Game 27: Phoenix Suns (16-10) @ New Orioles Pelicans (17-8) l Sunday l 1:30pm l BSAZ

[Ghost of Kleine]

The key is getting good scouts. Of course you want to be a 7-10 seed over a bottom feeder because as we all know from experience picks can bust and you can be down there for years.

On top of that, if we are suddenly tanking, Book will surely want out and it could be years (if ever) you find a player as good as him again (depending on how high you rank him on the Suns all time list).

If you are a 7-10 seed you still have a pick in the mid teens and probably can get solid player with good scouts. And you also know you have good chemistry with your young guys and they learn how to compete.

Many wanted to trade for a star because they thought our window was short with CP3 maybe having a year or two left, but the team has shown they can compete for a top seed without him, and maybe are even better, even with a guy like Payne...

Which means that our window is not 1-2 years but likely much longer with Book, Ayton, Bridges, Cam and continuing to add pieces.

reasonable perspective. I personally see variances from that perspective. But then variety and differing perspectives are good for dialogue.

I couldn't read your entire earlier post but were you advocating getting rid of Book, Ayton and Bridges and being really bad to get good players or keeping them and not expecting us to be good with them 3? it's not like they have quality supporting pieces now...when it was just them with Payne and Craig and a crap bench they were in first place.

Not at all on the bolded statement man! More the 2nd stated premise, But With us offloading the contracts of Saric, Crowder, Shamet more for a player that's good but oft injured such as Hayward in order to get back other complimentary assets and you sit Booker more throughout the 2nd half of the season at varying periods for sustainability/load management towards his reoccurring injury concerns. And Hayward similarly too. Then run the team with Payne, Lee/ Bridges/ Landale/ Ayton with much more prevalence and increased roles given to Ayton and Bridges over this time. Forcing them to advance their games faster in more featured roles as primary options instead of 3rd or 4th options? Let these bench players work through their development with greater more meaningful playing time whilst escalating their value?

With Book/Hayward sitting for stretches and Paul, Crowder, Saric, Craig gone, even with Ayton and Bridges featured, As competitive as the west is, we'll likely finish at best in the 10-12th range by the end of the season and well within lottery consideration. So you do this to glean some assets in a consolidation trade for Hayward, and to glean some assets in a Paul trade and also through the lottery for one half season of suckage whilst advancing Ayton/ Bridges in a more featured role, and escalating our current remaining bench players value through increased playing time/ larger roles escalating the perceived value of our asset cache. You come back next season with a much healthier, hungrier Book, a more advanced Ayton and Bridges, a stronger bench through forced situational development =better value assets, a new billionaire owner with deep pockets and a target towards big name free agents in 2024 in one of Siakim, Porzingis, Derozan, JAYLEN BROWN, Sabonis, etc??

[Revived]

Second one Zion clearly lowers his shoulder into him, are those no longer being called as offensive fouls anymore?

Depends who is doing it, and who is defending against it. Which is the biggest issue with officials these days. Far too many calls simply because of a player's name or reputation. A foul should be a foul no matter who it is committing it. Until that happens, the NBA is not far off from WWE. It's entertainment, but it's not always real.

No - these weren't fouls. You can't lower your shoulder, but you can go straight through the defender so long as you don't extend your arm. Zion doesn't need to go lower or extend anything, since he's stronger than everyone. If the defender's set, you can't go through them, but obviously Torrey wasn't set on those plays.

Y'all are bugging if you think those should have been called offensive fouls.

Yeah the 2nd one, Craig is moving his feet, that won’t get called as a charge. Zion just overpowers him with brutal strength.

Zion is an incredible player to watch. His ceiling as a player is a more skilled version of Giannis if he manages to stay healthy.

[Revived]

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This is definitely some bush league stuff from CP3. I can see now why Alvarado went up to him as the game was ending during the Friday game.

[Ghost of Kleine]

There's a lot I disagree with and a bunch of points I wholeheartedly agree with but I don't have the energy to respond to every point so we'll just have to agree to disagree on those points.

