2024-25 Season Discussion and Speculation

[bwgood77]

I would also like to see a blowout. I felt like blowout victories were unnervingly rare in our Chris Paul years. It seemed they were rather common during our SSOL years.

Great teams get blowouts more than occasionally. It takes a great team to win a championship. Boston, OKC, GSW and Cavs have blown teams out, but all of ours have been squeakers - which is why I can't place us in that uppermost tier.

I think the Warriors will cool off a bit. They have been extremely hot from 3 and it's not sustainable. Over 39% as a team, but Hield is shooting over 50% on really high volume, Moody over 48% and Wiggins over 40%. Draymond Green even at 43.5%,

Those are all significantly higher than their career averages (Hield 40%, Moody 37%, Wiggins 35%, and Green 32%).

I definitely don't think we are on the Thunder tier. For Boston, probably not, but without Porzingis, it's closer, and then not sure about Cleveland. GS, we will see.

I called GSW being better than expected - I felt Buddy Hield's been underrated for years, and that he would flourish in that system, certainly more than Klay. GSW's system increases everyone's 3FG%. I won't be shocked if Buddy ends the year with a top-5 3FG% and runs away with 6MOY.

I totally missed on Cleveland in my EC prediction - maily because I forgot about Caris LeVert - who, if he continues at this pace, would have to be the runner-up for 6MOY... but there's no way, right? Currently averaging 13 PPG in 23 MPG on 60% FG and 52% 3FG. Talk about not sustainable!

GS plays Cleveland tonight. I don't watch many other teams that often but this would be one I'd want to watch...unfortunately it's on the same time as our game.

[dremill24]

Beal has been great on the defensive end. No one is really pointing that out. He's been locked in and disrupting a ton of possessions for the opposing teams.

I was going to put something together on this over the weekend...Shearer beat me to it:

Read on Twitter

?t=bmbcZy__Gq3c-31Y3SgU5w&s=19

[bwgood77]

Beal has been great on the defensive end. No one is really pointing that out. He's been locked in and disrupting a ton of possessions for the opposing teams.

I was going to put something together on this over the weekend...Shearer beat me to it:

Read on Twitter

?t=bmbcZy__Gq3c-31Y3SgU5w&s=19

Great read...I've noticed he usually (or at least often) takes on their best player, or at least main scorer/ballhandler..

NBA players do not usually see a massive defensive upswing in their 30s; defense is a younger man’s game, reliant upon quick-twitch athleticism and endurance. But Beal’s defense is far from a numbers-driven narrative. Coach Mike Budenholzer has deployed him as the starters’ point-of-attack defender. NBA.com says his primary defensive matchups have included Tyrese Maxey, Anfernee Simons, and LeBron James (perhaps somewhat of James’ choosing, but they haven’t been eaten up in those minutes!), and BBall-Index says that Beal has had the toughest defensive assignments of any Suns starter by a mile.

[Bogyo]

Beal has been great on the defensive end. No one is really pointing that out. He's been locked in and disrupting a ton of possessions for the opposing teams.

I was going to put something together on this over the weekend...Shearer beat me to it:

Read on Twitter

?t=bmbcZy__Gq3c-31Y3SgU5w&s=19

Great read...I've noticed he usually (or at least often) takes on their best player, or at least main scorer/ballhandler..

NBA players do not usually see a massive defensive upswing in their 30s; defense is a younger man’s game, reliant upon quick-twitch athleticism and endurance. But Beal’s defense is far from a numbers-driven narrative. Coach Mike Budenholzer has deployed him as the starters’ point-of-attack defender. NBA.com says his primary defensive matchups have included Tyrese Maxey, Anfernee Simons, and LeBron James (perhaps somewhat of James’ choosing, but they haven’t been eaten up in those minutes!), and BBall-Index says that Beal has had the toughest defensive assignments of any Suns starter by a mile.

That approves the eye test, and a bit surprising. I thought this will be Books job after the olympics - and this kinda puts Books performance so far to be kinda the worst out of our big 3... Hmmm... not sure what to think of that in light of these, and our narrow wins in our great record.

[bwgood77]

I was going to put something together on this over the weekend...Shearer beat me to it:

Read on Twitter

?t=bmbcZy__Gq3c-31Y3SgU5w&s=19

Great read...I've noticed he usually (or at least often) takes on their best player, or at least main scorer/ballhandler..

NBA players do not usually see a massive defensive upswing in their 30s; defense is a younger man’s game, reliant upon quick-twitch athleticism and endurance. But Beal’s defense is far from a numbers-driven narrative. Coach Mike Budenholzer has deployed him as the starters’ point-of-attack defender. NBA.com says his primary defensive matchups have included Tyrese Maxey, Anfernee Simons, and LeBron James (perhaps somewhat of James’ choosing, but they haven’t been eaten up in those minutes!), and BBall-Index says that Beal has had the toughest defensive assignments of any Suns starter by a mile.

That approves the eye test, and a bit surprising. I thought this will be Books job after the olympics - and this kinda puts Books performance so far to be kinda the worst out of our big 3... Hmmm... not sure what to think of that in light of these, and our narrow wins in our great record.

