Season Speculation, Trade Ideas & Discussion Pt. 3

[sunsbum]

I like Len. There, I said it.

**** just got real boys. Let's not forget our boy sauce simmering on the bench, 17/14 on 51% compared to Lens 14/14 per 36 on 48%....how you shoot 48% when you are literally the tallest human being in the building every night I dunno.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Read on Twitter

I don't mind Sidery, but I really don't understand his recent obsession over Fizdale. Our goal shouldn't be to hire guys to "flip the negative image revolving around the franchise," it should be to find the best coach to turn this team into competitors. If he really believes that's Fizdale then cool, I admittedly don't know enough about him as a coach to say anything about him, it just feels like it's more of a "new coach available and we don't have one, so we should get him" situation. I don't really understand how hiring them fixes our image though, I get they're respected by old Heat players but is there anything else to it...?

This 100%. I don't get why they would rush into this hire. Lets see who is all available this summer. Other guys will be fired and might as well interview the hot assistants and maybe even a college guy.

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[Son of Ra]

I like Len. There, I said it.

**** just got real boys. Let's not forget our boy sauce simmering on the bench, 17/14 on 51% compared to Lens 14/14 per 36 on 48%....how you shoot 48% when you are literally the tallest human being in the building every night I dunno.

+1 for the lolz

[sunsbg]

Enough with the tanking. Winning games is not treadmilling. It's not all or nothing. There's steps you have to take to be a title contender and getting to the damn playoffs is the first one.

Tanking is only worthy when you end with Embiid and Simmons instead of Bender and Chriss. 76ers are now going after LeBron. Imagine them winning a title in the next 5 years.

[sunsbum]

I think LeBron has his future pretty well mapped out. Not that things cant change but I don't see him going to philly...could you imagine the ball movent though with LeBron and Simmons, yikes.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

Enough with the tanking. Winning games is not treadmilling. It's not all or nothing. There's steps you have to take to be a title contender and getting to the damn playoffs is the first one.

Tanking is only worthy when you end with Embiid and Simmons instead of Bender and Chriss. 76ers are now going after LeBron. Imagine them winning a title in the next 5 years.

Hey, tanking got us Josh Jackson instead of Lonzo Ball. Sometimes it pays to be lucky!

[WeekapaugGroove]

Enough with the tanking. Winning games is not treadmilling. It's not all or nothing. There's steps you have to take to be a title contender and getting to the damn playoffs is the first one.

Tanking is only worthy when you end with Embiid and Simmons instead of Bender and Chriss. 76ers are now going after LeBron. Imagine them winning a title in the next 5 years.

I don't consider what the suns are doing this year as tanking. They are simply playing young players and when you do that you will lose more than you win.

With this team I don't root for loses but also don't care when they do. As long as you win on the backs of young guys its all good. What bothered me in the past is when they tried to win with vets who didn't have a long term future with the team.

I also have no issue at all in adding veteran talent to this team as long as that player has a multiple year future with the team.

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[lilfishi22]

I hate the notion that since the suns haven't hit on a top pick that they shouldn't care if they have more high picks. Such a defeatist way of thinking. How about they do a better job and pick the right **** player this time.

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That's an equally questionable notion. Like all this time we haven't really been trying to do the best job to pick the right player

[bwgood77]

Read on Twitter

I don't mind Sidery, but I really don't understand his recent obsession over Fizdale. Our goal shouldn't be to hire guys to "flip the negative image revolving around the franchise," it should be to find the best coach to turn this team into competitors. If he really believes that's Fizdale then cool, I admittedly don't know enough about him as a coach to say anything about him, it just feels like it's more of a "new coach available and we don't have one, so we should get him" situation. I don't really understand how hiring them fixes our image though, I get they're respected by old Heat players but is there anything else to it...?

I agree. I can appreciate Sidery's enthusiasm and everything but I don't think he is terribly knowledgeable about this team's needs or NBA coaches and their skill sets. He likely hasn't even followed the Suns for more than a year. And who knows how good Bosh is at developing others?

[NavLDO]

Without Blake, they are in the tank battle. They only have one more win than us and will be awful. Tougher to have a worst 5 record now.

We're looking at this all wrong. Memphis, Clippers and Kings should finish below us. Only 7 teams in the west with a .500 record. We can sneak in if we get our **** together. That should be the aim.

... I'm also not nearly as impressed with this draft class as some seem to be. I like Bagley and Doncic rn, I'm not convinced that the best PG won't be selected outside the lotto, and there are promising bigs in the late lotto as well. I think we'd be better off building some momentum with a strong season.

