Game 40: Phoenix Suns (16-23) @ Atlanta Hawks (8-32)

[RunDogGun]

Okobo is really to blame for this game. Trae is the absolute worse defending point guard in the world, maybe in history. Okobo's job was to put pressure on Trae's defensively, which is what 99% of the rest of the NBA teams do. ZERO point with a measly 3 assists in 22 minutes. Just awful.

We should have started Carter, but Okobo isn't to blame for the failure of the coach. Leaving our best defenders on the bench to wait until the opposing best players get hot, is the real failure for our team. Also starting our slower bigs against basically a small ball team was not smart.

[bwgood77]

This is an awful, awful loss. Hawks are the worst team in the league missing a bunch of players on top.

Again we surrender 45% shooting from 3.

Okobo is such a disappointment. This was a game he should’ve went off in because of how bad his matchups are defensively.

Tyler Johnson is *****ing trash. He should never ever see an NBA court again.

I don’t understand how teams like Utah are making trades for competent backup SGs and James Jones is sitting on his ass like nothing needs be done in Phoenix.

Jordan Clarkson would be a big time upgrade over Tyler Johnson.

Well because they had Dante Exum and still owned their seconds. We got rid of all of our 2nds when we traded TJ and don't have a player like Exum we could throw in.

[bwgood77]

This is an awful, awful loss. Hawks are the worst team in the league missing a bunch of players on top.

Again we surrender 45% shooting from 3.

Okobo is such a disappointment. This was a game he should’ve went off in because of how bad his matchups are defensively.

Tyler Johnson is *****ing trash. He should never ever see an NBA court again.

I don’t understand how teams like Utah are making trades for competent backup SGs and James Jones is sitting on his ass like nothing needs be done in Phoenix.

Jordan Clarkson would be a big time upgrade over Tyler Johnson.

Yeah that whole Okobo thing tonight was awful and unexpected. If that's our non-Rubio situation we need to make moves. Something hopefully will be done. NYK has both PGs and PFs in abundance and are rumored to be open to moving some. TJ and a 1st for Portis and take a shot in the dark at French Frank or even DSJ would help our depth and give us some young players at positions of need who we can buy low on.

I hope we don't trade a first for guys like that. If we can trade players we are not using for a backup PG, fine, but we shouldn't trade 1sts for subpar players on bad teams.

[RiRuHoops]

I don't understand why Tyler plays over Carter. That's insane to me. Carter defends like a mad dog while Tyler does nothing but hurt his team.

[bwgood77]

Maybe the hawks are willing this summer. Maybe Hurter, one of their 4's and a pick. Maybe hawks gm really want golden state east and see booker as that guy next to trae.

Couldn't agree more boys. Cant wait to get rid of that bum. If we trade him lets get a young, maybe 22/23 old player, who has a cpl of years under the belt and is used to the NBA. Maybe one who averages 25 or so a game this year (but we wanna make sure it's not an anomaly so make sure this guy has been hitting it for over 23 or so for the last few yrs), also we need to make sure the guy we trade Booker for has a contract already in place so we don't have to worry about him leaving.

What we really need is some dumb team to look at all of that and give that up willingly so we can pawn Booker's scrub a** off on. Now the question is where to find a team that dumb who would trade a player like that....

Since Tatum is a year out from his max extension, perhaps they'd consider it. I don't know how Kemba and Booker would co-exist but that's the deal that I keep coming back to.
I'm not sure who else we can look at who fits that bill.

Note: I realize it's very unlikely Boston considers it since they have a good thing going.

I don't think Boston would consdier that. And not sure if you realize the post you responded to was sarcasm.

[bwgood77]

I don’t understand how Saric blows so much suddenly. I never liked him even in Philly but at least he was a serviceable player then.

Suns need to sell high on guys like Saric and Baynes instead of holding on to them as if their some treasure. Even if it’s multiple 2nd rd picks, that’s still fine.

