Game 50: Phoenix Suns (17-32) at Houston Rockets (34-13), Sunday, Jan 28

[NavLDO]

Point Booker worked well.

January Jackson did not.

So one draft pick in 5 years as our GM is worth a crap.

Do we want our future tied to this guy?

Hasn't he made enough mistakes?

Why in the world should I or anyone trust him to make good decisions this summer?

Considering the last 3 picks are 20 years old and the 2 after that are both averaging 20 points per game, I'd say you're being extremely overdramatic. You'd have to try pretty hard to find a point guard and center worse than our current situations.

No he's not, Jackson just went 0-13 for cryin' out loud! He's a B-U-S-T, BUST. Get that scrub out of here! And I don't care that the other draft pick not named just scored 24 points on 64%, had 5 TRB, 2 Assts, a Stl & Blk, to boot...he's STILL not worth mentioning, because he was the 14th pick overall, and they don't around here...ONLY top 13 picks.

I'm serious now. This experiment where Chandler is supposed to be this great Mentor?? Yeah, not working. Dudley?? Maybe in the sense on how to be a good locker room guy, but I'm not seeing any of 'prime-career Dudley' traits in Chriss or Bender's game right now; maybe a smidgen in JJ's game. But point is, who's coaching these kids? I'm going to go out on a limb and say, no one.

I REALLY think a savvy PG needs to be brought in to the org for the remainder of the season; one that knows how to 'direct traffic'. I'm kind of changing my tune, a bit. I still think Kemba would be great, and would work, but assuming we don't want to go that direction, and want to 'build' our own PG of the future, then I would propose McD go look for a true vet Floor General...one known for leadership and ability to run an offense, but not one that will cost a ton. I'm not overly knowledgeable about who would be best of those currently in the league, but someone like Jose Barea or Mario Chalmers?? IDK...but point is, get someone who is willing to start this season, get our young guys to understand how an NBA offense is supposed to run, etc. from a player's, on-court perspective, rather than just an interim coach's perspective.

Next, we get a guy like Young/Doncic/Sexton/Gilgy with one 1st Rd pick, our 2nd 1st Rd pick goes towards a McCoy, Metu, or Robinson. 3rd, with our 2-3 2nd Rd picks, depending on how things work out, we draft:

Khyri Thomas, PG, Creighton
Landry Shamet, PG, Wichita St
Devonte' Graham, PG, Kansas
Jalen Brunson, PG, Villanova
Jevon Carter, PG, WVU (Apparently, NBA-ready--now, if we're looking for that)
Aaron Holiday, PG, UCLA
Tra Holder, PG, ASU
Allonzo Trier, G, UofA

We take 2 or 3 of those, depending on what we are looking for, and triple our odds...this...THIS is when you take multiple players at a position. In the 2nd Rd. Not top 10. Ugh...

Probably should have put this in the Offseason Discussion thread...I'll cut and paste and will, I guess. Can't hurt, right?

[garrick]

This wasn't a bad game really and if we had a little more offensive production from JJ, Chris and Bender it would have been even closer.

Booker clearly hurt himself while going for the block on Anderson and that bogus foul call on Chriss late was some BS home cooking.

[jcsunsfan]

So one draft pick in 5 years as our GM is worth a crap.

Do we want our future tied to this guy?

Hasn't he made enough mistakes?

Why in the world should I or anyone trust him to make good decisions this summer?

Considering the last 3 picks are 20 years old and the 2 after that are both averaging 20 points per game, I'd say you're being extremely overdramatic. You'd have to try pretty hard to find a point guard and center worse than our current situations.

No he's not, Jackson just went 0-13 for cyin' out loud! He's a B-U-S-T, BUST. Get that scrub out of here! And I don't care that the other draft pick not named just scored 24 points on 64%, had 5 TRB, 2 Assts, a Stl & Blk, to boot...he's STILL not worth mentioning, because he was the 14th pick overall, and they don't around here...ONLY top 13 picks.

I'm serious now. This experiment where Chandler is supposed to be this great Mentor?? Yeah, not working. Dudley?? Maybe in the sense on how to be a good locker room guy, but I'm not seeing any of 'prime-career Dudley' traits in Chriss or Bender's game right now; maybe a smidgen in JJ's game. But point is, who's coaching these kids? I'm going to go out on a limb and say, no one.

