight pocket pass to a rolling finisher. (Wright was our only capable one but suffered as a result of their deliberation). There was very little popping action that extended to the 3pt line and even the occasional open look on a kickouts seemed to be passed up in favor of driving back to the basket.

[saintEscaton]

This was an informative read but probably only interesting to fellow stat geeks.http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/01/30/freelance-friday-brandon-knights-improvement/

Of course you gotta take all of this with a grain of salt contextually but its pretty alarming and indicative of BKnight's role in contributing to the Buck's abysmal offensive last season and his struggles to be an impactfull playmaker. He seems to have actually regressed from being a positively contributing facilitator to being a net negative. However last season he was Top 10 in catch and shoot 3pt shooting % and FT% at a respectable FT rate but he was still below league average in points per drive both individually and as a team becoming more reliant in the process to draw contact.(From observation was either get to the line or hoist a contested three to salvage an expriing possesion after milking the shot clock). However his decrease in efficiency can't be attributed to his marginal increase in usage rate which was actually due to his increase in turnovers. (He actually had less frontcourt touches per minutes and total time of possession of the ball). Even though he increased his assists, secondary assists and assist opprtunties per touch the Bucks were better at scoring when he was off the court(They were second worse in points per possesison when he was on the court and in fact had a higher percentage of possession that ended in an assit) When he was running the show the Bucks had a less efficient shot distribution getting to the line less frequently and attempting less close range/3pt shots.

[suns91fan]

IMO we should get rid of it and try and get a true SG (6'5 or taller and can move well without the ball). I get that it worked with Hornacek and Stockton and Hornacek and KJ but we don't live in those times anymore. There's a reason why none of the other 29 teams in the NBA are trying to do this and no, the reason's not because we're smarter than rest of the NBA.

Our options are to either keep Bledsoe and let Knight go despite giving up a likely top 10 pick and a recent top 20 draft selection for him. Or trade Bledsoe for a nice draft pick/asset and run with Knight as the PG and find a more traditional SG. Or I guess trade both and start the back court over from scratch but this seems least likely obviously.

That's my 2 cents on this topic.

Whether we like it or not, seems like Suns will continue to push this 2 PG lineup on us. However, are you for or against it?

Forget about height. You don't block/contest shots with your head, you do it with your hands. You need to look at wingspan, standing reach and vertical jump. Both Bledsoe and Knight are far above average in those things compared to the most of the guys with the same size.

[No-Man]

Knight is better if you can work him out as an off-the-ball player, secondary ballhandler because he sucks as a decision maker, he can really score and create off the dribble, but he can mess well with Bledsoe, better than Goran.

[nevetsov]

Those stats are reflective of Knight playing the role of the team's lead playmaker, yeah? Leading a first unit against another team's lead PG?

You have to expect his capability will improve if we, in essence, only require him to play the backup PG role (primarily playing catch and shoot SG in the main lineup).

I'm not yet convinced that this won't work, and am intrigued to see how it all comes together.

[NTB]

Yeah our main ball handler / playmaker had been Bledsoe and it is still going to be Bledsoe. Whenever Bledsoe can't make a play, he will give the ball to Knight and Knight's only job will be to quickly make a play with P&R or create a shot for himself. It shouldn't be hard for Knight.