Most vets we bring in gradually get worse and many don't like playing in Phx and want out.

[bwgood77]

It's the other questions like, is he a winner? Can he be a winner? Those questions remain unanswered and at 24, it's probably not insane that there isn't a concrete answer yet. I'm not saying he couldn't do more to be a better player as an individual and for the team but I feel like some people think he's the root cause of why we suck when we lose games and that's just not the case. If Booker is the best player on this team, even with all the flaws in his game, isn't that more of a reflection on the team building aspect of this front office?

He's actually only 23 years old. He won't be 24 until next season.

Right now Booker is going to be known for being the best player to never have made the playoffs. Maybe in NBA history.

TJ Warren will experience the playoffs this year as will probably De'Anthony Melton. Book's great friends Russell and Townes have been there too.

He only got 4 shots, like Baynes, Saric and Cam. Part of the reason these guys don't score much is because Booker and Oubre take 39 shots.

I still think Booker and Oubre should stagger more. Shot distribution might work out a little better.

[bwgood77]

Okobo is really to blame for this game. Trae is the absolute worse defending point guard in the world, maybe in history. Okobo's job was to put pressure on Trae's defensively, which is what 99% of the rest of the NBA teams do. ZERO point with a measly 3 assists in 22 minutes. Just awful.

We should have started Carter, but Okobo isn't to blame for the failure of the coach. Leaving our best defenders on the bench to wait until the opposing best players get hot, is the real failure for our team. Also starting our slower bigs against basically a small ball team was not smart.

Carter's not that great offensively, so I'm not sure he would have put a lot of pressure on Trae's lack of defense.

[Jarlaxle0204]

It's the other questions like, is he a winner? Can he be a winner? Those questions remain unanswered and at 24, it's probably not insane that there isn't a concrete answer yet. I'm not saying he couldn't do more to be a better player as an individual and for the team but I feel like some people think he's the root cause of why we suck when we lose games and that's just not the case. If Booker is the best player on this team, even with all the flaws in his game, isn't that more of a reflection on the team building aspect of this front office?

He's actually only 23 years old. He won't be 24 until next season.

Right now Booker is going to be known for being the best player to never have made the playoffs. Maybe in NBA history.

TJ Warren will experience the playoffs this year as will probably De'Anthony Melton. Book's great friends Russell and Townes have been there too.

OK. Are you saying you'd like to trade Booker to a winning team so that he can enjoy the playoffs too?

[Crives]

Some will disagree..

But I do think we have quite a few highly valuable pieces... I think we have more talent then teams like OKC/Memphis.

the problem is our pieces don’t fit very well together on offense. Look at our 3pt shooting. I think there was a tweet recently from Kellan highlighting that we have not shot over 36% as a team since early December.

Early in the season Book and Baynes hot 3pt shooting kept the team afloat..

[handsome salary]

OK. Are you saying you'd like to trade Booker to a winning team so that he can enjoy the playoffs too?

What winning team wants/needs what Booker would bring to them and what would they give up in return for it?

I'm sure it's super frustrating for him to see success on so many other teams. I'd really prefer to see Booker make the playoffs with the Suns but due to so many reasons who the hell knows if that will ever happen. If Suns don't make it this year what team should they be jumping to make it in next year? I see teams either ready to or already jumping the Suns now for post season spots.

[RunDogGun]

Okobo is really to blame for this game. Trae is the absolute worse defending point guard in the world, maybe in history. Okobo's job was to put pressure on Trae's defensively, which is what 99% of the rest of the NBA teams do. ZERO point with a measly 3 assists in 22 minutes. Just awful.

We should have started Carter, but Okobo isn't to blame for the failure of the coach. Leaving our best defenders on the bench to wait until the opposing best players get hot, is the real failure for our team. Also starting our slower bigs against basically a small ball team was not smart.

Carter's not that great offensively, so I'm not sure he would have put a lot of pressure on Trae's lack of defense.

