Game 24, Big 3 debut: The Nets (12-10) @ Suns (13-10) | Wednesday | 7:00PM

[enigmatics]

I agree with this, and I'm not sure why yet still. My biggest question mark is still point book. I think in spurts its fine but the way we are playing its not. Now if we pushed the ball more and sped up the tempo of the offense I can see that working but the way we've turned Devin into a half court CP clone, its not happening. I just don't think we have an identity on offense...probably for a lot of reasons (Beal and injuries being one of them). I said give us 25 games to figure everything out but really it should be 25 games of healthy big 3. lots of questions around this team, and that's not necessarily a bad thing ...yet.

I'm gonna catch hell for selling this - but "Point Book" or Book in general looks great in a front running scenario or prior to the 4th quarter. When it's crunch or clutch time he's yet to truly earn his stripes. The other thing is are his assists opening up things in the lane for his teammates? Doesn't seem like it because Young has them all marooned out across the 3pt line.

It's concerning that even with Beal out they've had two elite scorers in Book/Durant yet keep pissing away winnable games like last night.

I'm not concerned about us as long as the big 3 stay healthy but if we're talking upgrades the FO absolutely must get another point guard and another 5

PG depth is abysmal and with a Goodwin injury we are completely screwed. At the 5, I dont think we have a reliable backup 5. Everytime Nurk goes out we struggle hard. Eubanks is not reliable enough and Bol Bol is a novelty player, I'd give Dwight a shot before what we throwing out there.

Ya that backup 5 spot is a huge hole on the team. Then like you said a legit backup PG - especially a guy who can competently free lance since Kevin Young literally doesn't run an offense.

[sunsbg]

Replace Beal with 35yo CP3. Are we winning the title if healthy ?

[spanishninja]

Replace Beal with 35yo CP3. Are we winning the title if healthy ?

why 35yo? he'll be 39 in the playoffs.

[bwgood77]

trading Mikal and losing the picks hurt but less stressed about trading Cam and Jae. Cam was due for an extension and we would have eaten it for a player whose health has already cost us in the playoffs. and Jae, we know how useful Jae has been since leaving us.

also, if we didn't get KD, I doubt Beal would have considered coming to us.

Beal would have come given we hired his agent. Book is the guy who initiates calling...KD is too reserved. He wouldn't have wanted to stay in Washington.

I don't miss Cam as much either but his extension plus Mikal's salary is still less than KD and we have them long term due to age.

Jae of course I don't miss, but he did have some trade value we could have utilized.

I'm saying that Beal wouldn't have been as interested in coming to a team that only has Book and Mikal as key options. I wouldn't be viewing our team's ceiling as contender without KD for sure, even if we have underachieved with him so far.

I mean, if Booker magically went to the Nets to join the twins now, would you honestly see them as a top team? I dont' think so.

I think he might find it more appealing being the 2nd guy. Certainly more appealing to Washington. I am not sure he had a lot of trade interest given his contract and teams wanting to match salaries.

Plus his agent's son was named our CEO right when Beal took over....I mean, I don't see him rejecting that trade whatsoever. Bridges is also voted as best teammate, right behind Lillard.

[Saberestar]

trading Mikal and losing the picks hurt but less stressed about trading Cam and Jae. Cam was due for an extension and we would have eaten it for a player whose health has already cost us in the playoffs. and Jae, we know how useful Jae has been since leaving us.

also, if we didn't get KD, I doubt Beal would have considered coming to us.

Beal would have come given we hired his agent. Book is the guy who initiates calling...KD is too reserved. He wouldn't have wanted to stay in Washington.

I don't miss Cam as much either but his extension plus Mikal's salary is still less than KD and we have them long term due to age.

Jae of course I don't miss, but he did have some trade value we could have utilized.

I'm saying that Beal wouldn't have been as interested in coming to a team that only has Book and Mikal as key options. I wouldn't be viewing our team's ceiling as contender without KD for sure, even if we have underachieved with him so far.

I mean, if Booker magically went to the Nets to join the twins now, would you honestly see them as a top team? I dont' think so.

Exactly.

This team is gonna be terrific when the BIG 3 play a bit more together. In this game our 5th, 6th and 7th best players were out and two of them aren't injury prone at all (Allen and Okogie). Bad luck.