Ultimately, I think the difference is that you don't think we have a chance this season, basically no matter what we do and that's one assessment. I'm of the opinion that no contender is flawless because if they were, they would have no losses. But even the Celtics have lost to the Bulls twice for some reason. Some weaknesses are more exploitable than others for sure and some teams have more weaknesses than others. Where you have called out our lack of effort, urgency and mental fortitude as our biggest issue, to me that's a good thing because that's one area we can address significantly easier than trying to address a talent issue. I do think there is an element of mental exhaustion with this team. The Celtics and the Pels are playing exactly like how we started off last season, on a mission. C's came off a tough L in the Finals and are coming back for revenge just like us. Pels are coming off a tough 1st round exit (not too dissimilar to our bubble play-in disappointment) and are on a mission. I agree we have lacked that urgency, effort, mental toughness and that's something we need to address and bringing a player with hunger might invigorate this team but that doesn't even have to be a KD type talent. Kind of ironic...the exact guy who brings effort and mental toughness in loads happens to be a guy on our team who doesn't want to play.....

Ultimately, I think the difference is that you don't think we have a chance this season, basically no matter what we do and that's one assessment.

Do I think we have no chance this season no matter what we do? Well that depends upon your preferred/ expected outcome doesn't it. To be clear, I do think we have no chance whatsoever IF we're expecting an outcome of making it back to the finals and/or winning a Championship!! But I think most would agree on this perspective barring some huge miraculous trade that changes our trajectory. If you're only talking about possibly sneaking into the playoffs to again be an early exit in somewhat embarrassing fashion, Then yes, I absolutely believe in our chances of that outcome! Again outside of a somewhat wildly anomalous big move that brings back a high impact contributor.

Where you have called out our lack of effort, urgency and mental fortitude as our biggest issue, to me that's a good thing because that's one area we can address significantly easier than trying to address a talent issue.

So to you it's a "good thing" the issues that yielded the historically embarrassing outcome to the Mavs that we still haven't recovered from, and is still a very big factor behind our current collapse this season leading to our first 4 game losing streak since 2021 and leading to a complete lack of effort and urgency against lesser teams? So how do we address this issue significantly easier when it's been an issue going all the way back to last seasons' playoffs and we still haven't seemingly been able to put it behind us and recover?

The Celtics and the Pels are playing exactly like how we started off last season, on a mission. C's came off a tough L in the Finals and are coming back for revenge just like us. Pels are coming off a tough 1st round exit (not too dissimilar to our bubble play-in disappointment) and are on a mission.

And why are we as a team/ franchise not "on a mission"? Why do we not share that same hunger and determination after we so recently:
1- Got within only two games of our first championship in over half a century.
2- Or after very recently getting HISTORICALLY embarrassed and humiliated by a lesser seeded team that we were supposed to beat!
3- Or how about the motivation to help Paul (our HOF engine/ leader) his first championship before his career ends?
4- Or how about the entire league laughing at us and promoting the narrative of our team being post season pretenders, etc. Where should we pull our motivation from if these situations can't even motivate us. These athletes are paid millions of dollars to play at this level because it's the highest most competitive level in the world, Yet they can't even muster consistent effort or fight? When's the last time you saw the Celts, Bucks, Mavs, Pels, or any other contender repeatedly not even show up in games, just going through the motions with complete apathy and lack of fight whatsoever?

I agree we have lacked that urgency, effort, mental toughness and that's something we need to address and bringing a player with hunger might invigorate this team but that doesn't even have to be a KD type talent. Kind of ironic...the exact guy who brings effort and mental toughness in loads happens to be a guy on our team who doesn't want to play.....

I agree with you on here that this would help immensely! But as far as the Crowder situation goes, the whole thing is a "fools errand" as he refuses to play, and we're just sitting here catering to him whilst he's still under contract with us. It look bad from either perspective. Crowder is looking petty and unprofessional and our front office looks incompetent yet again in just paying the salary of a player whose under contract but simply refuses to be professional and play out his contract. Very unprofessional and poor attitude. And even worse optics giving too much freedom to a player under contract. So in your estimation, considering Crowder has made himself a non factor here, Who is that player we can realistically acquire with our given assets? Randle or Oubre maybe? It'll truly be interesting to see if Saver actually allows Jones (through his puppet mouthpiece Garvin) to actually bring on salary beyond this year? My money though is on "NO"! as he won't want to risk any changes that might have an averse impact to his profit percentages before the sale is finalized. Consequently you'll be fairly happy to know that means he won't at all approve a mild tank premise either. We'll operate pretty much the same as previous seasons. With minimal movements and continue riding this out until the wheels fall off!

[Ghost of Kleine]

Ayton and Bridges do very well with increased role. Suns need to figure out how to have a three headed monster where Booker doesn't marginalize these two like a lot of scorers do with other players.

