Game 37: Phoenix Suns (12-24) @ Los Angeles Lakers (7-27)

[RunDogGun]

Marc Stein ‏@ESPNSteinLine 15 min
Fresh 2016 NBA bench rumble: There is active buzz in coaching circles that Mike D'Antoni will be on Suns' list if/when that job comes open

Oh boy

I don't know how that would work out. Mike needs a floor general who understands what, "Go, go, go" means, and can run an offense independent of him. I just don't think we have that right now. Plus our guys don't seem ready to play 38 minutes per game.

More than likely we would just go with an interim coach to finish the year. Firing Hornacek would just be a feeble attempt at assigning blame to the coach instead of dealing with the bigger problems. Morris hates the Suns, not simply the coach.

[AtheJ415]

Brandon Knight had 25 shot attempts. Warren had 3. Great game plan by the coach.

This is Knight's tendency. That's just what he does, and since he can't follow plays, he resorts to thinking he is Kobe or Jordan. Warren definitely should have played more though.

At least for once our FO and owner should finally realize we should just play our young guys and get that high pick. If Hornacek and/or McD gets fired so we can do better than that is just false optimism in what this team without Bledsoe or a starting caliber PF is (or any position for that matter given the other guy's ages), and you are continually trying to prove to people something we are not.

Trade everyone who is over 26, play the young guys and focus on your approach for next year.

Where is our coach to correct this tendency? Where has the discipline been with this team for the past 3 years? He played Knight 44 minutes and Warren and Booker 20 each. There are 2 sides to Knight's shooting problems. 1 aspect is his decisions to shoot. The other aspects are our head coach's decision to allow him to continue to shoot like that. If a vet is failing you--sit him. Vets should have shorter leashes than youngsters imo because they should know better. Hornacek operates the opposite.

Jeff has not been able to prevent us from getting techs last year. Jeff has never been able to get us to move the ball in 3 years. Jeff has never been able to get us to play defense in 3 years.

We play like undisciplined morons on both sides of the ball, and I just can't buy that our guys are all this stupid. Chandler isn't a stupid defender, but he plays like one under Jeff. IT isn't a stupid PG, but our assists sucked with him too.

Jeff's job is to get through to the players so that they execute a system that adapts to the players' strengths. It's hard for me to evaluate our players when he's doing this poor a job. And I, looking back, can't find a single year where we got better as the season went on. Other teams have. We should be living on that steeper learning curve and playing our best basketball at season's end. Instead, we play really well early on and continuously get worse. That points to poor coaching.

[bwgood77]

Brandon Knight had 25 shot attempts. Warren had 3. Great game plan by the coach.

This is Knight's tendency. That's just what he does, and since he can't follow plays, he resorts to thinking he is Kobe or Jordan. Warren definitely should have played more though.

At least for once our FO and owner should finally realize we should just play our young guys and get that high pick. If Hornacek and/or McD gets fired so we can do better than that is just false optimism in what this team without Bledsoe or a starting caliber PF is (or any position for that matter given the other guy's ages), and you are continually trying to prove to people something we are not.

Trade everyone who is over 26, play the young guys and focus on your approach for next year.

Where is our coach to correct this tendency? Where has the discipline been with this team for the past 3 years? He played Knight 44 minutes and Warren and Booker 20 each. There are 2 sides to Knight's shooting problems. 1 aspect is his decisions to shoot. The other aspects are our head coach's decision to allow him to continue to shoot like that. If a vet is failing you--sit him. Vets should have shorter leashes than youngsters imo because they should know better. Hornacek operates the opposite.

Jeff has not been able to prevent us from getting techs last year. Jeff has never been able to get us to move the ball in 3 years. Jeff has never been able to get us to play defense in 3 years.

We play like undisciplined morons on both sides of the ball, and I just can't buy that our guys are all this stupid. Chandler isn't a stupid defender, but he plays like one under Jeff. IT isn't a stupid PG, but our assists sucked with him too.

Jeff's job is to get through to the players so that they execute a system that adapts to the players' strengths. It's hard for me to evaluate our players when he's doing this poor a job. And I, looking back, can't find a single year where we got better as the season went on. Other teams have. We should be living on that steeper learning curve and playing our best basketball at season's end. Instead, we play really well early on and continuously get worse. That points to poor coaching.

I agree that he should sit Knight, but then again, he doesn't have much choice with Bledsoe out unless he plays Price, which I'm sure he'd get blasted for as well. I think one reason Knight has been moved as much as he as, is because he isn't real coachable, and resorts to his iso tendencies.

The team hasn't gotten better each year because Bledsoe went out in two of the years and in the 2nd year we blew up the team midseason and then the new asset we brought in got injured along with a lot of our frontcourt.

The roster really needs more stability if you expect a lot of cohesion and success, and a team this young is going to make a lot of mistakes.