Hopefully we can get back Gordon or/and Allen for the next one against the Knicks.

[sunsbg]

Replace Beal with 35yo CP3. Are we winning the title if healthy ?

why 35yo? he'll be 39 in the playoffs.

Just a hypothetical. CP3 was in consideration for MVP in '21 at age 35yo so he probably fixes a lot of issues of this team both on offense and defense.

[spanishninja]

Beal would have come given we hired his agent. Book is the guy who initiates calling...KD is too reserved. He wouldn't have wanted to stay in Washington.

I don't miss Cam as much either but his extension plus Mikal's salary is still less than KD and we have them long term due to age.

Jae of course I don't miss, but he did have some trade value we could have utilized.

I'm saying that Beal wouldn't have been as interested in coming to a team that only has Book and Mikal as key options. I wouldn't be viewing our team's ceiling as contender without KD for sure, even if we have underachieved with him so far.

I mean, if Booker magically went to the Nets to join the twins now, would you honestly see them as a top team? I dont' think so.

I think he might find it more appealing being the 2nd guy. Certainly more appealing to Washington. I am not sure he had a lot of trade interest given his contract and teams wanting to match salaries.

Plus his agent's son was named our CEO right when Beal took over....I mean, I don't see him rejecting that trade whatsoever. Bridges is also voted as best teammate, right behind Lillard.

perhaps, but I think he probably would have considered Miami more so than he did. they went to the finals and Jimmy-Bam-Beal is better than Booker-Bridges-Beal, imo.

[bwgood77]

I'm saying that Beal wouldn't have been as interested in coming to a team that only has Book and Mikal as key options. I wouldn't be viewing our team's ceiling as contender without KD for sure, even if we have underachieved with him so far.

I mean, if Booker magically went to the Nets to join the twins now, would you honestly see them as a top team? I dont' think so.

I think he might find it more appealing being the 2nd guy. Certainly more appealing to Washington. I am not sure he had a lot of trade interest given his contract and teams wanting to match salaries.

Plus his agent's son was named our CEO right when Beal took over....I mean, I don't see him rejecting that trade whatsoever. Bridges is also voted as best teammate, right behind Lillard.

perhaps, but I think he probably would have considered Miami more so than he did. they went to the finals and Jimmy-Bam-Beal is better than Booker-Bridges-Beal, imo.

I don't know about that. Did Miami even want him? They apparently don't want LaVine. I doubt they trade Herro for him, so not sure how well they could have matched contracts or if Wash would have wanted Duncan Robinson.

[enigmatics]

Replace Beal with 35yo CP3. Are we winning the title if healthy ?

No.

Teams don't defend him anymore.

[bwgood77]

Replace Beal with 35yo CP3. Are we winning the title if healthy ?

No.

Teams don't defend him anymore.

If he truly meant the 35 year old Paul, we would be good. Unfortunately he's 38 and dropped off big time at 37, so yeah, no one guards him.

[Jdiddy701]

If the Suns kept CP3, this board would have lost their damn minds. James Jones made the best trade possible at the time. We all would have done the same thing. It was a no brainer. Still is imo.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sunskerr]

Yeah I dont think we're wanting to watch another game of 38 year old Paul.

[Saberestar]

Interesting comment by Book here

"We're not going to stress it too much."

Devin Booker on losing to #Nets in #Suns Big 3 regular season debut.

Read on Twitter

[Fifii]

What a disaster. We lose this game because in our team wasn’t ball movement. One of our big three player dribble the ball and rest of team staying and looking what him doing. This is why we lose. So much iso play , to little passing.

Little is our worse player in this game. Yuta doesn't bring anything , only Jordan played well from the bench.

Good game from Metu, yeah I Know in our team weren’t many players but we should win this game. Nurkic looks like he didn’t know what happened on the floor.

[Saberestar]

I agree with this, and I'm not sure why yet still. My biggest question mark is still point book. I think in spurts its fine but the way we are playing its not. Now if we pushed the ball more and sped up the tempo of the offense I can see that working but the way we've turned Devin into a half court CP clone, its not happening. I just don't think we have an identity on offense...probably for a lot of reasons (Beal and injuries being one of them). I said give us 25 games to figure everything out but really it should be 25 games of healthy big 3. lots of questions around this team, and that's not necessarily a bad thing ...yet.

