Run and Gun or Balanced?

[mybloodisorange]

Lou's quickness didnt make him a better defender or rebounder than Morris will be; and his offense sucked even with all of that quickness. I judge players by what they do on the court not their combine stats. Thats like saying Barkley wasnt good because he was short for a power forward.

Nothing matters but results.

[thamadkant]

Sometimes I do wish the league had some sort of under the table deal... Previous seasons have raised my suspicions and other questionable decisions by any authority either on court or at the office...

If that's the case I do hope this draft season the league do the Suns a favour for once... Please pick the Suns ping pong ball for the No.1 pick.

I agree whole heatedly with the balance approach... Spurs have proven that a balance approach wins rings. Isn't it ironic that back when the Sun were best offensive team, the spurs series showed that spurs when they choose can light it up as much as the suns did... That team was built superbly... They scored high when needed they played tight defense because it is easier to be consistent on the defensive side than rely on your shots to be falling in all night.


With that said...

1. Markieff Morris is indeed a good pick to be a member of that new era if a balance suns team.
2. Gortat and Dudley are also good role players to have.
3. Babby mentioned the draft a few times and it almost assures me the suns are indeed carefully placing themselves to pick in the top 8.... And will try to trade up if needed.

Imagine a draft day trade when Suns use their pick and a key player to move up to top 2... If they must do this then so be it... But this coming draft I believe will produce Suns next franchise player for the next decade and beyond... I'm talking David Robinson, Karl Malone, Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan level impact to whomever lands that pick. Call it intuition, last time I had this feeling it was Derrick Rose and before that LeBron James.

Nothing better to start off a balance era by drafting Anthony "Monobrow" Davis... Next dominant defender with good offensive skills... It's a big call but i trust my intuition and judgement since I've been right a lot of times. Do it Stern lend the Suns a hand this time and the fans will start to get over the past questionable occurrences.

[Wannabe MEP]

Lou's quickness didnt make him a better defender or rebounder than Morris will be; and his offense sucked even with all of that quickness.

This is not Markieff vs. Lou. I want both: Markieff to play with Gortat and Lou to play with Frye. I would love to have Lou 2.0 with more offensive skills, but I don't think we can land that player, whereas I'm pretty sure we could land Lou quite easily because he's hardly being used on the Pacers even though they have two other frontcourt injuries.

Nothing matters but results.

WTF?!?

2009-2010 Lou vs. 2011-2012 Markieff:
1) With Lou on the court we had an ORtg of 112.14, despite the fact that he basically never played with our offensive studs like Nash, Stat, and JRich. With Markieff? 101.35. That's called "results".
2) Given a 30 minute minimum, the Suns 3 best defensive units that year all included Lou. Results.
3) In the regular season, Lou's two most used units were +13.53 and +14.32. Results.
4) In the 2010 playoffs, the Suns second unit was +15.66. Results.
5) With Lou on the court, the Suns grabbed 50.2% of available rebounds, despite the fact that he never played with a solid rebounding center like Gortat. With Markieff on the court, we're grabbing 48.1% of available rebounds. Results.

Lou is limited offensively, but HE'S PERFECT NEXT TO FRYE. Lou allows Frye to play defensive center, which he's consistently been better at; Lou's quickness allows us to guard quick 4s and stretch 4s; Lou's quickness makes it easy for us play an effective 2-3 zone; and Lou + Frye is incredibly awkward for other frontcourts to defend because Frye's shooting and Lou's quickness are both unguardable for the average slow-footed 5.

[mybloodisorange]

45% free throw shooting isnt limited, its abhorant. When a team knows a player cant shoot they can pack the paint and cheat off of him defensively and whenever they want they can just hack him and make him shoot free throws. He's been in the league what 6 years now so he isnt going to get any better whereas Morris in his first month brought what Lou did WITH shooting ability and a smaller contract.

Lou is an offensive liability and isnt worth what hes being paid and everyone knows it. Thats why the team who signed him for 4 million or whatever hes making this year already traded him to the Pacers. And I love the guys energy, im a huge Lou fan...Just trying to explain why he isnt worth what hes being paid.

[RunDogGun]

45% free throw shooting isnt limited, its abhorant. When a team knows a player cant shoot they can pack the paint and cheat off of him defensively and whenever they want they can just hack him and make him shoot free throws. He's been in the league what 6 years now so he isnt going to get any better whereas Morris in his first month brought what Lou did WITH shooting ability and a smaller contract.