I agree completely.

We have played just the first quarter of the season, we have a lot of games ahead of us and a lot of things can happen.

We are not that bad, we need a good PG and we would be a competitive team.

Memphis, Clippers (without Griffin and Beverley), Lakers, Kings, Mavs and Jazz are not better than us.

I would love to fight for the playoffs with this young team.

I do not care about draft position, every year it is the same story.

Last year, all the people were claiming that the draft had three big time prospects in Ball, Fultz and Jackson...and right now we do not even know if they are better than any of the all the other players in the lottery.

Good points. Prospects seem like 'no brainer/surefire talents' every year, and every year, 2 or 3 or more fail to meet their projected 'billing'. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Warren is not about to give up the reins to JJ any time soon, and he may never, which is why this summer when some were consistently treating Warren like a '6th Man', already placing JJ in the starting slot, I was beside myself. As Yoda would say...Draft position, an All-Star, does not make.

Now, I'm not saying JJ never will overtake the SF starting position; I hope he does, because that will mean he's Paul George-esque, at least. But to crown him before he's played a minute in the NBA, or on the opposite end...to assume he'll never pan out because his relative slow start, is ludicrous. Same with Bender and Chriss. But the fact is, and we saw it last year on our own team, draf position does not equate to certain success, especially early success. By all rights, Bender should've wiped the floor with Chriss, based upon his higher draft position, his attributes and experience, but the exact opposite took place and Chriss started a good portion of the season over Bender.

Our 2 best players were drafted 13th and 14th, while we are on the verge of ridding ourselves of our 5th overall pick,and our 2 4th overall picks have been 'less than stellar'.

[LukasBMW]

Enough with the tanking. Winning games is not treadmilling. It's not all or nothing. There's steps you have to take to be a title contender and getting to the damn playoffs is the first one.

Tanking is only worthy when you end with Embiid and Simmons instead of Bender and Chriss. 76ers are now going after LeBron. Imagine them winning a title in the next 5 years.

Hey, tanking got us Josh Jackson instead of Lonzo Ball. Sometimes it pays to be lucky!

Green font?

So far both have looked pretty bad. I hate to say it, but it's true.

Fultz hasn't even played.

Tatum has looked the best thus far.

Fox and Lauri have put up good numbers, but they are both on awful teams. Could be the Carter-Williams effect.

Right now though, it looks like we missed a chance to grab Tatum....

[AtheJ415]

I can't believe we have fans who honestly see the playoffs as realistic. It's beyond insane. Oklahoma City, with the reigning MVP and one of the top 2 way players in basketball both in their primes, combined with guys like Melo and Adams, is currently 10th, and that's with a coach like Billy Donovan who is much better than what we have.

We are in 13th in the West despite playing the 4th or 5th easiest schedule in basketball. The playoffs are not at all a reasonable possibility for this team.

[AtheJ415]

Also, the idea that Chriss or Bender are already proven to be the wrong players is crazy. Not many are legitimately good in the NBA at age 20. Many current stars were not even on the NBA radar at 20 because they were college role players (hello Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, etc.).

Getting the 1st pick and missing it sets you back no more than getting the 6th pick and missing it. Losing a lot with the primary reward of a pick obviously puts a lot of pressure on that pick, as does your star player's FA, etc.. But as a fan, I am not going to care or remember my team being the 6th or 7th worst team in the league relative to the worst. I will not remember those wins nor cherish them, and so give me the best odds to add a player around Booker that will allow the team to contend with other teams that have young stars. Those teams, guess what, got top picks multiple times, such as MN and Philly. We need an Ayton or Doncic or Bagley to pair with Booker and the rest of the crew. Winning now is so unbelievably stupid for this team given where the conference is and where this team is. I thought we finally dispelled those notions when we pulled out of the Paul Milsap sweepstakes. I guess I was wrong. Many here seem to want to pay vet players $35 mil a year to get that precious 8 seed.

[lilfishi22]

I can't believe we have fans who honestly see the playoffs as realistic. It's beyond insane. Oklahoma City, with the reigning MVP and one of the top 2 way players in basketball both in their primes, combined with guys like Melo and Adams, is currently 10th, and that's with a coach like Billy Donovan who is much better than what we have.

We are in 13th in the West despite playing the 4th or 5th easiest schedule in basketball. The playoffs are not at all a reasonable possibility for this team.

As our roster stands, it's not realistic at all. I don't know if it's possible but if we could make some moves to shore up our PG and PF/C position, we'll have the pieces to be very competitive and could give an 8th spot a run.

