Thoughts on the Suns struggles

technoviking · Post #1 » by **technoviking** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 8:14 pm

Despite the obvious personel differences I think there are a few reasons that are the cause of all of the Suns struggles this season. The demise really started in the offseason before last season, when Steve Kerr was forced to trade away Kurt Thomas and a 1st round draft pick for nothing, and Rudy Fernandez. This resulted in the Suns getting completely killed on the boards in the first half of the 2007-2008 season and the Shaq trade. Shaq has changed a lot statistically for the Suns since being brought over, there's no doubt about that, but the problem lies deeper than just that transition.

As expected, the Suns turnover rate jumped when Shaq started playing from 13.3 a game to 15 a game, which is somewhat expected due to the new offensive look that the Suns now had. However, the Suns now also forced less turnovers, which negated the affect that Shaq would have on the board and the offense rebounds that other teams were piling up while we had Shawn Marion. Teams were still shooting around the same number of field goal attempts per game and now were shooting an even higher percentage, due to the pick and roll troubles of a Shaq and Nash combination. The mismatches that are created due to the pick and roll can never been off set because Amare Stoudemire has horrible defensive instincts which can be attributed to coaching.

This season the Suns commit even more turnovers than with Shaq in the second half of last year while their opponents commit less turnovers. The rebounding advantage that Shaq brought to the Suns the last half of last season has become minimal. Resulting out of this is the huge advantage that teams have in field goal attempts per game in comparison to the field goal attempts per game that the Suns have. These can all be attributed to the massive personel and philosophy changes that the Suns have undergone in the last year. Management has been impatient with the transition and are changing things up even more for the team(J-rich trade). The Suns really haven't had an adequate amount of time to adjust and become efficient in a new system. Essentially, what this has done to the players besides confuse the hell out of them and place them outside their comfort zone is that now the players don't even believe in themselves which is a huge problem because now, it's hard to see the Suns adapting to any system.

What should the Suns do? Well, they have a few options really. It's pretty obvious that we need to make another change and a drastic one at that. We have to either trade more of the core for adequate returns (Nash, Barbosa, Stoudemire), make a coaching change, or both. The Suns really need new blood to instill some energy and freshness into the team, because honestly, its dead right now.

hunterxaz · Post #2 » by **hunterxaz** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:36 pm

Purely a coaching issue now. The Suns haven't lost their talent overnight. This falls solely on the shoulders of Kerr and Porter. Fire'em both.

Post #3 » by **Miklo** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:49 pm

Good post, but it almost sounds like you should have come to a different conclusion based on your logic. If its an issue of the Suns not having enough time to transition, another change is the opposite of what we need. I'm not convinced either way, but asubennet in his thread made similar statements about not enough time to settle in and he suggests keeping everything the same.

As I said, I'm not sure what I feel like but I think I want to keep our players around, and if anything get someone new on the bench.

Post #4 » by **rsavaj** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:35 pm

Our roaster is loaded; the problem is the management and the idiot coaching the team.

psyclone1982 · Post #5 » by **psyclone1982** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:10 pm

Also as I have said previously, when does the "The team needs time to Gel" period end. It has been nearly half a season of basketball, and we have been needing time to "Gel" since Shaq arrived nearly one whole year ago.

pidi · Post #6 » by **pidi** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:12 pm

our roster is loaded with stars - stars with a big ego.
is this our main problem. if a guy like barnes is pissed that he ain´t gettin enough mintues while his shot is totally off, man.

do we need some role players, some hustler like bo outlaw was? never had that much talent, but always played like a son of a gun.. haha.

should we trade an ego and get some role players?
big ego nr. 1: stat
big ego nr. 2: shaq
big ego nr. 3: j-rich

and so on...

technoviking · Post #7 » by **technoviking** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:21 pm

pidi wrote:our roster is loaded with stars - stars with a big ego.
is this our main problem. if a guy like barnes is pissed that he ain´t gettin enough mintues while his shot is totally off, man.

do we need some role players, some hustler like bo outlaw was? never had that much talent, but always played like a son of a gun.. haha.

should we trade an ego and get some role players?
big ego nr. 1: stat
big ego nr. 2: shaq
big ego nr. 3: j-rich

and so on...

I would say just Amare at this point.

Post #8 » by **Miklo** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:25 pm

pidi wrote:do we need some role players, some hustler like bo outlaw was? never had that much talent, but always played like a son of a gun.. haha.

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