I REALLY think a savvy PG needs to be brought in to the org for the remainder of the season; one that knows how to 'direct traffic'. I'm kind of changing my tune, a bit. I still think Kemba would be great, and would work, but assuming we don't want to go that direction, and want to 'build' our own PG of the future, then I would propose McD go look for a true vet Floor General...one known for leadership and ability to run an offense, but not one that will cost a ton. I'm not overly knowledgeable about who would be best of those currently in the league, but someone like Jose Barea or Mario Chalmers?? IDK...but point is, get someone who is willing to start this season, get our young guys to understand how an NBA offense is supposed to run, etc. from a player's, on-court perspective, rather than just an interim coach's perspective.

Next, we get a guy like Young/Doncic/Sexton/Gilgy with one 1st Rd pick, our 2nd 1st Rd pick goes towards a McCoy, Metu, or Robinson. 3rd, with our 2-3 2nd Rd picks, depending on how things work out, we draft:

Khyri Thomas, PG, Creighton
Landry Shamet, PG, Wichita St
Devonte' Graham, PG, Kansas
Jalen Brunson, PG, Villanova
Jevon Carter, PG, WVU (Apparently, NBA-ready--now, if we're looking for that)
Aaron Holiday, PG, UCLA
Tra Holder, PG, ASU
Allonzo Trier, G, UofA

We take 2 or 3 of those, depending on what we are looking for, and triple our odds...this...THIS is when you take multiple players at a position. In the 2nd Rd. Not top 10. Ugh...

Probably should have put this in the Offseason Discussion thread...I'll cut and paste and will, I guess. Can't hurt, right?

Love Shamet. Big pg. Excellent shooter. Decent but not great handle. Finishes well at the rim. Sees the court very well. Passes well. Average to good defender.

[kennydorglas]

McD has made some mistakes, but I mean 86% of the trades thrown around on this board with conviction are complete garbage, could we honestly do better? Danny Ainge apparently tried to make an all time stupid trade, what was it 6 firsts for the number 9 pick? They wanted Justice fricking winslow. You know what saved him? Another terrible owner named Michael Jordan who wanted Frank Kaminsky. How different would the Celtics be? Danny would be jobless right about now. Oshley and Chow have made awful FA moves for their teams (chow was with the blazers now with the hornets, Oshley took over as Blazers GM) I could go on for pages.

I think Ryan gets way too much crap for a bunch of people that flip flop their opinion on guys every other day and rely on hindsight to justify holding a noose over his head.

Not much to add here. Really good post.

[Bogyo]

Considering the last 3 picks are 20 years old and the 2 after that are both averaging 20 points per game, I'd say you're being extremely overdramatic. You'd have to try pretty hard to find a point guard and center worse than our current situations.

No he's not, Jackson just went 0-13 for cyin' out loud! He's a B-U-S-T, BUST. Get that scrub out of here! And I don't care that the other draft pick not named just scored 24 points on 64%, had 5 TRB, 2 Assts, a Stl & Blk, to boot...he's STILL not worth mentioning, because he was the 14th pick overall, and they don't around here...ONLY top 13 picks.

I'm serious now. This experiment where Chandler is supposed to be this great Mentor?? Yeah, not working. Dudley?? Maybe in the sense on how to be a good locker room guy, but I'm not seeing any of 'prime-career Dudley' traits in Chriss or Bender's game right now; maybe a smidgen in JJ's game. But point is, who's coaching these kids? I'm going to go out on a limb and say, no one.

I REALLY think a savvy PG needs to be brought in to the org for the remainder of the season; one that knows how to 'direct traffic'. I'm kind of changing my tune, a bit. I still think Kemba would be great, and would work, but assuming we don't want to go that direction, and want to 'build' our own PG of the future, then I would propose McD go look for a true vet Floor General...one known for leadership and ability to run an offense, but not one that will cost a ton. I'm not overly knowledgeable about who would be best of those currently in the league, but someone like Jose Barea or Mario Chalmers?? IDK...but point is, get someone who is willing to start this season, get our young guys to understand how an NBA offense is supposed to run, etc. from a player's, on-court perspective, rather than just an interim coach's perspective.

