2023-24 Season Discussion and Speculation 6 - The Playoff Quest for a Title

[Son of Ra]

Read on Twitter

That tweet aged like milk lol.

[Slim Charless]

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No surprises here. If Kawhi is finally out the Mavs are clearly favorites to win that series.

Can't believe they re-signed him before waiting to see how he does in the playoffs. Paul George is way more reliable....and he isn't reliable lol.

If anything, they should've tried to trade Kawhi after he had all those games in a row without missing. Dumb team.

[Revived]

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Shots at KD/Westbrook/Harden?

[SunsRback4Good]

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Shots at KD/Westbrook/Harden?

Perkins is a little B***** I can’t stand his azz. Always talking chit about everyone. Plus he has a very low IQ no wonder ESPN hired him they hire anyone with an IQ of a peanut. F*** him.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

That tweet aged like milk lol.

[SlovenianDragon]

My opinion on this team still hasn't changed...We have to trade KD whenever we can for whatever we can...

[schnakenpopanz]

Going back 3 yars ago and looking at what happened after.
Denever lost in disappointing fashion in the second round 0-4 to the Suns.
At that time Jokic's legacy/greatness was questioned.
Entering his prime - will he be another "Lillard in Portland"-esque situatin.
They did not panic, but the critics were harsh.
They built up o what they had. They could easily trade away Murray, when his stock was low.
Gordon too and their role players were questioned.
But they kept their core.

The suns did the opposite.
I would rather had something to built on with draft picks, bridges, ayton, cam johnson than rather vet min contracts all over, no cap space, no picks left and a crazy wner who thinks there are short cuts for success.

[Sunlight]

The owner was lied to or he believed the headlines that Booker is a helluva player. So when Durant is brought along, only the sky is the limit. In reality, limited skills when it comes to winning. Now we just have to blow it up and start over. The fact that the owner has a thick wallet is a good start. A few top picks and a couple of experienced free agents, maybe that's it.

[Stix]

This season in a nutshell:

[Qwigglez]

Going back 3 yars ago and looking at what happened after.
Denever lost in disappointing fashion in the second round 0-4 to the Suns.
At that time Jokic's legacy/greatness was questioned.
Entering his prime - will he be another "Lillard in Portland"-esque situatin.
They did not panic, but the critics were harsh.
They built up o what they had. They could easily trade away Murray, when his stock was low.
Gordon too and their role players were questioned.
But they kept their core.

The suns did the opposite.
I would rather had something to built on with draft picks, bridges, ayton, cam johnson than rather vet min contracts all over, no cap space, no picks left and a crazy wner who thinks there are short cuts for success.

I think a lot of us were just fine with that too. But we got a new owner and he wanted to make a splashy entrance. I think James Jones, as criticized as he is, did a pretty good job of trying to build the team organically up until Ishbia. In fact, I think Jones maybe played it too safe in many circumstances, but he wanted to minimize risk and go for something more consistent.

Unfortunately as fans, we will have to watch Ishbia grow into his role as an owner of a NBA team and the painful lessons he will have to endure. I think if the Suns stood pat, we could have still probably traded CP3 for Beal, and we'd have a well-balanced roster with guys that enjoy playing with each other and helped build that team culture.

[sunskerr]

Going back 3 yars ago and looking at what happened after.
Denever lost in disappointing fashion in the second round 0-4 to the Suns.
At that time Jokic's legacy/greatness was questioned.
Entering his prime - will he be another "Lillard in Portland"-esque situatin.
They did not panic, but the critics were harsh.
They built up o what they had. They could easily trade away Murray, when his stock was low.
Gordon too and their role players were questioned.
But they kept their core.

The suns did the opposite.
I would rather had something to built on with draft picks, bridges, ayton, cam johnson than rather vet min contracts all over, no cap space, no picks left and a crazy wner who thinks there are short cuts for success.

I think a lot of us were just fine with that too. But we got a new owner and he wanted to make a splashy entrance. I think James Jones, as criticized as he is, did a pretty good job of trying to build the team organically up until Ishbia. In fact, I think Jones maybe played it too safe in many circumstances, but he wanted to minimize risk and go for something more consistent.

Unfortunately as fans, we will have to watch Ishbia grow into his role as an owner of a NBA team and the painful lessons he will have to endure. I think if the Suns stood pat, we could have still probably traded CP3 for Beal, and we'd have a well-balanced roster with guys that enjoy playing with each other and helped build that team culture.

He did ok. That core was simply not good enough though because he skipped on Haliburton which is still absolutely killing us. We don't know his level of involvement with drafting Ayton over Luka.

Still should not have traded off Mikal, Cam, and all the bloody picks for the then soon to be 35 KD. It's a situation where we were mediocre and then made a lateral move that cost us the future. So it's a net loss.

Think I would have just preferred to keep the picks and players, and see what was available in the offseason, keep drafting etc.. Still comes back to the issue of not drafting Luka or Haliburton, because those were the freebie superstars that Book needed next to him that could have pushed us to elite status whilst letting us keep Mikal and Cam.

Ishbia does not strike me as a learner. And quite frankly given the stuff we've read about him, and the leaked emails, he also does not strike me as a smart person. But I'm going to be honest, most billionaires do not strike me as particularly smart anyway, so changing owners is like picking from a barrel of expired fruit. The ones with brains stay out of the way and Ishbia would do well to learn this.

