Summer League: Vegas baby, vegas.

Mulhollanddrive · Post #721 » by **Mulhollanddrive** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 2:51 am

Fox and Hield are 2 of 13 if that helps.

DirtyDez · Post #722 » by **DirtyDez** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 2:54 am

I didn't want Chriss adding more than 10 lbs. Didn't think he needed it.

Bender on the other hand needs to add around 20-25 lbs over 2-3 years especially to his lower body. Once he thickens his base he can start making an impact inside but as of now he's a Channing Frye type that occasionally flashes some defense. I want to see him show he belongs in the league before we start giving him the Point Forward label.

Mulhollanddrive · Post #723 » by **Mulhollanddrive** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 2:58 am

Tatum and Brown 8 of 24.

Frank Lee · Post #724 » by **Frank Lee** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 3:13 am

SarcasticSun wrote:.......
Our whole team overall is being absolutely hammered by a lack of shooting. They should all look better playing in the regular season because right now the spacing is trash.

This is the same offense Watson runs regular season.... its just being run with worse players. :eyebrows:

Mulhollanddrive · Post #725 » by **Mulhollanddrive** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 3:24 am

We typically draft athletes and hope we can teach them skills.

Blackification · Post #726 » by **Blackification** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 3:28 am

Frank Lee wrote:
SarcasticSun wrote:.......
Our whole team overall is being absolutely hammered by a lack of shooting. They should all look better playing in the regular season because right now the spacing is trash.

This is the same offense Watson runs regular season.... its just being run with worse players.

This is spot on just extra bad cause we dont even have a close to decent pg in this group and all the top draftees were at the point position

MilotheSlayer · Post #727 » by **MilotheSlayer** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 3:38 am

Although I get upset with his attitude and he complains about calls a little to much, I'll give Chriss' offensive play a pass. The guy isn't going to be our 2nd or 3rd option ever on offense. Now in summer league he's playing outside of his regular role. He's driving too much and trying to create stuff that isn't there. Come regular season he will go back to being our roll guy and spot up for a few 3's a game.

thamadkant · Post #728 » by **thamadkant** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 3:57 am

Frank Lee wrote:
SarcasticSun wrote:.......
Our whole team overall is being absolutely hammered by a lack of shooting. They should all look better playing in the regular season because right now the spacing is trash.

This is the same offense Watson runs regular season.... its just being run with worse players.

Fact!

Also they interviewed him and he admitted he's a developmental coach lol. Seriously though... Suns need a proper established coach who knows a good system to use with what players suns have.

SarcasticSun · Post #729 » by **SarcasticSun** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:02 am

1UPZ wrote:
Frank Lee wrote:
SarcasticSun wrote:.......
Our whole team overall is being absolutely hammered by a lack of shooting. They should all look better playing in the regular season because right now the spacing is trash.

This is the same offense Watson runs regular season.... its just being run with worse players.

Fact!

Also they interviewed him and he admitted he's a developmental coach lol. Seriously though... Suns need a proper established coach who knows a good system to use with what players suns have.

Lol yeah I agree. I'm not sure if he's the right developmental coach for us, but we'll know more this regular season.

Post #730 » by **bwgood77** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:24 am

SarcasticSun wrote:Well that's why DSJ was the one player I really wanted.

The Chriss hate is being overblown. Chriss's poor play is a combination of several things that will be cleaned up by the time the season starts. He's mid bulk, if he still has this much weight at the season's beginning then we can be worried. I think the weight is killing his shot too cause most of his misses seem to be too strong.

Our guard play also sucks which is killing Chriss's game because his handle and post moves aren't good enough yet to beat his man 1v1.

It looks like Chriss is playing a bit more loose and reckless because it's inferior competition which leads to the ugly stat-lines we've seen. Honestly Chriss knows he can play in the league already and be a solid player, why not take some risks and put up crappy stat-lines now when he knows he can ball out during the regular season still. I mean we all know summer league doesn't really matter in the least bit, you don't think Chriss is thinking this same thing?

Our whole team overall is being absolutely hammered by a lack of shooting. They should all look better playing in the regular season because right now the spacing is trash.

We were not a good shooting team last year...our 3 pt shooting was atrocious overall. I expect the young guys to improve, but we drafted a guy not projected to be a good shooter either. I can't say I expect great spacing or much respect from opposing defenses on guarding our 3 pt shooters, but we should get better. We really need to add a great shooter somehow. Hopefully Booker and Warren improve a great deal on that this year, and hopefully Jackson does better than expected, and Chriss and Bender improve as well.

nevetsov · Post #731 » by **nevetsov** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:19 am

Chriss does look like he's gained bulk from the chest down, but his shoulders are still as small and hunched as last year. I know he is still developing, but that's where his gains need to be.

RunDogGun · Post #732 » by **RunDogGun** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:26 am

Wow, that was just a horrible game of basketball. Chriss was an NBA starter, right? How the heck isn't he dominating this summer league? It's like our whole team stayed up drinking last night. :crazy:

DaleyBlind · Post #733 » by **DaleyBlind** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:53 am

By the sound of it, i picked a good game to miss.

Skillmatic · Post #734 » by **Skillmatic** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:21 am

Does someone here know a page to watch the full game replay?Would be nice. Thank you

darealjuice · Post #735 » by **darealjuice** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:21 am

Really rough game to watch today, scoreboard doesn't tell you how bad the Suns looked. Not happy that I travelled from Phoenix to see that kind of effort. Our starting lineup is way too easy to defend, Mike James is the only guy that has shot well and he dribbles the air out of the ball every possession. DJJ and JJ flat out shouldn't be on the court together, there's way too much help clogging the paint when they don't have to worry much about either of them out on the perimeter and it makes everything more difficult.

