Around the NBA - 23-24 Other playoff series

[SunsRback4Good]

Clippers get a championship before the Suns...why not. Already watched the Raps, Nugs and Cavs do it.

Clippers and Pacers are next. Suns in 2037. lol

[lilfishi22]

Clippers have a bunch of iso players like Harden, Westbrook, George etc yet they still have WAY better ball movement than the Suns do.

You can’t say they are a bunch of iso players anymore. Tyron Lue changed that culture they are no longer iso players, but team players who bought into Lue’s system. I’d cut my balls off to have Lue as our coach.

The Clippers are #1 in the league in isolation. Followed by Mavs, Sixers, Celtics and then us

[starbosa10]

Lue consistently showing what a better coach he is then our guys

[lilfishi22]

Pretty even game so far between OKC and NOL.

[Frank Lee]

Pretty even game so far between OKC and NOL.

How do you not like OKC? They just play hard and what a crowd. Shades of the old madhouse. Theyd run us to into the ground. They go eight-nine deep and almost all would start on our flimsy squad

[lilfishi22]

Pretty even game so far between OKC and NOL.

How do you not like OKC? They just play hard and what a crowd. Shades of the old madhouse. Theyd run us to into the ground. They go eight-nine deep and almost all would start on our flimsy squad

I like them. They are really good.

[Frank Lee]

Best game so far. NOLA just wont go away. But no doubt…. We are seeing a changing of the guard. There is a great disturbance in the force

[lilfishi22]

Nawlins absolutely taking it to the #1 seed. Executing on both ends of the court

This might be where that experience really shine

[Frank Lee]

Man
What a lousy challenge to win

[lilfishi22]

What a ridiculous 3PT attempt by Ingram

[lilfishi22]

TOUGH

[SunsRback4Good]

CJ is not that guy!

[garrick]

Lue consistently showing what a better coach he is then our guys

Their team is a lot deeper also.

If Ishbia is serious about winning he should offer something like 30m per year and get him to jump ship

Something tells me though that Ishbia might still be too handsy and give a lot of unwanted and useless advice so maybe Lue wouldn't come here anyway.

[Revived]

Lue consistently showing what a better coach he is then our guys

Their team is a lot deeper also.

If Ishbia is serious about winning he should offer something like 30m per year and get him to jump ship

Something tells me though that Ishbia might still be too handsy and give a lot of unwanted and useless advice so maybe Lue wouldn't come here anyway.

Steve Ballmer can offer 1000x times whatever Ishbia offers. Ballmer has enough $$ to buy Ishbia and his family and the entire state of Arizona actually.

So I don’t think $$ will be a reason Lue would come to the Suns over the Clippers.

[lilfishi22]

Lue consistently showing what a better coach he is then our guys

Their team is a lot deeper also.

If Ishbia is serious about winning he should offer something like 30m per year and get him to jump ship

Something tells me though that Ishbia might still be too handsy and give a lot of unwanted and useless advice so maybe Lue wouldn't come here anyway.

Steve Ballmer can offer 1000x times whatever Ishbia offers. Ballmer has enough $$ to buy Ishbia and his family and the entire state of Arizona actually.

So I don’t think $$ will be a reason Lue would come to the Suns over the Clippers.

It's a factor if Lue and Clippers decide to part ways. If there's a mutual decision to part ways then Ish at very well throw a massive offer to him and Balmers money won't be a factor.

[Ghost of Kleine]

I believe the rumor around it was somewhat in that Lue was getting tired of the situation with Leonard and George's general lack of availability (perennially), and that there were some disagreements, discord intrnally on the direction of the franchise, personnel, etc between the coaching staff and front office. There was also mention of Lue having concerns over the potential unrestricted free agency status of Leonard and George (PO in 24-25 then unrestricted) as to him not wanting to possibly be stuck on a non contending lottery team situation if either ended up not resigning long term there.

Now Leonard did eventually extend, but George is still TBD, and Harden also. And there team is also in a very tight spot financially at least in terms of the new CBA and overall flexibility. So based on all those various factors, Lue did not extend, and the sentiment between both Lue and the front office might still be mutual to the point that they're both somewhat far apart still on the future of the team should be managed. And the belief is that these factors contributed heavily to Lue not extending his contract??

** It's also worth noting (ironically) that James Jones did in fact play for Lue on the Cavs from 2015-2017, So perhaps that connection along with Phoenixs' star power/ potential (with a new fully financially invested owner) MIGHT just sway him enough to consider Phoenix this summer???

[bwgood77]

Pretty even game so far between OKC and NOL.

How do you not like OKC? They just play hard and what a crowd. Shades of the old madhouse. Theyd run us to into the ground. They go eight-nine deep and almost all would start on our flimsy squad

I think they are really well coached.

I think the best coaches are:

Ime Udoka
Erik Spoelstra
Ty Lue
Mark Daigneault

There are some other good ones but I'd have to think more about it. I think Nick Nurse is good, but not as good as those guys. Hard for me to really judge guys like Pop, Mark Malone, etc...some of the guys who have always had huge superstars, making their jobs a lot easier.

I remember Slim wanted Udoka...and I really would have liked him, though I mentioned at the time no way Suns would hire him with the controversy stuff...of course no one talks about that now. Though he is also an offensive coach.