We get back to our source that originally gave us so much success! By that I mean we simply employ a 2 tier style offense.
- First tier (or primary scheme):
a fastbreak "run 'n' gun" offense
Because who could really stop the trio of Book, Bridges, Ayton on the break? That'll also subsequently boost our free throw percentages too. Our shooters can flare out to the wing to pull defenders situationally.

- 2nd tier ( secondary scheme)
Inside/out offense
When we end up in a slowed down halfcourt offense we just transition to an inside out offense wherein Ayton is our primary option with Book dumping the ball inside to Ayton, and when the defenses collapse in on Ayton, our shooters will be open. Book, Payne, Johnson all flaring out on the perimeter with Bridges continually cutting to the rim for misdirection.

On the other end when the opposing team slows things down in an attempt to stop us/ slow us down, We get back to our original elite defensive chaos strategy of playing the passing lanes, being disruptive and then getting out and running again! This strategy should only further favor us with the new "clear path" rules. The fouls accrued by opposing players under this strategy also benefit us as they'll be forced to play less aggressively for fear of fouling out. This is how we reduce the oppositions physical play too. I really think this strategy/ scheme benefits the entirety of our roster personnel with maybe Saric being the only exception?

[lilfishi22]

Where you have called out our lack of effort, urgency and mental fortitude as our biggest issue, to me that's a good thing because that's one area we can address significantly easier than trying to address a talent issue.

So to you it's a "good thing" the issues that yielded the historically embarrassing outcome to the Mavs that we still haven't recovered from, and is still a very big factor behind our current collapse this season leading to our first 4 game losing streak since 2021 and leading to a complete lack of effort and urgency against lesser teams? So how do we address this issue significantly easier when it's been an issue going all the way back to last seasons' playoffs and we still haven't seemingly been able to put it behind us and recover?

No, you misinterpreted what I said. I'm saying it's a good thing because it's an issue that we can address much easier than addressing a talent issue. Talent is the hardest thing to upgrade in the NBA whereas effort and urgency is something that can be addressed internally if nothing else. Preference of course is to add a rotation player with toughness who plays with urgency. And again, the reason I say it's a good thing is because a player with toughness and plays with urgency is easier to acquire than say a Kevin Durant.

The Celtics and the Pels are playing exactly like how we started off last season, on a mission. C's came off a tough L in the Finals and are coming back for revenge just like us. Pels are coming off a tough 1st round exit (not too dissimilar to our bubble play-in disappointment) and are on a mission.

And why are we as a team/ franchise not "on a mission"? Why do we not share that same hunger and determination after we so recently:
1- Got within only two games of our first championship in over half a century.
2- Or after very recently getting HISTORICALLY embarrassed and humiliated by a lesser seeded team that we were supposed to beat!
3- Or how about the motivation to help Paul (our HOF engine/ leader) his first championship before his career ends?
4- Or how about the entire league laughing at us and promoting the narrative of our team being post season pretenders, etc. Where should we pull our motivation from if these situations can't even motivate us. These athletes are paid millions of dollars to play at this level because it's the highest most competitive level in the world, Yet they can't even muster consistent effort or fight? When's the last time you saw the Celts, Bucks, Mavs, Pels, or any other contender repeatedly not even show up in games, just going through the motions with complete apathy and lack of fight whatsoever?

I'm using the phrase "on a mission" to express an extreme level of effort and urgency, which I think we're lacking. I'm not saying we play with zero effort or urgency because clearly we do but it's not at a championship level is what I'm suggesting. I don't think we have the same hunger and determination as those two teams because they've both experienced some "firsts" which they are trying to avoid again. A Finals appearance and exit is a first for this Celtics collective and playoff experience is a first for this Pelicans group. I agree we should feel more urgency and hunger to make right our embarrassing G7 exit and it's clearly not at the level we should expect it to be. I think there is a collective exhaustion with this group from being so focused (like the Pels and C's) in getting to the top last season and then crashing out in the fashion we did. I'm not excusing them for not having the high level of hunger as these other teams but I just don't think we've quite come back together yet completely. Which to me is an issue but one that can be resolved and certainly it's still early days so it's not the end of the world is what I'm saying.

I agree we have lacked that urgency, effort, mental toughness and that's something we need to address and bringing a player with hunger might invigorate this team but that doesn't even have to be a KD type talent. Kind of ironic...the exact guy who brings effort and mental toughness in loads happens to be a guy on our team who doesn't want to play.....