Lou is an offensive liability and isnt worth what hes being paid and everyone knows it. Thats why the team who signed him for 4 million or whatever hes making this year already traded him to the Pacers. And I love the guys energy, im a huge Lou fan...Just trying to explain why he isnt worth what hes being paid.

He gets $2.25 million this year, and if used like Soles is saying, he is worth it. However, since Gentry didn't figure until recently how to use Chilldress correctly, and still hasn't used him enough, I doubt he could figure it out. But if we could trade Lopez, who is making more than Lou, and started Chilldress, we could have two all out hustle guys, one in each unit. We could run Nash, Dudley, Chilldress, Morris, Gortat and have the second unit be Price, Brown, Hill, Lou and Frye. It becomes a good mix of offense and defense for both units, and hopefully the hustle of both Chilldress and Lou rubs off on the team like in 2010. But if that works, than the tankers will be pissed.

But we could wait until next year. Trade Lopez now to ATL for our second round pick back, sign Lou, re-sign Nash, sign Price, find a decent SG through FA, or SF, and then draft the missing spot. Roll the next year with a more balanced lineups using all our players correctly, and still have some cap space to go after FAs in 2013. If it doesn't work, then we still have a good chance at another high draft pick, so the anti fans will still have something to be happy with. With our second round pick back, we could draft a PG, who may be overseas for a year, or a third string once Telfair is waived. So Nash, FA, Chilldress, Morris, Gortat then Price, Dudley, Rook, Lou, Frye with Warrick, second rounder, and random FAs/vet mins/guys given up by teams making room to court big name FAs. There could be a ton of different things that could make a huge impact on a turn around season.

Plus in 2013, we may have a bunch of cap room, because Sarver might be more inclined to amnesty Chilldress by then if he doesn't work out. Warrick will come off the books as well. So that would only leave Dudley and Frye as our long contracts besides the rookie/second year guys.

[Wannabe MEP]

45% free throw shooting isnt limited, its abhorant.

He shot 54.5% from FT in 09-10. If he gets fouled on the shot, you expect him to score .545 x 2 = 1.9 points, significantly better than 1 point per possession, which is a pretty standard goal. That's significantly better points per possession than, for example, any Kobe FG attempt. If our offense was composed exclusively of Lou taking 2 free throws every time down the court, we'd have the best offense in the league right now, and it wouldn't be close.

It's actually quite a bit better than that, because a significant number of his FT attempts are on And-1s, for which his points per possession is obviously significantly higher. Also, his overall True Shooting % in 09-10 was 56.2, well above league average.

When a team knows a player cant shoot they can pack the paint and cheat off of him defensively and whenever they want they can just hack him and make him shoot free throws.

I've already enlightened you about the free throws, but the other part is that he's the roll man. He sets a good pick, and his defender has to help stop the guard and then still recover to take away Lou's dunk. The spacing is created by the play itself and by the guard's ability to shoot. Four-out with four 3-point shooters...and 1 guy in the paint. That would be Lou when he plays next to Frye. Lou doesn't need to help space the floor when the other four guys are spacing the floor. Sure, the Amare mid-range jumper is a nice option to have, but 1) it's rather expensive, 2) it's quite the luxury for a second unit, and 3) the Suns 09-10 2nd unit more than held their own without it.

Morris in his first month brought what Lou did WITH shooting ability and a smaller contract.

1) No. He didn't.
2) They're completely different types of players, doing completely different types of things. I'm not trying to trade Markieff for Lou. I want both. Why is that so complicated for you?
3) This is really Lopez vs. Lou. Lou would take Lopez's minutes, and I've suggested Lopez as the trading piece for Lou. And they have very similar contracts. The point is to return Frye to the 5 and massively upgrade our quickness.

[MrMiyagi]

I agree with Soles. Trading Lou for Fropez would be a good thing. Fropez isn't exactly an offensive force, and from what I've seen this year, I don't think he's been that effective on the defensive end either. Lou would at least give us constant effort on both ends of the court. If Lou could just provide an energy shot to the bench, like he did for us, we'd be better off.

And for the general discussion, I think we can keep our high powered offense and still play defense. I think we just need to tweak the 2009/10 formula by getting a players who will buy into the importance of defense.

[doa]

I hope to god orange man is reading Los Soles' posts here and using his line to management about getting Loooooooooouuuuuuu back. Please!

[Wannabe MEP]

I hope to god orange man is reading Los Soles' posts here and using his line to management about getting Loooooooooouuuuuuu back. Please!

