2022-23 Season Discussion and Speculation 5 - The KD era begins

[Ghost of Kleine]

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That's pretty awesome!!!
Players excelling in simplified roles are always important to supplemental depth.

[Revived]

Stanley Johnson anyone? It probably won't happen because Ross is already here but it would be nice to have him

I’d like him over Wainwright. He’s 6’9, 245 lbs and has the build and skills to defensive cover 1-4.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Stanley Johnson anyone? It probably won't happen because Ross is already here but it would be nice to have him

I’d like him over Wainwright. He’s 6’9, 245 lbs and has the build and skills to defensive cover 1-4.

He's 6'9 now? I thought he was 6'7 with a 7'0 wingspan. Did he grow more recently??

[spanishninja]

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That's pretty awesome!!!
Players excelling in simplified roles are always important to supplemental depth.

BUILD A HOSPITAL!

BUT NOT FOR ME!

[bwgood77]

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Great to hear about TJ.

[WeekapaugGroove]

JV out rebounded DA ratio of 2-1 in the series.

That's significant but I guess if you are "don't look at the stats" then no point of talking about it.

I thought Ayton was kind of good/kind of disappointing that series..shrug

Giant dudes like Val do tend to give him a little trouble and we saw that some. But I agree with BW that some of Vals lines were a bit misleading.

That series to me was more about shooting than C play. NO shot extremely well a couple games and the suns were extremely cold from 3. Happens. Also Ingram was like out of his mind good for a few games. Payne getting rattled by their legth and becoming unplayable was bad too.

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Sure JV got more boards, but I don't understand what is disappointing given he averaged 20/10/2.5 assists/1.2 blocks per game and shot 70% FOR THE SERIES, while holding JV to 48% shooting.

I remember so many people complaining about Ayton (as usual) because of the board discrepancy, but those looking at the bigger picture of the series knew Ayton really stepped up in that series and helped us win it.

I'm mostly on your side here BW. I just thought it wasn't his best series defensively and I thought he should have been more aggressive going right at Val and getting him in foul trouble. I thought both Ayton and the suns were much better at that as the series went on. Probably just an expectation that Ayton is the better player so should have clearly won that matchup.

I will say you can't really disregard the rebounds because Val was volleyballing his own misses without acknowledging that also dipped his FG %. A lot of those wasn't really Ayton defending but Val missing a couple times before he ultimately made it.

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[spanishninja]

I thought Ayton was kind of good/kind of disappointing that series..shrug

Giant dudes like Val do tend to give him a little trouble and we saw that some. But I agree with BW that some of Vals lines were a bit misleading.

That series to me was more about shooting than C play. NO shot extremely well a couple games and the suns were extremely cold from 3. Happens. Also Ingram was like out of his mind good for a few games. Payne getting rattled by their legth and becoming unplayable was bad too.

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Sure JV got more boards, but I don't understand what is disappointing given he averaged 20/10/2.5 assists/1.2 blocks per game and shot 70% FOR THE SERIES, while holding JV to 48% shooting.

I remember so many people complaining about Ayton (as usual) because of the board discrepancy, but those looking at the bigger picture of the series knew Ayton really stepped up in that series and helped us win it.

I'm mostly on your side here BW. I just thought it wasn't his best series defensively and I thought he should have been more aggressive going right at Val and getting him in foul trouble. I thought both Ayton and the suns were much better at that as the series went on. Probably just an expectation that Ayton is the better player so should have clearly won that matchup.

I will say you can't really disregard the rebounds because Val was volleyballing his own misses without acknowledging that also dipped his FG %. A lot of those wasn't really Ayton defending but Val missing a couple times before he ultimately made it.

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another thing to remember is that Ayton is asked to guard the perimeter quite a bit for a big man, while JV has absolutely no business leaving the paint. not letting DA off the hook in terms of effort but it's not the whole story.

[Saberestar]

Stanley Johnson anyone? It probably won't happen because Ross is already here but it would be nice to have him

I’d like him over Wainwright. He’s 6’9, 245 lbs and has the build and skills to defensive cover 1-4.

He's 6'9 now? I thought he was 6'7 with a 7'0 wingspan. Did he grow more recently??

It was a mistake. Stanley Johnson is 6'6.

[TeamTragic]

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Awesome news!

[darmani]

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[Revived]

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Hope this isn’t true at all.

[Fo-Real]

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Hope this isn’t true at all.

I'm game.

[NapoleonII]

Uhhh, maybe you were watching a different series.

If you think these numbers by DA was "one of the reasons" Suns got past NO, I don't know what dream world you are living in.
He got double-double one game out of 6.

Gm1 - 21-3
Gm2 - 10-9
Gm3 - 28-17
Gm4 - 23-8
Gm5 - 19-9
Gm6 - 22-4

and here's Valanciunas' numbers

Gm1 - 18-25
Gm2 - 10-13
Gm3 - 6-11
Gm4 - 26-15
Gm5 - 17-14
Gm6 - 10-8

DA simply got outplayed, manhandled... period.

Yeah, just posting the box stats with only points/rebounds isn't going to convince anyone worth convincing.

"Man-handled"

Ayton was his usual insanely efficient shelf, shooting 70% that series.....10/15 FG in game one, 13/20 in game three, 11/14, etc, etc and played very good defense throughout.

