Should Suns continue with the 2 PG system or no?

[Walt_Uoob]

I agree. In terms of traditional positions, Knight is basically our starting SG and backup PG. So saintEscaton's point that he was top-10 in catch-and-shoot 3pt% is encouraging.

But if Knight is basically playing 16 minutes at each position, those other 32 SG minutes are the majority of the game (16 each playing next to Bledsoe and Knight). I hope our Weems-Goodwin-Booker platoon is up to it!

So what's our best lineup while Knight is running the point and Bledsoe is sitting? I remember some saying Goodwin should be paired with Knight and Booker with Bledsoe, but this old article http://www.brewhoop.com/2014/7/24/5790868/brandon-knight-point-guard-shooting-guard had a hard time coming to a conclusion about whether Knight's better next to a ball-handler or a shooter. How does Weems fit best? He sounds closer to Booker than Goodwin.

We could run Knight with mostly shooters to spread the floor and give him room to operate: Knight-Booker-Tucker-Mirza-Chandler/Len. Or we could try to keep more ball-handlers and slashers on the floor to take that pressure off him: Knight-Goodwin-Warren-Kief-Chandler/Len. I think I prefer the latter.

[RaisingArizona]

We tried it for 11 games last year without much practice in between. I think they should develop some cohesion and chemistry during training camp. Just give it a chance and see if it works or not. We should know by midseason if it's a viable strategy or not.

[Phystic]

IMO we should get rid of it and try and get a true SG (6'5 or taller and can move well without the ball). I get that it worked with Hornacek and Stockton and Hornacek and KJ but we don't live in those times anymore. There's a reason why none of the other 29 teams in the NBA are trying to do this and no, the reason's not because we're smarter than rest of the NBA.

To be fair, nobody in the league played like our SSOL team and not it's a common part of most teams offense. Our 3 pt spread offense, small ball, lots of P&R, etc. I mean these aren't new concepts but Nash/Dantoni revitalized the setup and it's really changed the NBA landscape.

Now, I'm not saying our 2 PG plan will be anywhere near as successful. Just saying, just because other teams aren't doing it doesn't mean it can't work. Sometimes out of the box thinking pays off.


As for the topic, I'd be willing to have a 2 PG offense if either of our "PG"s were actually real PGs.

[Walt_Uoob]

This might be more of a bad sign than a good sign, considering where it's coming from, but I remember reading that the Kings plan to play Collison and Rondo together as a 2PG backcourt and that the team thinks "that's the direction the league is going."

[NTB]

This might be more of a bad sign than a good sign, considering where it's coming from, but I remember reading that the Kings plan to play Collison and Rondo together as a 2PG backcourt and that the team thinks "that's the direction the league is going."

I certainly hope they will start both. It would be hilarious

[garrick]

The Suns at one point had a 3 pg system though Nash barely played as the backup PG with Kidd and KJ sharing the PG/SG duties.

Bledsoe and Knight are not on the same level as those two pg's obviously and both are more scoring point guards.

[bwgood77]

The Suns at one point had a 3 pg system though Nash barely played as the backup PG with Kidd and KJ sharing the PG/SG duties.

Bledsoe and Knight are not on the same level as those two pg's obviously and both are more scoring point guards.

Yes, Knight is more of a combo guard who is a great shooter and can also handle the ball. I don't see why that is a bad thing. Would I rather have a 6'7 super stud traditional shooting guard? Sure, but people claiming that is what we have to get know that is unrealistic, and Booker may well be on his way to becoming something close to that.

[Sunsdeuce]

Im not a fan of it because it can/and usually does cause confusion. Players like to have clear cut roles. Basically, a player is a SG or he isnt. No matter how well players get along, if two players are on the court at the same time and are identified as the same position it creates questions (regardless of how team orientated the player is). When you come in as a player, you want to know exactly what you are suppose to do. You got two PGs sharing PG duties, it creates confusion, regardless of how much you practice together. Chemistry (most overrated term in sports) is created by knowing your role.