I'm gonna catch hell for selling this - but "Point Book" or Book in general looks great in a front running scenario or prior to the 4th quarter. When it's crunch or clutch time he's yet to truly earn his stripes. The other thing is are his assists opening up things in the lane for his teammates? Doesn't seem like it because Young has them all marooned out across the 3pt line.

It's concerning that even with Beal out they've had two elite scorers in Book/Durant yet keep pissing away winnable games like last night.

I'm not concerned about us as long as the big 3 stay healthy but if we're talking upgrades the FO absolutely must get another point guard and another 5

PG depth is abysmal and with a Goodwin injury we are completely screwed. At the 5, I dont think we have a reliable backup 5. Everytime Nurk goes out we struggle hard. Eubanks is not reliable enough and Bol Bol is a novelty player, I'd give Dwight a shot before what we throwing out there.

I agree about Eubanks.

IMO he has been hard to watch and when he is on the court his low basketball IQ makes things tougher for his teammates on offense.

Defensively he hasn't been a positive player neither, he looks more like a third string than a backup C.

How to replace him? IDK...I would start giving Metu his minutes. I know that he would be an smallball 5, but I prefer that over playing Eubanks again.

We can add later a C with an small trade or in the buyout market...but for now we need to replace him in the rotation.

The Suns are +49 with Nurkic on the court for the last 5 games and -50 with Eubanks on.

Read on Twitter

[lilfishi22]

Let's be honest, this team will never be a great defensive team even with defensive coach in Vogel, so only hope was they will be some offensive juggernaut. Only one game so that will change, but based on this game our offense is the stars taking contested shots and the role players taking open shots they can't hit. At least Allen and EG should help with the later.

So why did we acquire a defensive minded coach when our team isn’t constructed to play a lick of defense?


Puff is right Matt Ishbia and his sidekick Isiah Thomas (who ruined the Knicks and set them back for decades) are the culprits in this situation. Everyone was saying how cheap Sarver was are now happy with their new owner? Tick tok tick tok… it’s only a matter of time before every fan turns on Ishbia. We had a contender for next 4-5 years just needed to make minor adjustments instead decided to trade the entire farm system.

Because you don't need to be a great defensive team to win these days. You absolutely need to be a great offensive team though. The idea of Vogel is that with his defensive chops, we'll be good enough defensively while allowing the Big 3 to do their thing to take them to a top 5 (ideally top 3) offense.

No matter how I looked at that post-CP3 team, it just wasn't a contender.

[lilfishi22]

The team`s game just doesn`t have any flow at all.

I agree with this, and I'm not sure why yet still. My biggest question mark is still point book. I think in spurts its fine but the way we are playing its not. Now if we pushed the ball more and sped up the tempo of the offense I can see that working but the way we've turned Devin into a half court CP clone, its not happening. I just don't think we have an identity on offense...probably for a lot of reasons (Beal and injuries being one of them). I said give us 25 games to figure everything out but really it should be 25 games of healthy big 3. lots of questions around this team, and that's not necessarily a bad thing ...yet.

Book has been great at being Point Book. When he's on the court, we're really good. The problem is kind of two fold. One is that we still haven't been able to look consistently good when he's resting (we'll need more time with the other Big 2 to figure things out) and two, our pace is absolutely dog **** because of Point Book.

With no PG outside of Point Book, we're just not getting it done. KD by himself isn't enough to carry the rest of this team to a better than .500 record. With Beal and KD....we'll need more time to see how that'll work but the whole idea is to have contingency/redundancy but having Beal as well as KD along side of Book. So let's see how they gel

The 2nd part is probably the bigger issue because we're just so slow. There was a podcast episode I listened to like a week or so ago and they were saying we're about slightly above average in pace when Book isn't in but the moment he's in, we're getting better shots, our half court offense looks great but out pace falls off the cliff. Probably not unexpected given Book learned under notoriously slow CP3. It's part of the reason why Vogel wanted Book to take more pull up 3's (and 3's in general). Point Book is really built for clutch situations but by playing slow, we're also not maximising the number of potential offensive opportunities.