I agree with you on here that this would help immensely! But as far as the Crowder situation goes, the whole thing is a "fools errand" as he refuses to play, and we're just sitting here catering to him whilst he's still under contract with us. It look bad from either perspective. Crowder is looking petty and unprofessional and our front office looks incompetent yet again in just paying the salary of a player whose under contract but simply refuses to be professional and play out his contract. Very unprofessional and poor attitude. And even worse optics giving too much freedom to a player under contract. So in your estimation, considering Crowder has made himself a non factor here, Who is that player we can realistically acquire with our given assets? Randle or Oubre maybe? It'll truly be interesting to see if Saver actually allows Jones (through his puppet mouthpiece Garvin) to actually bring on salary beyond this year? My money though is on "NO"! as he won't want to risk any changes that might have an averse impact to his profit percentages before the sale is finalized. Consequently you'll be fairly happy to know that means he won't at all approve a mild tank premise either. We'll operate pretty much the same as previous seasons. With minimal movements and continue riding this out until the wheels fall off!

I'm not suggesting we try and convince Crowder to play for us again (that ship has sailed) but I'm just frustratingly pointing out that the exact guy we need is not available to us even though he's literally on our roster. As mentioned a couple times before, I think a guy like Randle, Oubre or hell, even Kuzma might bring a new energy and a renewed hunger to this battle-weary team. These are acquirable guys for a reasonable price imo unlike KD which might cost at least one of our core guys in addition to draft capital.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Where you have called out our lack of effort, urgency and mental fortitude as our biggest issue, to me that's a good thing because that's one area we can address significantly easier than trying to address a talent issue.

So to you it's a "good thing" the issues that yielded the historically embarrassing outcome to the Mavs that we still haven't recovered from, and is still a very big factor behind our current collapse this season leading to our first 4 game losing streak since 2021 and leading to a complete lack of effort and urgency against lesser teams? So how do we address this issue significantly easier when it's been an issue going all the way back to last seasons' playoffs and we still haven't seemingly been able to put it behind us and recover?

No, you misinterpreted what I said. I'm saying it's a good thing because it's an issue that we can address much easier than addressing a talent issue. Talent is the hardest thing to upgrade in the NBA whereas effort and urgency is something that can be addressed internally if nothing else. Preference of course is to add a rotation player with toughness who plays with urgency. And again, the reason I say it's a good thing is because a player with toughness and plays with urgency is easier to acquire than say a Kevin Durant.

The Celtics and the Pels are playing exactly like how we started off last season, on a mission. C's came off a tough L in the Finals and are coming back for revenge just like us. Pels are coming off a tough 1st round exit (not too dissimilar to our bubble play-in disappointment) and are on a mission.

And why are we as a team/ franchise not "on a mission"? Why do we not share that same hunger and determination after we so recently:
1- Got within only two games of our first championship in over half a century.
2- Or after very recently getting HISTORICALLY embarrassed and humiliated by a lesser seeded team that we were supposed to beat!
3- Or how about the motivation to help Paul (our HOF engine/ leader) his first championship before his career ends?
4- Or how about the entire league laughing at us and promoting the narrative of our team being post season pretenders, etc. Where should we pull our motivation from if these situations can't even motivate us. These athletes are paid millions of dollars to play at this level because it's the highest most competitive level in the world, Yet they can't even muster consistent effort or fight? When's the last time you saw the Celts, Bucks, Mavs, Pels, or any other contender repeatedly not even show up in games, just going through the motions with complete apathy and lack of fight whatsoever?

I'm using the phrase "on a mission" to express an extreme level of effort and urgency, which I think we're lacking. I'm not saying we play with zero effort or urgency because clearly we do but it's not at a championship level is what I'm suggesting. I don't think we have the same hunger and determination as those two teams because they've both experienced some "firsts" which they are trying to avoid again. A Finals appearance and exit is a first for this Celtics collective and playoff experience is a first for this Pelicans group. I agree we should feel more urgency and hunger to make right our embarrassing G7 exit and it's clearly not at the level we should expect it to be. I think there is a collective exhaustion with this group from being so focused (like the Pels and C's) in getting to the top last season and then crashing out in the fashion we did. I'm not excusing them for not having the high level of hunger as these other teams but I just don't think we've quite come back together yet completely. Which to me is an issue but one that can be resolved and certainly it's still early days so it's not the end of the world is what I'm saying.