I know, right? Let's all chant for him: "Orange! Orange! Orange! Orange..."

[mybloodisorange]

Lou also averaged 39% free throws in 10-11. I just used his career average which is 46%, not his best year with us as you did. I love Lou's energy but the Suns are starting a rebuilding process not trying to add a piece or 2 for a championship run and I think our moves need to reflect that goal moving forward. And personally I dont think we should use someone who cant shoot freethrows as part of the rebuilding.

If I had my way I would get rid of everyone but Gortat, Morris and Dudley.

[Wannabe MEP]

He's gotten better at his free throws throughout his career with the exception of last year when he had an injury-plagued, inconsistent year. I'm confident that if he was back playing consistent minutes in an environment where he was in the flow, where he was a part of what we were doing, he would shoot over 50% and probably closer to 60%.

Look, I want Lou 2.0 to play PF next to Frye. This is someone who is quick, scrappy, a good defender, a good rebounder, and attacks the rim aggressively. Lou 1.0 is cheap, available, and we know he works in our environment.

Now, if we can find Lou 2.0 who does essentially what Lou did for us but also has a more developed offensive game, I'd love to acquire that player. Here's the thing though: defense is cheap. Offense is expensive. As the offensive versatility increases, the price increases disproportionately. Now, if not Lou, who do you suggest for Lou 2.0?

My list:
-Lou
-Amir Johnson
-Thaddeus Young
-Faried
-Chris Andersen
-Josh Smith
-Ekpe Udoh
-Luc Mbah a Moute
-Taj Gibson

Most of these guys have question marks, the most glaring of which is availability. Lou is probably the most athletic of the bunch, he's proven with us, and he's the only one I look at and say, "Yep, we can get him." Other possible options:

1) Toronto is struggling again, and they're overloaded at PF. They might be interested in trading Amir Johnson, but I really don't know what they'd want from us. My best guess is Gortat, and they probably wouldn't settle for less.

2) Denver has way too many bigs. And Faried doesn't seem to fit what they're trying to do. I think there's a decent chance he's available, but I have no idea what we could give them that they'd want.

3) I believe that ATL is going to gradually drift into mediocrity again, and they can't afford the players they have. Gortat + cap space for Josh Smith. They get some financial flexibility, they might actually improve because of fit, and we'd be flying again with Nash-____-Dudley-Smith-Frye. I think we'd be better defensively, and much better offensively.

[Wannabe MEP]

D'Antoni vs Gentry

League ranking in Defensive Rating by year:

2004-2005 17th
2005-2006 16th
2006-2007 13th
2007-2008 16th
2008-2009 26th
2009-2010 23rd
2010-2011 25th
2011-2012 23rd

So Alvin Gentry has made us worse offensively and defensively. I'm so glad we got a more "balanced" coach.

[mybloodisorange]

How do you know he isnt under secret orders to tank without looking like tanking?

Again a year and a half ago we were 1 Ron Artest putback away from the Western Conference Championship.

[rsavaj]

A year and a half ago we were a Ron Artest putback away from going to overtime in Game 5 in LA.

That's a huge difference.

[Wannabe MEP]

Gentry was exceedingly lucky and exceedingly dense in 2009-2010:

1) The 2nd unit was accidentally perfect; he didn't compose that sh*t. He just did what he always does, which is take the next five. Every time since it's been an absolute joke (note from every other coach in the league, as well as every college and high school coach: You don't have to sub a round five). That time he ended up with four-out with four 3-point shooters, the perfect defensive complement to Frye in Lou, the perfect catalyst on both ends in Dudley, and two aggressive slashers. Gentry was never intelligent enough to realize that his second unit was actually better than his first, so he played them less as the playoffs got tighter even though they would have beaten the Lakers for him.

2) When Fropez was injured, Gentry was forced to play Frye more and go small with Dudley at the four, both of which were unbelievably successful. When Fropez came back, Gentry just went back to doing his thing. If Fropez would have simply stayed injured, we probably would have beaten the Lakers.

3) Lou + Frye was miraculously perfect. Lou + Fropez, Lou + Stat, and Lou + Jarron were all hopelessly flawed for what I see as painfully obvious reasons. Nevertheless, he played all three of those combos with quite enough frequency to nearly cause me to slit my wrists.

4) Dudley was so obviously outplaying Hill (statistically by 16.07 points per 100 possessions), that it's pretty easy to argue that more minutes for Dudley would have been enough to win the Western Conference.