[Qwigglez]

I'm not concerned about us as long as the big 3 stay healthy but if we're talking upgrades the FO absolutely must get another point guard and another 5

PG depth is abysmal and with a Goodwin injury we are completely screwed. At the 5, I dont think we have a reliable backup 5. Everytime Nurk goes out we struggle hard. Eubanks is not reliable enough and Bol Bol is a novelty player, I'd give Dwight a shot before what we throwing out there.

I agree about Eubanks.

IMO he has been hard to watch and when he is on the court his low basketball IQ makes things tougher for his teammates on offense.

Defensively he hasn't been a positive player neither, he looks more like a third string than a backup C.

How to replace him? IDK...I would start giving Metu his minutes. I know that he would be an smallball 5, but I prefer that over playing Eubanks again.

We can add later a C with an small trade or in the buyout market...but for now we need to replace him in the rotation.

The Suns are +49 with Nurkic on the court for the last 5 games and -50 with Eubanks on.

Read on Twitter

I like the idea of giving Dwight a shot. A bit annoyed that we could have just gotten Javale McGee over the offseason for the vet's minimum as well, as I thought he was a solid role player during his short stint with the Suns. Eubanks has just been awful. He was good earlier in the season when teams didn't have enough material scouting him playing for the Suns, but now he's easily predictable.

[Qwigglez]

The team`s game just doesn`t have any flow at all.

I agree with this, and I'm not sure why yet still. My biggest question mark is still point book. I think in spurts its fine but the way we are playing its not. Now if we pushed the ball more and sped up the tempo of the offense I can see that working but the way we've turned Devin into a half court CP clone, its not happening. I just don't think we have an identity on offense...probably for a lot of reasons (Beal and injuries being one of them). I said give us 25 games to figure everything out but really it should be 25 games of healthy big 3. lots of questions around this team, and that's not necessarily a bad thing ...yet.

Book has been great at being Point Book. When he's on the court, we're really good. The problem is kind of two fold. One is that we still haven't been able to look consistently good when he's resting (we'll need more time with the other Big 2 to figure things out) and two, our pace is absolutely dog **** because of Point Book.

With no PG outside of Point Book, we're just not getting it done. KD by himself isn't enough to carry the rest of this team to a better than .500 record. With Beal and KD....we'll need more time to see how that'll work but the whole idea is to have contingency/redundancy but having Beal as well as KD along side of Book. So let's see how they gel

The 2nd part is probably the bigger issue because we're just so slow. There was a podcast episode I listened to like a week or so ago and they were saying we're about slightly above average in pace when Book isn't in but the moment he's in, we're getting better shots, our half court offense looks great but out pace falls off the cliff. Probably not unexpected given Book learned under notoriously slow CP3. It's part of the reason why Vogel wanted Book to take more pull up 3's (and 3's in general). Point Book is really built for clutch situations but by playing slow, we're also not maximising the number of potential offensive opportunities.

Book has really enjoyed the slow pace that CP3 instilled in him. I feel like that takes away something that could easily be a strength of the team and to just play faster. Last I heard the Suns were in last place for fast break points. I do think the team has been inconsistent offensively because the rotation is still not set. I think after close to 25 games it is safe to put Metu, Little in our core rotation, and have KBD in the doghouse. Yuta has been inconsistent with his shot, so I'd say play him a handful of minutes in the 1st quarter and if his shot is off bench him for someone else. Not having Eric Gordon and Grayson Allen definitely played a toll last night too.

I'd say this team desperately needs to get some continuity in order for them to develop quality team chemistry.

[lilfishi22]

Replace Beal with 35yo CP3. Are we winning the title if healthy ?

why 35yo? he'll be 39 in the playoffs.

Just a hypothetical. CP3 was in consideration for MVP in '21 at age 35yo so he probably fixes a lot of issues of this team both on offense and defense.

35yo CP3 wasn't the problem though (although he did get that shoulder stinger in the playoffs). It's 36+ CP3 that became more and more of an issue we needed to overcome. He's not fixing any issues defensively but offensively, I think we'd look more competent and not throw away 4th quarters with bad possessions.

In the end, Father Time is undefeated and if we could turn back a few years, CP3 would've been a huge asset for us.