OKC is trying to integrate 3 high usage players. Their 10th spot right now is deceiving.

[AtheJ415]

I can't believe we have fans who honestly see the playoffs as realistic. It's beyond insane. Oklahoma City, with the reigning MVP and one of the top 2 way players in basketball both in their primes, combined with guys like Melo and Adams, is currently 10th, and that's with a coach like Billy Donovan who is much better than what we have.

We are in 13th in the West despite playing the 4th or 5th easiest schedule in basketball. The playoffs are not at all a reasonable possibility for this team.

As our roster stands, it's not realistic at all. I don't know if it's possible but if we could make some moves to shore up our PG and PF/C position, we'll have the pieces to be very competitive and could give an 8th spot a run.

OKC is trying to integrate 3 high usage players. Their 10th spot right now is deceiving.

But that is exactly my point. OKC will take one of those spots, so you are having to look at Phx and the rest of the other 7 and say we have a shot at beating those teams if we grab PG X or PF Y, and that is just wrong. Utah is going to get Gobert back. The Clippers might be realistic to catch but the others are not, including Denver who has underachieved thus far.

[sunsbum]

We didn't miss on Tatum, he was drafted #3.

[LukasBMW]

We didn't miss on Tatum, he was drafted #3.

Only because we made sure Boston didn't take Jackson.

[Damkac]

At least some part of why Tatum looks better than JJ is because he plays on a much better team with a much better coach.

[NavLDO]

The Jazz traded with Denver in 2013 to get the 27th pick to get Rudy Gobert. In 2014, they had the 5th pick and took Dante Exum.

The Bucks drafted Greek Freak at 15 in 2013, and in 2014 they took Jabari Parker with the 2nd pick. They also got Brogdon with the 35th pick last year.

Just saying a high pick isn't necessarily needed. We could find gold anywhere in the draft. The Nuggets have been doing a great job with their later picks such as Gary Harris (picked 18th in 2014), Nurkic (picked 16th in 2014), Jokic (picked 41st in 2014). Maybe we are also a team that just picks better later.

Yeah, there are a couple of non lotto that end up being solid players every year. Whether or not you are the lucky team to pick them is a problem. Our non lotto picks have been Tyler Ennis, Tyler Ulis, Alec Peters, Davon Reed, etc.

I'll be very happy to see us win games and be competitive and strike gold in the second round. I just don't see the former happening. I hope the latter happens regardless of where we fall in the draft. We sure will have lots of chances with late picks to hopefully strike gold.

It's all about execution. McD drafted ulis right before brogdon. Since they were in the same range one would assume they scouted both guys and chose ulis. Thats not luck thats poor execution.

You can find gems and busts throughout the draft. No gm gets all the picks right but the good ones hit more than miss.

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Well, then so is every team's GM in the NBA that had a pick before the 36th pick, because it doesn't matter what 'range'they were in...they ALL got it wrong if he was in that range at all. You can't blame McD for picking Ulis over Brogdon because they were in the same 'range', because technically, anyone who doesn't measure up to Brogdon SHOULD have been scouted lower than him, so ALL the Scouts, GMs, Coaches, and Sports Writers got it wrong.

The fact of the matter is, there are SO many variables that go into the success or non-success of a rookie:

Physical Ability
Talent
Opportunity
Health
Confidence
Coaching
Mentorship
Environment
'Teach-' or 'Coach-' ability
Drive
Handling Pressure
Personality
'Chemistry' or 'Fit'

...the list goes on and on. Put Brogdon on the Suns, and Ulis on the Bucks, and for all we know, Ulis is ROY last year; we really don't know. I'm not trying to get all 'existentialist' on you, but really, for all we know, he and Giannis could've hit it off specatularly; who knows?

Point is, IMO, you can't say McD failed because Brogdon was drafted later than Ulis, and ended up better last year. If Brogdon was so fantastic, then why did the Bucks just trade us for Bledsoe? Also, remember, Brogdon turns 25 next month; Ulis turns 22 the month after that, so he has 3 years on Brogdon. Let's see where Ulis is in 3 years and judge then; we might be singing a different tune.

[WeekapaugGroove]

I hate the notion that since the suns haven't hit on a top pick that they shouldn't care if they have more high picks. Such a defeatist way of thinking. How about they do a better job and pick the right **** player this time.

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That's an equally questionable notion. Like all this time we haven't really been trying to do the best job to pick the right player

Of course they were trying but its ultimately a results based world. I don't expect a gm to hit every pick but they need more hits than McD has had the past couple years.



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