Next, we get a guy like Young/Doncic/Sexton/Gilgy with one 1st Rd pick, our 2nd 1st Rd pick goes towards a McCoy, Metu, or Robinson. 3rd, with our 2-3 2nd Rd picks, depending on how things work out, we draft:

Khyri Thomas, PG, Creighton
Landry Shamet, PG, Wichita St
Devonte' Graham, PG, Kansas
Jalen Brunson, PG, Villanova
Jevon Carter, PG, WVU (Apparently, NBA-ready--now, if we're looking for that)
Aaron Holiday, PG, UCLA
Tra Holder, PG, ASU
Allonzo Trier, G, UofA

We take 2 or 3 of those, depending on what we are looking for, and triple our odds...this...THIS is when you take multiple players at a position. In the 2nd Rd. Not top 10. Ugh...

Probably should have put this in the Offseason Discussion thread...I'll cut and paste and will, I guess. Can't hurt, right?

Love Shamet. Big pg. Excellent shooter. Decent but not great handle. Finishes well at the rim. Sees the court very well. Passes well. Average to good defender.

Good idea on the 3 second rounders. Triple down with those, and let them fight it out during the Summer/Summer league/Pre-season. Keep one, send one to the G-League, cut one. Shamet/Brunson/Carter for me. That way Carter can pester Young all summer long in workouts.

(see what I did there? )

[bwgood77]

So one draft pick in 5 years as our GM is worth a crap.

Do we want our future tied to this guy?

Hasn't he made enough mistakes?

Why in the world should I or anyone trust him to make good decisions this summer?

Considering the last 3 picks are 20 years old and the 2 after that are both averaging 20 points per game, I'd say you're being extremely overdramatic. You'd have to try pretty hard to find a point guard and center worse than our current situations.

No he's not, Jackson just went 0-13 for cyin' out loud! He's a B-U-S-T, BUST. Get that scrub out of here! And I don't care that the other draft pick not named just scored 24 points on 64%, had 5 TRB, 2 Assts, a Stl & Blk, to boot...he's STILL not worth mentioning, because he was the 14th pick overall, and they don't around here...ONLY top 13 picks.

I'm serious now. This experiment where Chandler is supposed to be this great Mentor?? Yeah, not working. Dudley?? Maybe in the sense on how to be a good locker room guy, but I'm not seeing any of 'prime-career Dudley' traits in Chriss or Bender's game right now; maybe a smidgen in JJ's game. But point is, who's coaching these kids? I'm going to go out on a limb and say, no one.

I REALLY think a savvy PG needs to be brought in to the org for the remainder of the season; one that knows how to 'direct traffic'. I'm kind of changing my tune, a bit. I still think Kemba would be great, and would work, but assuming we don't want to go that direction, and want to 'build' our own PG of the future, then I would propose McD go look for a true vet Floor General...one known for leadership and ability to run an offense, but not one that will cost a ton. I'm not overly knowledgeable about who would be best of those currently in the league, but someone like Jose Barea or Mario Chalmers?? IDK...but point is, get someone who is willing to start this season, get our young guys to understand how an NBA offense is supposed to run, etc. from a player's, on-court perspective, rather than just an interim coach's perspective.

Next, we get a guy like Young/Doncic/Sexton/Gilgy with one 1st Rd pick, our 2nd 1st Rd pick goes towards a McCoy, Metu, or Robinson. 3rd, with our 2-3 2nd Rd picks, depending on how things work out, we draft:

Khyri Thomas, PG, Creighton
Landry Shamet, PG, Wichita St
Devonte' Graham, PG, Kansas
Jalen Brunson, PG, Villanova
Jevon Carter, PG, WVU (Apparently, NBA-ready--now, if we're looking for that)
Aaron Holiday, PG, UCLA
Tra Holder, PG, ASU
Allonzo Trier, G, UofA

We take 2 or 3 of those, depending on what we are looking for, and triple our odds...this...THIS is when you take multiple players at a position. In the 2nd Rd. Not top 10. Ugh...

Probably should have put this in the Offseason Discussion thread...I'll cut and paste and will, I guess. Can't hurt, right?