If we stick with our team, we need an offensive genius. A lot of people blame Vogel, but we shouldn't have hired a defensive coach without the personnel...I blame Kevin Young far more than Vogel. Young was the guy running the offense, and he did a piss poor job.

Vogel, to me, actually ended up impressive getting THIS team to like the 13th best defense. He has his issues, with rotations sometimes and stuff, but is defensive minded.

I have always thought you need a coach to really maximize your strengths and get the most out of that...instead of focusing on weaknesses while not maximizing strengths....case in point...D'Antoni..fans and people complained about defense despite it not being terrible for a run and gun team..middle of the pack...some great defenders, but then they hire Porter and the way we clobbered teams got destroyed....went back with Gentry and got back to the WCF.

I think the most well rounded best coach for vets is Lue...he got Harden to let others move the ball at times and utilize their strengths and told him he HAS to shoot more spot up 3s...and Harden said he hadn't done that since his OKC days...but he adjusted and they went from 0-5 in his first games, to winning like 18 of 20 or something and getting up near the 1 seed for a bit. And Harden had his best 3 pt shooting season for most of the year, but it went down a tad to end up his 3rd best out of 15 years. But he clearly has been playing at a higher level than he has in a while and is not as much of a ball stopper. Lue can actually coach superstars and get them to buy in.

Vogel can do that, but only with guys who can play D....like with AD, Caruso, KCP, LeBron even played his best D that year, etc. But then they trade those two great 3&D guards, Kuzma, Harrell, etc, for Westbrook and mess it up.

He was also great when he had George, David West, George Hill, Lance Stephenson, Hibbert. He had these guys playing way over their heads...best record...but of course they ran into the LeBron/Wade/Bosh Heat in the ECF.

I just don't know who that offensive coach is...D'Antoni's getting too old.

[bwgood77]

Man
What a lousy challenge to win

Oh yeah, I meant to mention that in my last post. When he challenged that I thought that was too close to call, and then on replay it was clearly off him Chet, even before you saw that last angle.

I didn't know they would completely change it the other way though. I'm not sure that is Daigneault's fault though. I imagine there are Thunder people upstairs looking at tape and there was Chet pleading it was off them.

Lucky for them they got an immediate stop.

[lilfishi22]

I believe the rumor around it was somewhat in that Lue was getting tired of the situation with Leonard and George's general lack of availability (perennially), and that there were some disagreements, discord intrnally on the direction of the franchise, personnel, etc between the coaching staff and front office. There was also mention of Lue having concerns over the potential unrestricted free agency status of Leonard and George (PO in 24-25 then unrestricted) as to him not wanting to possibly be stuck on a non contending lottery team situation if either ended up not resigning long term there.

Now Leonard did eventually extend, but George is still TBD, and Harden also. And there team is also in a very tight spot financially at least in terms of the new CBA and overall flexibility. So based on all those various factors, Lue did not extend, and the sentiment between both Lue and the front office might still be mutual to the point that they're both somewhat far apart still on the future of the team should be managed. And the belief is that these factors contributed heavily to Lue not extending his contract??

** It's also worth noting (ironically) that James Jones did in fact play for Lue on the Cavs from 2015-2017, So perhaps that connection along with Phoenixs' star power/ potential (with a new fully financially invested owner) MIGHT just sway him enough to consider Phoenix this summer???

While that might be the catalyst for Lue to move to greener pastures, I also think those same concerns could be attributed to our situation as well in the sense that there is very likely limited scope for improvement roster-wise.

[Ghost of Kleine]

I believe the rumor around it was somewhat in that Lue was getting tired of the situation with Leonard and George's general lack of availability (perennially), and that there were some disagreements, discord intrnally on the direction of the franchise, personnel, etc between the coaching staff and front office. There was also mention of Lue having concerns over the potential unrestricted free agency status of Leonard and George (PO in 24-25 then unrestricted) as to him not wanting to possibly be stuck on a non contending lottery team situation if either ended up not resigning long term there.

Now Leonard did eventually extend, but George is still TBD, and Harden also. And there team is also in a very tight spot financially at least in terms of the new CBA and overall flexibility. So based on all those various factors, Lue did not extend, and the sentiment between both Lue and the front office might still be mutual to the point that they're both somewhat far apart still on the future of the team should be managed. And the belief is that these factors contributed heavily to Lue not extending his contract??

** It's also worth noting (ironically) that James Jones did in fact play for Lue on the Cavs from 2015-2017, So perhaps that connection along with Phoenixs' star power/ potential (with a new fully financially invested owner) MIGHT just sway him enough to consider Phoenix this summer???

While that might be the catalyst for Lue to move to greener pastures, I also think those same concerns could be attributed to our situation as well in the sense that there is very likely limited scope for improvement roster-wise.

Great point!
You're absolutely correct on that assessment. So it might honestly be a bit of a long shot, but if he was willing to give it a shot, perhaps he could be influenced with a measure of creativity control inclusive to an offer along with an option for him to have an opt out clause contractually, although I'm not sure if that's ever been done before (coach having an opt out in his contract)?? But with proper incentives and creative control inclusions, he might he persuaded even on a shorter deal?