I mean there aren't really any good excuses for ANYONE having anything to do with this team for these last two losses, despite being the last two of four road games in five nights.

Maybe they all just partied their asses off on New Years eve after their moral victory against OKC and had a very long hangover.

[bwgood77]

Marc Stein ‏@ESPNSteinLine 15 min
Fresh 2016 NBA bench rumble: There is active buzz in coaching circles that Mike D'Antoni will be on Suns' list if/when that job comes open

Oh boy

I don't know how that would work out. Mike needs a floor general who understands what, "Go, go, go" means, and can run an offense independent of him. I just don't think we have that right now. Plus our guys don't seem ready to play 38 minutes per game.

More than likely we would just go with an interim coach to finish the year. Firing Hornacek would just be a feeble attempt at assigning blame to the coach instead of dealing with the bigger problems. Morris hates the Suns, not simply the coach.

I like D'Antoni, but I'm pretty sure he would hate Knight. He MIGHT like Bledsoe. But I'd love to see him with the RIGHT PG with Bledsoe and Warren and maybe Terrence Jones. But then again, I'd like to see Hornacek with those same guys.

[bigfoot]

It depends. Motivated but don't know how to do the job, might make matters tough. Sarver isn't the first person I've seen point out that millennials are a bit babyish, and expect instant gratification.

Only old people with closed minds think that about millennials that way. It is sad they are willing to classify all young people as babyish and expecting instant gratification. I'd imagine these close minded people don't interact much with younger people at a personal level and certainly not as real mentors ... which is what older people really should be doing. From my own personal experiences I have seen young people who are much smarter, more knowledgeable, and harder working than their some of their older contemporaries but have been treated like pond scum. They are willing to learn new things and certainly willing to change instead of sticking with the status quo. I'm probably more sensitive to this since I have millennial daughters who both busted their butts while in high school and through a four year college (worked while going to college and earned scholarships). I don't considered either of them as babyish or whiners or expecting instant gratification. They know you get rewarded by working both smartly and hard.

And you know what is really, really funny. Old people use Facebook way more than young people. I have a wide age-range of friends and most of the daily posts are from old farts sharing or linking crazy ass religious or politics posts from the left and right.

Well of course not all of them. I know millennials who have fought in Afghananistan and Iraq, and taught many of them in school. They aren't all like that, but with an instant gratification with access to the Internet, text, and the like, many of them expect things without doing a lot of work. At least in the US, we've created far too many consumers and not as many producers. So like Gino said, I see some merit in what he said. However, I don't think it excuses actions taken by this owner, FO, or coach who may be older and not part of that generation. Many rich people act the same way Sarver described younger generations.

All I was saying is he isn't the first I've seen say something like that. In fact there was recently an article going around Facebook on this exact subject. Many of my friends quoted it, and seemed to agree.

Many is too broad of a term. I could say all the old people who live in Sun City avoid paying property/school taxes and are mooching off the system that paid for the education of their kids. Therefore many of the old people in Arizona aren't paying their fair share of taxes. Many is just too general and sounds almost all-inclusive. In fact, I would say there are far more millennials who do not "expect things without doing a lot of work" and actually work hard. The slackers are rare but get more press ... but that's typical of media ... report 99% of the negative stuff so that everyone thinks the world is coming to an end.

[Qwigglez]

Bright side of the season...

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

[AtheJ415]

This is Knight's tendency. That's just what he does, and since he can't follow plays, he resorts to thinking he is Kobe or Jordan. Warren definitely should have played more though.

At least for once our FO and owner should finally realize we should just play our young guys and get that high pick. If Hornacek and/or McD gets fired so we can do better than that is just false optimism in what this team without Bledsoe or a starting caliber PF is (or any position for that matter given the other guy's ages), and you are continually trying to prove to people something we are not.

Trade everyone who is over 26, play the young guys and focus on your approach for next year.

Where is our coach to correct this tendency? Where has the discipline been with this team for the past 3 years? He played Knight 44 minutes and Warren and Booker 20 each. There are 2 sides to Knight's shooting problems. 1 aspect is his decisions to shoot. The other aspects are our head coach's decision to allow him to continue to shoot like that. If a vet is failing you--sit him. Vets should have shorter leashes than youngsters imo because they should know better. Hornacek operates the opposite.

Jeff has not been able to prevent us from getting techs last year. Jeff has never been able to get us to move the ball in 3 years. Jeff has never been able to get us to play defense in 3 years.

We play like undisciplined morons on both sides of the ball, and I just can't buy that our guys are all this stupid. Chandler isn't a stupid defender, but he plays like one under Jeff. IT isn't a stupid PG, but our assists sucked with him too.

Jeff's job is to get through to the players so that they execute a system that adapts to the players' strengths. It's hard for me to evaluate our players when he's doing this poor a job. And I, looking back, can't find a single year where we got better as the season went on. Other teams have. We should be living on that steeper learning curve and playing our best basketball at season's end. Instead, we play really well early on and continuously get worse. That points to poor coaching.