I haven't watched a lot of those guys, other than Trier, who has talent, but something about him doesn't impress me. Who looks best on that list by the eye test? Some of those teams probably are not on tv much, like Creighton.

I was surprised to see Trier's name so high here...and his numbers look really good. He's not a PG though....and he often makes dumb decisions with the ball, like he doesn't have a high bbiq.

https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/prospects/stats

[lilfishi22]

Considering the last 3 picks are 20 years old and the 2 after that are both averaging 20 points per game, I'd say you're being extremely overdramatic. You'd have to try pretty hard to find a point guard and center worse than our current situations.

Isn't that supportive of the notion that perhaps McD isn't really a good GM?

If you want it to be sure? But the reality is that we could upgrade at any time, and if anything he’s smart for not blowing our load on some random stop gap or unrealistic option to win meaningless games like this board clamors for every day.

I’m not saying he’s perfect either lol, but I’m tired of all the over dramatic people that come out of the woodworks and **** on our rebuild because a couple 20 year olds don’t play well every night. We haven’t even tried making a win-now move since chasing LMA 2 years ago, no **** we’re not winning games.

If we could have upgraded or made moves any time to fix those two holes, we probably should have done it already. Fact is, the reason why we're being "smart" with our cap space is because McD doesn't want to make the same mistakes he made that got us in this situation now. Having giant holes at the PG and C position isn't part of some McD master plan. It's an unintended result of his plan. This is not isolated to JJ having a bad game or Bender being soft or Chriss being an idiot. I actually like JJ quite a fair bit. It's all the moves he's made, the few good and the many bad that's got us to where we are.

There's nothing over-dramatic about what I've said. I've been saying for a while that I've been losing trust in McD for some time now and thought he should have been on the hot seat in the last off season

[darealjuice]

If we could have upgraded or made moves any time to fix those two holes, we probably should have done it already. Fact is, the reason why we're being "smart" with our cap space is because McD doesn't want to make the same mistakes he made that got us in this situation now. Having giant holes at the PG and C position isn't part of some McD master plan. It's an unintended result of his plan. This is not isolated to JJ having a bad game or Bender being soft or Chriss being an idiot. I actually like JJ quite a fair bit. It's all the moves he's made, the few good and the many bad that's got us to where we are.

There's nothing over-dramatic about what I've said. I've been saying for a while that I've been losing trust in McD for some time now and thought he should have been on the hot seat in the last off season

I'll start by saying when I talk about overdramatic people coming out of the wood works, I was not talking about you. Sorry if you thought that. I respect your opinion, you aren't being overdramatic and I'm not even sold on McDonough as a long term GM. I was referring to people like the guy I responded to, or the random dude from Germany that literally only posts when Josh has bad games to comment on what a bust he is, or the couple other people that only pop in when it's bad to stoke the negativity. Just look at that "Bender Is Soft" profile/post someone felt the need to make earlier today, that's the type of person I referred to.

With that said, he could fix those holes with short-term stop gaps at the expense of assets right now to win meaningless games, but that's not the point of rebuilding. Len amounting to a back-up and Bledsoe tweeting "i don't wanna be here" were definitely not planned, but we're taking the right option of addressing a long term option for one of the positions through this draft rather than sacrificing assets and cap space to get a stop gap when we're 10 games out of the playoffs. I want to compete as bad as anyone else, but more than that I want us to be able to sustain being competitive, and while we've had bumps in the road I think we're on a much better path to doing than before McDonough despite bumps in the road.

Really though, when you think about it, what is the realistic best case scenario if we didn't make any mistakes?

We had a fun team in 2013/2014, but it didn't attract any big talent to Phoenix through FA. If we don't get don't get IT and maintain the Dragic/Bledsoe backcourt, then we may win 48 games and end up in the playoffs - only to meet the buzzsaw that was the 2015 champion Warriors in the first round and very likely miss out on Booker (rumor has it OKC wanted him over Payne at 14). Meanwhile that Morris assault stuff goes down, and is it really our fault or a mistake for kicking them to the curb? In my opinion, our mistake was waiting too long to boot them. So would Dragic/Bledsoe with Morrii on their way out have been enough to sign LMA without Chandler to play center, or did we only sign Chandler because we thought we had LMA, or do we end up with neither and continue re-tooling? Say everything goes perfect for us and we get LMA: this year we have a starting lineup of Bledsoe/Dragic/Warren/LMA/Chandler with whatever HC you want that was hired this/last offseason... is that roster going to be any better than the current Portland team, or the healthy Nuggets, or OKC? Maybe, but in my opinion probably not, considering Dragic is the only guy that's shooting the 3 at an average level.