Here is what I see. Bledsoe handles the ball for the majority of the quarter and finds a nice groove during that time without Knight on the floor, then Knight comes in and starts taking away the ball handling. Bledsoe starts to lose his rhythm he had and starts to stand around. Again he in a sense loses his role and in a sense gets confused on what he should be doing.

The key to all sports is knowing your role. Once you know your role, you will excel.

[plonden]

Im not a fan of it because it can/and usually does cause confusion. Players like to have clear cut roles. Basically, a player is a SG or he isnt. No matter how well players get along, if two players are on the court at the same time and are identified as the same position it creates questions (regardless of how team orientated the player is). When you come in as a player, you want to know exactly what you are suppose to do. You got two PGs sharing PG duties, it creates confusion, regardless of how much you practice together. Chemistry (most overrated term in sports) is created by knowing your role.

Here is what I see. Bledsoe handles the ball for the majority of the quarter and finds a nice groove during that time without Knight on the floor, then Knight comes in and starts taking away the ball handling. Bledsoe starts to lose his rhythm he had and starts to stand around. Again he in a sense loses his role and in a sense gets confused on what he should be doing.

The key to all sports is knowing your role. Once you know your role, you will excel.

This is a great point. The roles have to be defined. Obviously, Bledsoe and Knight will both be the primary ball handler when they aren't sharing the court. The key will be how Hornacek and the coaching staff handle the shared time on the floor. It would probably make the most sense to have one of the players primarily play point--Bledsoe, perhaps--and the other player act as a second ball handler for the majority of the shared time. That way there's no confusion as to roles. But the coaches may take a different approach. They may have certain sets with EB as the point, and others with BK as the point. The most confusing aspect would be to have both players learn all of the team's sets as both PG and SG. That would probably lead to confusion, at least early on.

[RunDogGun]

Shouldn't a point guard know everyone's position in a play? If they didn't they wouldn't know where the best passes would be. As far as knowing roles, I think Hornacek has already stated his views on this: everyone's role is to be a basketball player. Rebound, defend, score, and work within the system.

We often run a basic motion offense at the top of the key as well as pick and rolls to constantly probe the defense to find the best shot.

[GMATCallahan]

IMO we should get rid of it and try and get a true SG (6'5 or taller and can move well without the ball). I get that it worked with Hornacek and Stockton and Hornacek and KJ but we don't live in those times anymore. There's a reason why none of the other 29 teams in the NBA are trying to do this and no, the reason's not because we're smarter than rest of the NBA.

Our options are to either keep Bledsoe and let Knight go despite giving up a likely top 10 pick and a recent top 20 draft selection for him. Or trade Bledsoe for a nice draft pick/asset and run with Knight as the PG and find a more traditional SG. Or I guess trade both and start the back court over from scratch but this seems least likely obviously.

That's my 2 cents on this topic.

Whether we like it or not, seems like Suns will continue to push this 2 PG lineup on us. However, are you for or against it?

Well, despite convenient media babble to create more compelling stories, there was not really a two-point guard system with either K.J. and Hornacek or Stockton and Hornacek. K.J. and Stockton constituted the clear point guards in those systems, but Hornacek's secondary point guard skills created more versatility and better enabled transition offense.

Actually, today's NBA is better-suited than ever to playing two point guards simultaneously because there is so much of an emphasis on court spacing, creating more room for more ball-handlers, penetrators, playmakers, and pick-and-rolls. Indeed, the NBA is now moving back toward more interchangeable players and lineups, hence the buzzword "position-less basketball." The phrase is something of a misnomer and certainly a cliche that ignores history, but the point is that the league has never been better-suited to such concepts.

The difficulty with either Bledsoe or Knight as the sole point guard is that neither is good enough to carry or lead a club as a dominant playmaker. Neither is remotely a master point guard, so either one needs to be surrounded by better passers. And that better passer may as well start with the other guard.