I agree that he should sit Knight, but then again, he doesn't have much choice with Bledsoe out unless he plays Price, which I'm sure he'd get blasted for as well. I think one reason Knight has been moved as much as he as, is because he isn't real coachable, and resorts to his iso tendencies.

The team hasn't gotten better each year because Bledsoe went out in two of the years and in the 2nd year we blew up the team midseason and then the new asset we brought in got injured along with a lot of our frontcourt.

The roster really needs more stability if you expect a lot of cohesion and success, and a team this young is going to make a lot of mistakes.

I mean there aren't really any good excuses for ANYONE having anything to do with this team for these last two losses, despite being the last two of four road games in five nights.

Maybe they all just partied their asses off on New Years eve after their moral victory against OKC and had a very long hangover.

The thing is Knight's been raved about by prior coaches. His tendencies are certainly to shoot, although I'd argue he is simply a 2 guard and not a point, and should play the 2. If a player isn't executing your system, sit him. If Jeff is making decisions because he's afraid he'll get railed on for playing Price, then that's also not excusable to me. My guess is that with Bledsoe out, Jeff is encouraging Knight to be more aggressive, not less, which is why you don't see Knight getting yanked for taking 25 shots. And it's also clear he doesn't trust our young guys yet, which I don't understand, and probably is contributing to him telling Knight to be more aggressive and not requiring they run plays for Warren and Booker more often.

Within all those changes in the past 3 years though, and given those injuries, have you honestly seen improvement? For instance, after Bledsoe got injured, take those first few performances without him as the baseline, has the team gotten better by season's end? I simply cannot think of this team making improvements over any of the past 3 years, and while we've had injuries and roster turnover, those shouldn't eliminate and excuse all progress. They should lower the bar/baseline, but we should still be able to see some improvement given that new, lower bar/baseline.

[RunDogGun]

Only old people with closed minds think that about millennials that way. It is sad they are willing to classify all young people as babyish and expecting instant gratification. I'd imagine these close minded people don't interact much with younger people at a personal level and certainly not as real mentors ... which is what older people really should be doing. From my own personal experiences I have seen young people who are much smarter, more knowledgeable, and harder working than their some of their older contemporaries but have been treated like pond scum. They are willing to learn new things and certainly willing to change instead of sticking with the status quo. I'm probably more sensitive to this since I have millennial daughters who both busted their butts while in high school and through a four year college (worked while going to college and earned scholarships). I don't considered either of them as babyish or whiners or expecting instant gratification. They know you get rewarded by working both smartly and hard.

And you know what is really, really funny. Old people use Facebook way more than young people. I have a wide age-range of friends and most of the daily posts are from old farts sharing or linking crazy ass religious or politics posts from the left and right.

Well of course not all of them. I know millennials who have fought in Afghananistan and Iraq, and taught many of them in school. They aren't all like that, but with an instant gratification with access to the Internet, text, and the like, many of them expect things without doing a lot of work. At least in the US, we've created far too many consumers and not as many producers. So like Gino said, I see some merit in what he said. However, I don't think it excuses actions taken by this owner, FO, or coach who may be older and not part of that generation. Many rich people act the same way Sarver described younger generations.

All I was saying is he isn't the first I've seen say something like that. In fact there was recently an article going around Facebook on this exact subject. Many of my friends quoted it, and seemed to agree.

Many is too broad of a term. I could say all the old people who live in Sun City avoid paying property/school taxes and are mooching off the system that paid for the education of their kids. Therefore many of the old people in Arizona aren't paying their fair share of taxes. Many is just too general and sounds almost all-inclusive. In fact, I would say there are far more millennials who do not "expect things without doing a lot of work" and actually work hard. The slackers are rare but get more press ... but that's typical of media ... report 99% of the negative stuff so that everyone thinks the world is coming to an end.

Sorry I don't have the data on this, so many is all I can say. I still see merit in what he said.

[RaisingArizona]

Knight and Bledsoe under the tutelage of the Pringles Man would flourish IMO.

[letsgosuns]

Tyson Chandler’s first-half dunk misses were part of a season in which his field-goal percentage has dropped significantly from his No. 2 career ranking for NBA players.

“He’s always played with those veteran guards who have the timing down a little bit better,” Hornacek said. “Eric and Brandon are more scoring point guards so the timing on lobs was a little off. They would throw them but he would already be in his jump or they’d throw it before he’d jump. The timing was just bad. Over the past 15 games, that’s gotten better. They started figuring it out and then Eric got hurt.”


Translation: Bledsoe and Knight do not know how to pass.

[RaisingArizona]

^ Or Chandler just can't jump or finish anymore. Seems more likely to me.

[saintEscaton]

My answer to all of these "who's to blame" arguments is always gunna be an emphatic: WHY NOT BOTH?