I agree we have lacked that urgency, effort, mental toughness and that's something we need to address and bringing a player with hunger might invigorate this team but that doesn't even have to be a KD type talent. Kind of ironic...the exact guy who brings effort and mental toughness in loads happens to be a guy on our team who doesn't want to play.....

I agree with you on here that this would help immensely! But as far as the Crowder situation goes, the whole thing is a "fools errand" as he refuses to play, and we're just sitting here catering to him whilst he's still under contract with us. It look bad from either perspective. Crowder is looking petty and unprofessional and our front office looks incompetent yet again in just paying the salary of a player whose under contract but simply refuses to be professional and play out his contract. Very unprofessional and poor attitude. And even worse optics giving too much freedom to a player under contract. So in your estimation, considering Crowder has made himself a non factor here, Who is that player we can realistically acquire with our given assets? Randle or Oubre maybe? It'll truly be interesting to see if Saver actually allows Jones (through his puppet mouthpiece Garvin) to actually bring on salary beyond this year? My money though is on "NO"! as he won't want to risk any changes that might have an averse impact to his profit percentages before the sale is finalized. Consequently you'll be fairly happy to know that means he won't at all approve a mild tank premise either. We'll operate pretty much the same as previous seasons. With minimal movements and continue riding this out until the wheels fall off!

I'm not suggesting we try and convince Crowder to play for us again (that ship has sailed) but I'm just frustratingly pointing out that the exact guy we need is not available to us even though he's literally on our roster. As mentioned a couple times before, I think a guy like Randle, Oubre or hell, even Kuzma might bring a new energy and a renewed hunger to this battle-weary team. These are acquirable guys for a reasonable price imo unlike KD which might cost at least one of our core guys in addition to draft capital.

I have to say this was a very solid response and I really can't find fault or disagreement in anything you've said here. And even though we likely won't find common ground on much of the original premises, I still have utter respect for you and your views. I'm still significantly concerned about our issues because I really do want revenge for our team against the Mavs and the Bucks that dashed our hopes and crushed our spirits significantly too. Not sure who we can realistically acquire that will fit the criteria we've been discussing.

But I do fully agree that if successful in this upcoming trade deadline experiment, we can quite possibly get back on track and recover some semblance of our true selves. Still going to keep pushing for the 2023 free agency to target that impact star level player to put us over the top and that has me excited about new billionaire ownership! The legitimate willingness to spend on higher quality higher value players will benefit us big time!

[Revived]

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[lilfishi22]

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Not a bad mindset to have. I feel like last season we've been so focused on chasing regular season success, we may have burnt ourselves out before the playoffs. Ultimately, the regular doesn't mean jack, as we've found out last season. You could be the greatest regular season team in NBA history (e.g Warriors) and still stumble at the end. We had the greatest regular season Suns team in franchise history and that didn't mean all that much in the end. We should be working towards improving the team so we can put our best foot forward in the post season

[Ghost of Kleine]

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I'm sorry! But this is just a really dumb thing to say and an even poorer mentality! Just look at how tight the standings are. We started in first place and after only a few losses are already down to 4th place. a few more losses and we could fall to being a "play in" team. NOTHING IS PROMISED!!!............................... NOTHING!!! We aren't guaranteed a playoff spot. And given all of our weaknesses, seeding absolutely matters! I wonder if the suns would promote the same mentality if season ticket holders canceled their ticket packages or fans opted to not go to games because Hey! the regular season games don't count .......right!

I do actually get what he's really trying to say here in that the suns don't care about getting a top seed because they still lost even with having one last season. But this is still really ignorant and arrogant considering all of their weaknesses and mental collapses. The habits they establish in the regular season easily carry over into the post season. And so does momentum swings with BOTH losses and wins!! Champions and real contenders don't have this mentality either! Would Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant ever say regular seasons games don't matter! Absolutely not! What a disappointing comment. How'd that kind of mentality work out for us in our playoff series after being up 2-0 ?? Again, these habits developed and nurtured through the regular season absolutely carry over into the postseason! You have to keep developing winning habits to become a winner. There's no legitimate reason to rationalize losing as not mattering!

Sure you can say your saving it for the playoffs. But are you guaranteed a playoff seed by virtue of wanting one! NO........ You have to fight to achieve in this league. All games matter! You don't get to the playoffs without going through the regular season first!

[thamadkant]

I've said this.

I don't care if Suns are 24 and zero today... because it won't matter in the playoffs or if they fall off in the second half.

Late January onwards is what matters to see of the team is getting stronger and if the system is improved.

Right now though Monty has been figured out by a few coaches