Regardless, the Suns need more time to test a Bledsoe-Knight combination. If it fails to work, the problem is not a two-point guard offense but the particular point guards in it.

By the way, I might note that plenty of NBA shooting guards, past and present, are not actually 6'5" or taller. Joe Dumars was not 6'5", Ray Allen was not 6'5", and even Michael Jordan was a shade under 6'5". Yes, NBA heights are usually exaggerated.

[bwgood77]

IMO we should get rid of it and try and get a true SG (6'5 or taller and can move well without the ball). I get that it worked with Hornacek and Stockton and Hornacek and KJ but we don't live in those times anymore. There's a reason why none of the other 29 teams in the NBA are trying to do this and no, the reason's not because we're smarter than rest of the NBA.

Our options are to either keep Bledsoe and let Knight go despite giving up a likely top 10 pick and a recent top 20 draft selection for him. Or trade Bledsoe for a nice draft pick/asset and run with Knight as the PG and find a more traditional SG. Or I guess trade both and start the back court over from scratch but this seems least likely obviously.

That's my 2 cents on this topic.

Whether we like it or not, seems like Suns will continue to push this 2 PG lineup on us. However, are you for or against it?

Well, despite convenient media babble to create more compelling stories, there was not really a two-point guard system with either K.J. and Hornacek or Stockton and Hornacek; K.J. and Stockton constituted the clear point guards in those systems, but Hornacek's secondary point guard skills created more versatility and better enabled transition offense.

Actually, today's NBA is better-suited than ever to playing two point guards simultaneously because there is so much of an emphasis on court spacing, creating more room for more ball-handlers, penetrators, playmakers, and pick-and-rolls. Indeed, the NBA is now moving back toward more interchangeable players and lineups, hence the buzzword "position-less basketball." The phrase is something of a misnomer and certainly a cliche that ignores history, but the point is that the league has never been better-suited to such concepts.

The difficulty with either Bledsoe or Knight as the sole point guard is that neither is good enough to carry or lead a club as a dominant playmaker. Neither is remotely a master point guard, so either one needs to be surrounded by better passers. And that better passer may as well start with the other guard.

Regardless, the Suns need more time to test a Bledsoe-Knight combination. If it fails to work, the problem is not a two-point guard offense but the particular point guards in it.

Great post and nice to see you around. Hope you chime in more often.

[GMATCallahan]

Im not a fan of it because it can/and usually does cause confusion. Players like to have clear cut roles. Basically, a player is a SG or he isnt. No matter how well players get along, if two players are on the court at the same time and are identified as the same position it creates questions (regardless of how team orientated the player is). When you come in as a player, you want to know exactly what you are suppose to do. You got two PGs sharing PG duties, it creates confusion, regardless of how much you practice together. Chemistry (most overrated term in sports) is created by knowing your role.

Here is what I see. Bledsoe handles the ball for the majority of the quarter and finds a nice groove during that time without Knight on the floor, then Knight comes in and starts taking away the ball handling. Bledsoe starts to lose his rhythm he had and starts to stand around. Again he in a sense loses his role and in a sense gets confused on what he should be doing.

The key to all sports is knowing your role. Once you know your role, you will excel.

The point guard is whoever has the ball.

-Jason Kidd, 1997, on playing alongside Kevin Johnson in Phoenix

In the last 43 regular season games that Kidd and Johnson played together where K.J. played at least 30 minutes, the Suns went 35-8 (.814).

There are no discrete positions in basketball—prior to the late eighties or so, guards were usually just "guards" and forwards were usually just "forwards." Their roles proved pretty much interchangeable, or a "shooting guard" and "small forward" could be interchangeable, or a "power forward" and a "center" could be interchangeable, and the game is now moving back toward those kinds of ideas. The notion of discrete positions in basketball is not organic to the game and simply represented a technocratic construction that can be easily deconstructed.