That's all a stupid hypothetical, but the point is that it was hard to see that team advancing past tread milling in and out of the high lottery/low playoffs even if everything had gone as we were hoping with FA and not losing Dragic. It hasn't been fun watching us hit rock bottom, but if we come out of this rebuild with any 2 or 3 of Booker, TJ, Bender, Quese, JJ, and this year's pick developing into All Stars with our current cap space situation and assets to fill the gaps around them, then we can be serious business, and I don't think that's unrealistic.

[NavLDO]

Considering the last 3 picks are 20 years old and the 2 after that are both averaging 20 points per game, I'd say you're being extremely overdramatic. You'd have to try pretty hard to find a point guard and center worse than our current situations.

No he's not, Jackson just went 0-13 for cyin' out loud! He's a B-U-S-T, BUST. Get that scrub out of here! And I don't care that the other draft pick not named just scored 24 points on 64%, had 5 TRB, 2 Assts, a Stl & Blk, to boot...he's STILL not worth mentioning, because he was the 14th pick overall, and they don't around here...ONLY top 13 picks.

I'm serious now. This experiment where Chandler is supposed to be this great Mentor?? Yeah, not working. Dudley?? Maybe in the sense on how to be a good locker room guy, but I'm not seeing any of 'prime-career Dudley' traits in Chriss or Bender's game right now; maybe a smidgen in JJ's game. But point is, who's coaching these kids? I'm going to go out on a limb and say, no one.

I REALLY think a savvy PG needs to be brought in to the org for the remainder of the season; one that knows how to 'direct traffic'. I'm kind of changing my tune, a bit. I still think Kemba would be great, and would work, but assuming we don't want to go that direction, and want to 'build' our own PG of the future, then I would propose McD go look for a true vet Floor General...one known for leadership and ability to run an offense, but not one that will cost a ton. I'm not overly knowledgeable about who would be best of those currently in the league, but someone like Jose Barea or Mario Chalmers?? IDK...but point is, get someone who is willing to start this season, get our young guys to understand how an NBA offense is supposed to run, etc. from a player's, on-court perspective, rather than just an interim coach's perspective.

Next, we get a guy like Young/Doncic/Sexton/Gilgy with one 1st Rd pick, our 2nd 1st Rd pick goes towards a McCoy, Metu, or Robinson. 3rd, with our 2-3 2nd Rd picks, depending on how things work out, we draft:

Khyri Thomas, PG, Creighton
Landry Shamet, PG, Wichita St
Devonte' Graham, PG, Kansas
Jalen Brunson, PG, Villanova
Jevon Carter, PG, WVU (Apparently, NBA-ready--now, if we're looking for that)
Aaron Holiday, PG, UCLA
Tra Holder, PG, ASU
Allonzo Trier, G, UofA

We take 2 or 3 of those, depending on what we are looking for, and triple our odds...this...THIS is when you take multiple players at a position. In the 2nd Rd. Not top 10. Ugh...

Probably should have put this in the Offseason Discussion thread...I'll cut and paste and will, I guess. Can't hurt, right?

I haven't watched a lot of those guys, other than Trier, who has talent, but something about him doesn't impress me. Who looks best on that list by the eye test? Some of those teams probably are not on tv much, like Creighton.

I was surprised to see Trier's name so high here...and his numbers look really good. He's not a PG though....and he often makes dumb decisions with the ball, like he doesn't have a high bbiq.

https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/prospects/stats

I've only 'seen' Trier and Brunson (and not this season), live, the rest is highlights, and of course, they all look good in highlight reels.

Watch on YouTube

But this is a somewhat good Carter vs Graham...which I really like both of them, probably, more than most. Brunson, while I like a lot, I guess is supposed to have trouble at the next level with athleticism, and this is where scouting goes above my head.