[Ghost of Kleine]

https://spurswire.usatoday.com/2024/04/21/san-antonio-spurs-chris-paul-rumors-team-to-watch/

Report: Spurs could be 'team to watch' in Chris Paul talks this summer

LOL at people laughing at my suggestion that Paul to the Spurs wasn't a possibility and they'd have no interest in him!
Not to rehash old discussions, but again, there were available trade options for him outside of just Washington!

[sunsbum]

Holy frick it’s funny watching the same people on this board turn on coaches, GM’s, players then turn around and praise them a year or 2 or even decades later. Why is it so hard to go back and find peoples post. Some of these know it all’s need to be held accountable.

[Ghost of Kleine]

The owner was lied to or he believed the headlines that Booker is a helluva player. So when Durant is brought along, only the sky is the limit. In reality, limited skills when it comes to winning. Now we just have to blow it up and start over. The fact that the owner has a thick wallet is a good start. A few top picks and a couple of experienced free agents, maybe that's it.

The inherent problem is that as long as our franchise continues to suffer from the delusion of us actually being a legit contender for a championship, the front orifice (intentional pun) will continue to try and ride this until the wheels come off rather than to accept the bitter reality of things and take accountability for their errs in judgement, etc. And the longer that we try to postpone things hoping for some outlier miraculous outcome to try and justify things, the more value depreciation we'll experience in any Durant exchange due to age/decline factors post 35 yrs old. We're on a very dangerous and erroding path, ignoring the signs and just blindly pushing forward:


just trying to beat/stay ahead of the odds in order to try and validate poor judgement and insulate ego driven decisions. Our very uncomfortable line in the sand comes as soon as next season by the trade deadline. And we'll either choose to take the blinders off and "bite the bullet" and take the life preserver, or keep moving forward in exponentially increasing mediocrity as the ultimate treadmill pretenders being not really good enough to legitimately contend, but also too good to land any real trajectory changing young talent. But now also having no money or assets to correct course! All the while sitting on depreciating asset value for low tier substandard outcomes going forward. That's what sucks the most about this course we're currently on.

[handsome salary]

Going back 3 yars ago and looking at what happened after.
Denever lost in disappointing fashion in the second round 0-4 to the Suns.
At that time Jokic's legacy/greatness was questioned.
Entering his prime - will he be another "Lillard in Portland"-esque situatin.
They did not panic, but the critics were harsh.
They built up o what they had. They could easily trade away Murray, when his stock was low.
Gordon too and their role players were questioned.
But they kept their core.

The suns did the opposite.
I would rather had something to built on with draft picks, bridges, ayton, cam johnson than rather vet min contracts all over, no cap space, no picks left and a crazy wner who thinks there are short cuts for success.

The problem is Booker is not Jokic. The leader/driver of the Suns success for two seasons was CP3. Booker has never been a serious contender for MVP. The Nuggets offense flows through Jokic and he can be craftily unguardable. Booker is one of the easiest max players to frustrate and or shut down. Jokic led his team to an NBA championship. Booker couldn't even up 2-0 in the Finals or with the best record in the league. Jokic's teams got better record wise each season. Booker's teams stayed at the absolute bottom four straight years.
All the moves and signings for the past two seasons are mainly based on what the FO thought Booker needed to help him and keep him happy.

[SunsRback4Good]

This season in a nutshell:

[handsome salary]

[SunsRback4Good]

Nice shoes! How much you pay for them?

[lilfishi22]

Going back 3 yars ago and looking at what happened after.
Denever lost in disappointing fashion in the second round 0-4 to the Suns.
At that time Jokic's legacy/greatness was questioned.
Entering his prime - will he be another "Lillard in Portland"-esque situatin.
They did not panic, but the critics were harsh.
They built up o what they had. They could easily trade away Murray, when his stock was low.
Gordon too and their role players were questioned.
But they kept their core.

The suns did the opposite.
I would rather had something to built on with draft picks, bridges, ayton, cam johnson than rather vet min contracts all over, no cap space, no picks left and a crazy wner who thinks there are short cuts for success.

I think a lot of us were just fine with that too. But we got a new owner and he wanted to make a splashy entrance. I think James Jones, as criticized as he is, did a pretty good job of trying to build the team organically up until Ishbia. In fact, I think Jones maybe played it too safe in many circumstances, but he wanted to minimize risk and go for something more consistent.

Unfortunately as fans, we will have to watch Ishbia grow into his role as an owner of a NBA team and the painful lessons he will have to endure. I think if the Suns stood pat, we could have still probably traded CP3 for Beal, and we'd have a well-balanced roster with guys that enjoy playing with each other and helped build that team culture.

This is the problem though. We were just.....fine with it. But nobody was particularly excited about what's to come because we knew we didn't have a true MVP level guy to really be the backbone of this franchise moving forward. As much as I love Book, he's at best a 2nd tier star and only 1st tier in certainly situations.

Denver is a very tough comparison. Jokic was 25 when he has already won MVP once and that team was on the up and up and the only thing that had slowed them down previously were injuries to MPJ and Murray. That's how we beat them 4 to nothing and it was only disappointing because he had zero help outside of a hampered MPJ.

[Frank Lee]

Lets be honest here…. We had 5+ yrs of poor
gm-ing. Very little assets carrying over from yr to yr. Wishbia didnt have a foundation to build on, yet he blindly tried to erect a monument.

You just cant whiff in successive off seasons like we did and expect anything more than what we have.