As for roles, they only work to the extent that they maximize a player's strengths and minimize his weaknesses. Trying to turn either Eric Bledsoe or Brandon Knight into a clear-cut "point guard" or "shooting guard" would accomplish neither. As playmakers and floor leaders, Bledsoe and Knight are both mediocre—neither is well-suited to building an offense around as a "point guard." But as shooters in the classic mold of a "shooting guard," both are problematic. Bledsoe is a mediocre jump-shooter, and while Knight is more skilled in that regard, his scoring efficiency will be troublesome until he develops better shot selection. Moreover, the nature of his game is not of the catch-and-shoot variety.

Thus the best way for Bledsoe and Knight to function effectively in an offense is not for them to be forced into discrete roles—for round pegs to be forced into square holes. Rather, their effectiveness can best be achieved via a flexible, interchangeable attack that emphasizes uptempo basketball as much as possible—getting the ball to whichever guard is most immediately available, flying up the court to take advantage of the their speed, and attacking before the defense sets up. Basketball is not football; basketball is a jazz-like sport where the ability to improvise on the spur of the moment distinguishes players. Moreover, in a half-court setting, there is now so much space in today's NBA, in an effort to maximize the pick-and-roll, that room can be found for multiple playmakers: you run a pick-and-roll high on one wing and if nothing materializes, you reverse the ball to the weak side and run a pick-and-roll there against a defense that has already been softened up a bit and that is often stretched to the breaking point to begin with. In that context, Jason Kidd's quotation from eighteen years ago becomes operative and definitive.

As for the idea of Knight "taking away the ball handling" from Bledsoe and thus hurting Bledsoe's game, if matters were that simple, Bledsoe and Dragic would not have functioned so effectively in '13-'14. The bottom-line is that before any conclusions can be reached about their joint functionality, Bledsoe and Knight need a chance to play together over a sustained period so that they can potentially gel. Given how Knight joined the team after the All-Star break and injured his ankle shortly thereafter, I do not feel that anything meaningful can be gleaned from last season. And if Bledsoe and Knight fail to effectively mesh, the problem will lie with these particular guards, not with the notion of playing two "point guards" simultaneously.

The upside is that if a two-point guard combination works well, the results can be spectacular. I earlier cited the Suns' winning percentage with Kevin Johnson and Jason Kidd (after they had had about a month to gel); in fact, during the '97-'98 season, Phoenix went 15-2 (.882) when K.J. received at least 30 minutes of playing time. But even though Danny Ainge, along with Jerry Colangelo, had helped coax K.J. out of his planned retirement following the 1997 season, and even though K.J. had agreed to return in order to take one last crack at a championship, Ainge substantially reduced Johnson's role as Rex Chapman led the Suns in field goal attempts per game and points per game. Chapman broke down during the second half of the season with multiple nagging injuries, missed two of the team's four playoff games, and shot 1-9 in one of the two games that he did play in. Today, Ainge—a great friend of Chapman's—says that "I worried about keeping him healthy" (see the July 27, 2015, edition of Sports Illustrated). But the result was that Chapman underwent seven surgeries during his final three years as a Sun and developed the addiction to painkillers that resulted in him being charged with nine counts of organized retail theft and five counts of trafficking in stolen property last year. Meanwhile, Ainge effectively sabotaged the Suns' championship chances by diminishing his best offensive player. Kevin Johnson proved much more efficient than either Chapman or Kidd, and the Suns' championship chances hinged on the difficulty of opponents matching up with K.J. and Kidd simultaneously.