I remember that he was a great defender in college, and had a couple of pretty good defensive years in Washington when they were making the playoffs. Perhaps when he was the #1 option on offense he didn't have as much energy and now with less responsibility on that side, he embraces that side and wants to do it. I think last year he was more just trying to find his role with the other two as it was totally different than any role he'd had before.

[dremill24]

Spoiler:

Great read...I've noticed he usually (or at least often) takes on their best player, or at least main scorer/ballhandler..

That approves the eye test, and a bit surprising. I thought this will be Books job after the olympics - and this kinda puts Books performance so far to be kinda the worst out of our big 3... Hmmm... not sure what to think of that in light of these, and our narrow wins in our great record.

I remember that he was a great defender in college, and had a couple of pretty good defensive years in Washington when they were making the playoffs. Perhaps when he was the #1 option on offense he didn't have as much energy and now with less responsibility on that side, he embraces that side and wants to do it. I think last year he was more just trying to find his role with the other two as it was totally different than any role he'd had before.

He's top 40 in the league in contested shots per game and is easily the smallest guy on that list.

[wheezy]

Great read...I've noticed he usually (or at least often) takes on their best player, or at least main scorer/ballhandler..

That approves the eye test, and a bit surprising. I thought this will be Books job after the olympics - and this kinda puts Books performance so far to be kinda the worst out of our big 3... Hmmm... not sure what to think of that in light of these, and our narrow wins in our great record.

I remember that he was a great defender in college, and had a couple of pretty good defensive years in Washington when they were making the playoffs. Perhaps when he was the #1 option on offense he didn't have as much energy and now with less responsibility on that side, he embraces that side and wants to do it. I think last year he was more just trying to find his role with the other two as it was totally different than any role he'd had before.

Yeah, I liked him a lot coming out of Florida. Seemed like he was always down to do what was needed (with decent to good defense) when Wall was running the show.

[Revived]

Read on Twitter

[sunskerr]

Not convinced we are elite...still giving up a lot of points and our games are mostly close. Our net rating is far behind teams like OKC and Boston, even GSW. That being said it's not like we've played only pushover teams.

Also I don't quite buy GSW and even CLE is suspect.

There are some good improvements for us but I don't think we are as good as our current record. Time will tell.

[wheezy]

Not convinced we are elite...still giving up a lot of points and our games are mostly close. Our net rating is far behind teams like OKC and Boston, even GSW. That being said it's not like we've played only pushover teams.

Also I don't quite buy GSW and even CLE is suspect.

There are some good improvements for us but I don't think we are as good as our current record. Time will tell.

Agree that both GSW and CLE are suspect. Both have had pretty easy schedules so far, with both only having 1 tough game each. Bw also mentioned the dubs are having an unusually hot start shooting it.

For the suns, you'd obviously like to see some blow outs against teams like the Blazers, but it's great seeing them grit out these wins, however close they are. The team also looks like they're enjoying themselves 10x better than last year.

[Qwigglez]

Welp. This sucks.

Read on Twitter

[dremill24]

Yikes, right when the schedule starts to get tougher

[Revived]

KD being so injury prone was one of the biggest criticisms of the trade.

I don’t even understand when he got injured. He looked fine even at the end of the game.

I guess when you’re old this can happen maybe hours after heavy cardio session while getting on the plane or something?

[Revived]

Read on Twitter

[grumpysaddle]

Welp. Here we go.

[SunsRback4Good]

I’m not even surprised anymore we are cursed when it comes to injuries.

[sunsbg]

I’m not even surprised anymore we are cursed when it comes to injuries.

Cursed by Luka for the too small gesture. We know what he did to CP3 too.

On a serious note everybody knows our star players getting injured is inevitable. Check Dirk guy's post in Mavs thread. I was joking yesterday with a friend that his Bulls are about to get demoted to G League after he said injuries are coming so I should not get too excited about the hot start. So yeah, nothing surprising really. Just have fun when the team is winning.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Injuries happen, there's over 100 players on the NBA injury report (average about 4 per team).

We were over playing Durant anyway so kind of deserved it and we have good depth and role players could use more time.

If Nurkic is out too?

It'll be good to see if Morris, Okogie, Bol, Ighodaro can add value as we need to improve differential in turnovers and rebounds.

Maybe we go -

Jones, Beal, Booker, Dunn, Plumlee
Morris, Allen, Okogie, O'Neale, Ighodaro

DNP - Lee, Bol
Inj - Durant, Nurkic

[Bogyo]

Welp, it was fun while it lasted... time to fire up the trade machine... as Royce and Dunn are doing a fantastic job I think Grayson is the obvious choice
Who is / should be available for that contract with our restrictions? I was looking at Larry Nance (and pick/s/) from the Hawks, who seem to be going nowhere again, but trade machine says no... and pretty much every other trade as well - these restrictions suck.

[sunskerr]

KD was playing an insane number of minutes to start the year. Also coming off an Olympics filled off-season. Not surprising he's picked up an ouchie. Just be glad it ain't worse.

Thought coach should have cut down those minutes.