What glasses are you wearing watching basketball?

EDIT: You also posted botched numbers. He had 9 rebounds (not 3) and 4 blocks in game 1, and 7 (not 4) rebounds...averaging 10 rebounds a game for the series.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/aytonde01/gamelog-playoffs/

LOL what?

Do you actually mean that if a center is being out rebounded by 2-1, that isn't considered man-handled?

Ok, so don't look at the box stats.

NO's big killed the Suns bigs in that series. Period.

LOL - Ayton averaged 10 rebounds in this series (when you stop lying about his box score numbers) and Val averaged 14.3. That's not 2-1. And like others have sad, a ton of those were just multiple offensive rebound attempts.

Nope, Ayton killed NOP in that series, his historic efficiency especially.

Stop pretending to bring up receipts and then fudging them.

[sunsbg]

Yeah, just posting the box stats with only points/rebounds isn't going to convince anyone worth convincing.

"Man-handled"

Ayton was his usual insanely efficient shelf, shooting 70% that series.....10/15 FG in game one, 13/20 in game three, 11/14, etc, etc and played very good defense throughout.

What glasses are you wearing watching basketball?

EDIT: You also posted botched numbers. He had 9 rebounds (not 3) and 4 blocks in game 1, and 7 (not 4) rebounds...averaging 10 rebounds a game for the series.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/aytonde01/gamelog-playoffs/

LOL what?

Do you actually mean that if a center is being out rebounded by 2-1, that isn't considered man-handled?

Ok, so don't look at the box stats.

NO's big killed the Suns bigs in that series. Period.

LOL - Ayton averaged 10 rebounds in this series (when you stop lying about his box score numbers) and Val averaged 14.3. That's not 2-1. And like others have sad, a ton of those were just multiple offensive rebound attempts.

Nope, Ayton killed NOP in that series, his historic efficiency especially.

Stop pretending to bring up receipts and then fudging them.

Two lessons here - in maths and basketball. Good job.

[lilfishi22]

I'd think Vanderbilt, Kwahi, and Bridges would be the players if I had to guess. With Bridges being the one probably not making the playoffs? I would almost prefer to say Vanderbilt with the Flakers, but I figure somehow they'll find a way to sneak in! But V8 would have been a coup for us playing alongside of Durant!

Stanley Johnson might be the other guy who can cover KD. Might be good to scoop him up just to not let some other playoff team grab him

He actually makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen many Suns Twitter media guys like Kellen Olson, David IVplay etc talk about how Suns really need a POA defender as they don’t have one currently.

Johnson can do that pretty well. And he defends 1-4.

On offense he’s pretty much trash (40% 3pt on super low attempts that wouldn’t hold up on legit attempts) but he may be worth signing for the defense alone.

I’d rather have him than Ish Wainwright if they had to pick between the two.

Yeah there's not a ton on paper that separates them. Both athletic and primarily defenders with a developing but unreliable shot from range. The major difference is obviously experience. I think for our sake, it's just better to have him on our team than on some other contender

[TeamTragic]

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Hope this isn’t true at all.

I'm game.

No thanks

[lilfishi22]

The Suns got dominated by the bigs. It wasn't because Booker wasn't playing.

DA got man handled by them.

Did you happen to watch a different series? DA was one of the reasons we got past New Orleans with the loss of Booker.

Uhhh, maybe you were watching a different series.

If you think these numbers by DA was "one of the reasons" Suns got past NO, I don't know what dream world you are living in.
He got double-double one game out of 6.

Gm1 - 21-3
Gm2 - 10-9
Gm3 - 28-17
Gm4 - 23-8
Gm5 - 19-9
Gm6 - 22-4

and here's Valanciunas' numbers

Gm1 - 18-25
Gm2 - 10-13
Gm3 - 6-11
Gm4 - 26-15
Gm5 - 17-14
Gm6 - 10-8

DA simply got outplayed, manhandled... period.

There's no way we get past the Pels without DA. Even with CP3 going supernova, we still needed a second guy putting up points on the board. CP3 averaging 22pts in that series just isn't enough when Book was out for most of those games. DA was that second guy who poured in about 20ppg for us while shooting 70% from the field, 70%! JV put up numbers sure and grabbed a ton of rebounds but he also shot below 50% for the series. DA did a great job on him.

[lilfishi22]

Stanley Johnson anyone? It probably won't happen because Ross is already here but it would be nice to have him

I’d like him over Wainwright. He’s 6’9, 245 lbs and has the build and skills to defensive cover 1-4.

He's 6'9 now? I thought he was 6'7 with a 7'0 wingspan. Did he grow more recently??

I thought he was around 6'9 too until I looked up his profile on BRef. Dude is listed at 6-6 but a heavy 242lb 6-6. Not too dissimilar to Ish's size

[lilfishi22]

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That's pretty awesome!!!
Players excelling in simplified roles are always important to supplemental depth.

BUILD A HOSPITAL!

BUT NOT FOR ME!

[sunsbum]

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Hope this isn’t true at all.

Why? Carmelo was a really good roleplayer off the bench for the blazers. He only needs to give us 15 minutes a game. He can still play. This is coming from someone that really disliked young Carmelo.