Thus we do now know how far that team could have gone had Ainge—a bright basketball mind who had briefly foreshadowed Mike D'Antoni's offense and the future of the NBA late in the '96-'97 season—actually possessed a better feel for matters in '97-'98, either in terms of basketball observation or empirical evidence. What we do know, though, is that in the four seasons (1980-1983) where point guards Magic Johnson and Norm Nixon started together, the Lakers advanced to three NBA Finals and won two championships. And when the Detroit Pistons frequently used three relatively small ball-handling guards together (almost always playing at least two of them and sometimes all three) in Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, and Vinnie Johnson, and were willing to run the pick-and-roll through any of them and have any of them play off the ball and come off down-screens, the Pistons reached five straight Eastern Conference Finals and three consecutive NBA Finals, winning two championships. Sure, Isiah Thomas constituted the "point guard," but the reality was more fluid and flexible than separate divisions of labor—and the less predictable that an offense happens to be, and the more people who can pass and make plays and create "multi-directional" basketball, the more difficult that a defense's job becomes. Thus Phil Jackson's triangle offense—which functioned without any one "point guard" and treated basketball players as basketball players—proved instrumental in Chicago eventually trumping Detroit. The Pistons' infamous "Jordan Rules," developed during the 1989 Eastern Conference Finals, worked on a relative basis because Chicago's offense proved predictable. But with the triangle, the schemes, rules, and principles dissolved because the Bulls now possessed better floor balance, ball movement, and unpredictability. Jordan would still dominate the shot charts—but in a system where anyone could be in a position to deliver an assist from any number of spots on the floor, meaning that Jordan could no longer be singularly targeted.

Now, if you are featuring a back-court of Ish Smith and Gerald Green, then, yes, Smith functions as a point guard, Green functions as a shooting guard, and there is very little overlap. But generally speaking, there are no discrete positions in basketball and roles should be about maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses rather than limiting players to certain assignments and portions of the floor—unless those limitations maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. In the case of Bledsoe and Knight, splitting them into a distinct "point guard" and "shooting guard" would not make that much sense in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Certainly, the Suns are not going to win that way. They are only going to enjoy even modest success with these two guards by offering a dynamic offense where either guard can attack the defense at any time.

To be clear, Phoenix probably will not enjoy "spectacular" success with Bledsoe and Knight even if they gel, but given the nature of today's NBA and the way that the rules and spatial concepts cater to guards and perimeter players who can attack off the dribble, the Suns could be highly competitive with them playing interchangeably, much as they were with Bledsoe and Dragic in '13-'14. They will not be competitive, however, by having one of these guys try to play like Rajon Rondo and the other try to play like Ray Allen.

[GMATCallahan]

Great post and nice to see you around. Hope you chime in more often.

Thanks, BW.

[Revived]

LeBron's son has better vision than our PGs

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUuOaZ6bBJU[/youtube]

[GMATCallahan]

In terms of Bledsoe and Knight, I do not believe that the issue is vision so much as accuracy, discernment, and judgment. When do you pass, timing-wise? Have you created a passing lane, or does a passing lane actually exist? An open teammate is not really open, necessarily, if the passing lane is not open. Do you know when to pass and when not to pass? And then can you execute consistently accurate passes, especially on the move? Too often with Bledsoe and Knight, the answer is no, hence their assists-to-turnover ratios that leave so much to be desired and that fail to translate into efficient offense.

Bledsoe has actually improved his passing ability and his court awareness. He has made some outstanding passes this year, including left-handed passes reminiscent of Steve Nash's. Indeed, with his long arms, Bledsoe can execute some passes that his former teammate, the short-armed Chris Paul, cannot deliver. But Paul, of course, is vastly better at everything that I just discussed in the first paragraph.

Last season, Bledsoe seemed to throw one out of every three passes out of bounds. (I am sure that the rate was not actually that high, but it seemed that way.) This year, he is not throwing as many balls out of bounds, but the more modest inaccuracies and the questionable decisions—the forced passes—still lead to too many deflections and turnovers. Again, the matter is one of consistency. On his better playmaking days, Bledsoe appears just fine as a playmaker. But repeating his better days on a game-to-game basis still constitutes a challenge for him: an assists-to-turnover ratio of below 2:00:1.00 is inadequate for a primary point guard. (Bledsoe is currently at 1.759:1.000, slightly below his career-high mark of last season, 1.799:1.000).