JJ probably had the best game of our core players in SL. He did the best job of anyone guarding Dennis Smith Jr, but we were getting killed out of the pick and roll almost every time. His shot needs a lot of work before it gets respected in the NBA and his ball handling needs refining, but he's shown good vision for a wing and he's very fluid with the ball in his hands. That rim stuff was really bad though lol I thought that could have been a big momentum booster but it turned into a missed dunk and a 3 iirc.

Really bad showing from Chriss in terms of effort, body language, and really skill in general. He looked like he didn't give a **** half the time, and he got exposed defending the pick and roll a lot today. I'd say it's pretty clear that he isn't ready to consistently create his own offense, especially since we've clearly made a point of getting him into space. The Mavs started running double teams at him just because they knew it was a near guaranteed turnover if he dribbled. It's no surprise that he's having trouble in the paint though, we have no spacing.

Bender's shot is so flat, I can't see him being a very consistent shooter without getting some more arch on his shot. He floats out onto the perimeter like 90% of the time when he runs a screen and roll, I don't mind him popping frequently but he needs to show some variety so the other team doesn't know exactly how to defend it every time. He made a couple nice passes and I liked to see him trying to bury mismatches more in the post, but he's still got a ways to go as well.

Davon Reed had a bad shooting day, but I liked what I saw from him. His handle is pretty decent, he's very long, and he's very confident in his shot even though he shot poorly today. I think he'll be a good backup for Booker.

I'm not going to get too down on their performances though. There's a lot of time to develop between now and the season, and they're playing in a spacing-less lineup with a ball pounding point guard. Quese isn't going to be asked to create as much offense, and he won't be seeing the help defense that he gets now when Booker and Bledsoe are out on the perimeter. JJ's slashing and vision will have more impact when we have shooters on the floor to spread the floor instead of having 2 guys waiting in the paint for him every time he puts the ball down. Bender looks like he's getting stronger and we looked much better with him on the floor today because he actually moves the ball and plays good defense.

Revived · Post #736 » by **Revived** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:06 am

rsavaj wrote:
gaspar wrote:
rsavaj wrote:
not sure I see the comparison. Skita couldn't defend like Bender, couldn't pass like Bender...heck, he really couldn't do anything

so he's exactly like Bender

good case of two people watching the same thing but seeing different things

the reason I'm excited about Dragan is because he projects as a pretty good defender to me; I value his defensive agility(and switchability) a lot. He did an okay job defending the perimeter on Friday, and he fared really well in the post too. He can't stay in front of DSJ today, but then again, few in this league can.

Even if his offensive game never progresses(which would be a real shame, but I think it's highly unlikely considering he's still a teenager), Bender looks like a guy who slide into any rotation and make a positive contribution

So basically he's looking more and more like say, Andre Roberson.

That's ok and that's a rotation player like you said but the expectation for a top 4 pick should be much higher than that.

DaleyBlind · Post #737 » by **DaleyBlind** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:14 am

Ive gone from being super high on our young guys too super low in one day. God help me.

Zelaznyrules · Post #738 » by **Zelaznyrules** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:14 am

I think Mike James is getting too much blame for his style of play. What point guard could succeed with the players he was surrounded by? Between Chriss, Jackson, Jones JR and Bender - James had very little to work with out there. Give him a couple of catch and shoot players and another ball-handler that can create offense on his own and then we'll see what he can do. Maybe the results will be the same but I know how frustrating it was to watch Bledsoe try to run an offense with PJ and Chandler on the court at the same time - the defense just sagged off of both of those guys leaving no open shooters and no lanes to penetrate.

Zelaznyrules · Post #739 » by **Zelaznyrules** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:43 am

DaleyBlind wrote:Ive gone from being super high on our young guys too super low in one day. God help me.

I'm a little lower on them now then I was before summer league but I was just as unimpressed on Saturday. Jackson is a little overrated IMO. I know he was supposedly a consistent shooter the second half of the season but that shot is scary bad. His ceiling right now is solid role player, fortunately that's pretty much what his floor is too so at least he won't be a bust. If he can shorten his dribble and re-learn to shoot, he could be a special player but the odds are against him.

Bender has a lower ceiling than I originally thought. I still believe he can be a decent starter (and fill a valuable role) but I've dropped from confident to hopeful on him. I've never really believed in Chriss although he played better in his rookie season than I expected so I was holding out a modicum of hope. He's still young but I've never seen a player with his flaws overcome them and excel. Maybe he'll be the first one? I still believe in Booker and Warren (and to a lesser extent, Ulis) so I'm not writing off all our young guys. But if at least one of the trio of Bender, Chriss and Jackson doesn't have stardom in his future, we might need to tank for another 2 seasons (maybe even more).

I'm sure some will read this post and accuse me of giving up on these guys because of a meaningless summer league game but hopefully most will realize I'm not really writing them off nor am I all that influenced by the 2 SL games. I just have a lot of concerns and SL play so far supports those concerns. I think Reed and James will help our rotation but I can't see either of them being more than the 3rd or 4th man off the bench. It's not like either of those two have really shined but they are the only bright spots for me so far.

Frank Lee · Post #740 » by **Frank Lee** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:51 am

HAs McDo assembled a round hole square peg team ? Who will be our shooters. You need shooters in the big leagues. Is our season going to hinge upon Bender, Warren, and Chris finding their shot?

This is concerning. We have virtually zero offense form the C spot, inconsistent offense form the PF spot, a junk man at SF, chuck happy SG, and a rock pounding PG. We add to that a miss mash bench led by a chubby old SF who can shoot 3s, a new high energy brick layer, an unconfident young euro who we are begging to improve and a diminutive guard that seems to make every one better... or is it less worse?

Going to be a long year if this roster sticks.