Knight makes some fine passes and shows good court awareness at times, but again, the matter is one of consistency, helping explain his assists-to-turnover ratio of 1.55:1.00 this season. He is also more limited than Bledsoe at making plays when going left.

Let us be clear about something: Brandon Knight is not a point guard—he is a ball-handling guard. A point guard is a ball-handling guard, but a ball-handling guard is not necessarily a point guard. Yet so long as Bledsoe remains inconsistent and inefficient as a passer, the Suns really need another ball-handling guard alongside him, someone who might be able to pick up the slack if Bledsoe is not having one of his better games. Wednesday night versus Denver represented an example. With Bledsoe ineffective throughout, the Suns could at least place the ball in Knight's hands in pick-and-roll situations, and he produced a 21-10 game (albeit with 5 turnovers) as Phoenix made a game of it (yet still lost). In more ways than one, Bledsoe and Knight represent quantity over quality: with two of them, the Suns possess a reasonable chance that at least one of them will enjoy a good game and keep Phoenix vaguely competitive—a low standard, I know.

Going back to my initial paragraph, a major means of opening passing lanes and making effective passes that are not deflected or intercepted is to not telegraph passes, which often means utilizing fakes—ball-fakes, eye-fakes, tilt-of-the-head fakes, anything that confuses or freezes the defense. Examine, for instance, some of Kevin Johnson's passes in this highlight compilation from the final game of the '94-'95 regular season:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8CgKSXPAI

How often do you see those sorts of fake-the-defense-out passes from Bledsoe or Knight? Granted, Kevin Johnson represents an extremely high standard—he ranks third all-time, behind only Magic Johnson and John Stockton, in assists per start at 10.0—but the point is that if you telegraph passes and fail to open passing lanes, all the vision in the world will not be sufficient and will not reduce your turnover rate or improve your assists-to-turnover ratio. Kevin Johnson and Steve Nash, for instance, posted seasons where they recorded about five more assists per game than Bledsoe with the same turnover average as Bledsoe. And during K.J.'s career, the average amount of court spacing proved significantly less, meaning that there was less space to pass the ball in the first place. For that reason, I am not sure if Bledsoe and Knight would have even been starting guards twenty or twenty-five years ago.

Again, the matter is not necessarily, or simply, one of court vision. Jason Kidd, for example, possessed tremendous court vision, but compared to K.J. or Nash, he was more likely to try and find the open man without opening the pass lane or while telegraphing the pass. Partly for that reason, Kidd's peak assists averages were not as high, his prime assists-to-turnover ratio was lower, and he generally ran inefficient offenses—although he obviously resides in another universe as a playmaker compared to Bledsoe and Knight.

Incidentally, a good way to judge passers in basketball is to evaluate them in many of the same ways as a quarterback in football. For instance, how well do you look off the defense? How well do you clear the safety (help defense in basketball)? How well do you avoid telegraphing your passes? How consistently accurate are your passes? How quick is your release? How well do you avoid interceptions? At the same time, can you take risks and chances—can you make difficult passes that are more likely to produce touchdowns (easy, high-percentage buckets in basketball)—while remaining efficient? How effective are your ball-fakes? Can you make hard, convincing pump-fakes that cause the defense to bite while still maintaining control of the ball? How well do you pass in tight windows, and how well do you recognize when the window is too small or nonexistent to render the pass worthwhile?

And, yes, seeing the field (or the court) is a big part of it, too, but so is reading the field (or the court). Bledsoe and Knight, in my opinion, see the court decently enough. But their reads and execution—their judgment and technical consistency—produce soggy assists-to-turnover ratios.

Big-picture question: can the Suns become a winner with Bledsoe and Knight? My opinion is yes—but only with a front-court player who can really pass and facilitate (as well as score), thus reorienting the dynamics of Phoenix's offense, at least in the half-court. And that kind of player can be difficult to find or procure.