Carter is pretty quick, so if he attacked the hoop, it would force others to help Trae. But the main point would be to put a better defender on Trae to start the game, instead of waiting for Trae to get going to bring in Carter. Plus, starting two slower bigs instead of Bridges allows Trae to do too much. Playing Tyler 15 mins of any game is just a waste. But I don't think any of our guys were going to expose Trae's defensive issues when Booker and Oubre are taking all the shots.

Overall our coach is doing a poor job of planning for games, and we can't rely on mismatches to work in our favor.

[bwgood77]

Some will disagree..

But I do think we have quite a few highly valuable pieces... I think we have more talent then teams like OKC/Memphis.

the problem is our pieces don’t fit very well together on offense. Look at our 3pt shooting. I think there was a tweet recently from Kellan highlighting that we have not shot over 36% as a team since early December.

Early in the season Book and Baynes hot 3pt shooting kept the team afloat..

We were running our .5 offense...our offense looked a lot better back then. A lot of people were impressed with most all of our additions, the coach, and the gameplan. But we got away from the gameplan and players have struggled.

[bwgood77]

OK. Are you saying you'd like to trade Booker to a winning team so that he can enjoy the playoffs too?

What winning team wants/needs what Booker would bring to them and what would they give up in return for it?

I'm sure it's super frustrating for him to see success on so many other teams. I'd really prefer to see Booker make the playoffs with the Suns but due to so many reasons who the hell knows if that will ever happen. If Suns don't make it this year what team should they be jumping to make it in next year? I see teams either ready to or already jumping the Suns now for post season spots.

Warriors will be back strong next year too.

[King4Day]

Couldn't agree more boys. Cant wait to get rid of that bum. If we trade him lets get a young, maybe 22/23 old player, who has a cpl of years under the belt and is used to the NBA. Maybe one who averages 25 or so a game this year (but we wanna make sure it's not an anomaly so make sure this guy has been hitting it for over 23 or so for the last few yrs), also we need to make sure the guy we trade Booker for has a contract already in place so we don't have to worry about him leaving.

What we really need is some dumb team to look at all of that and give that up willingly so we can pawn Booker's scrub a** off on. Now the question is where to find a team that dumb who would trade a player like that....

Since Tatum is a year out from his max extension, perhaps they'd consider it. I don't know how Kemba and Booker would co-exist but that's the deal that I keep coming back to.
I'm not sure who else we can look at who fits that bill.

Note: I realize it's very unlikely Boston considers it since they have a good thing going.

I don't think Boston would consdier that. And not sure if you realize the post you responded to was sarcasm.

I assumed but if the post isn't green, I"m going to respond as if they're serious.

The other day, someone didn't like a comment I posted and sarcastically said something like, 'wow that's a genius idea'.
No green, so I thanked him and delved into it further.
If people aren't going to be adults then I'm going to instead respond like one.

I didn't realize Tatum was that good. Haven't followed. I just know we have a guy putting up 30+ points almost nightly and he's pretty established. Teams have to want that wouldn't they?

The issue could be that Phoenix sees him as a franchise guy while other teams see him as a good second option.
I doubt we consider moving him this year or next, but after that I could see some chatter.

[RunDogGun]

How can I forget Tyler Johnson... I’m rooting for him to turn it around but Jesus Christ he’s bad.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It is literally like he is purposely trying to lose games when he is in. He can't defend anyone right now, and he can't shoot. For what he gets paid, I hope he at least shows to collect his check wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun.

[Slim Charless]

This is an awful, awful loss. Hawks are the worst team in the league missing a bunch of players on top.

Again we surrender 45% shooting from 3.

Okobo is such a disappointment. This was a game he should’ve went off in because of how bad his matchups are defensively.

Tyler Johnson is *****ing trash. He should never ever see an NBA court again.

I don’t understand how teams like Utah are making trades for competent backup SGs and James Jones is sitting on his ass like nothing needs be done in Phoenix.

Jordan Clarkson would be a big time upgrade over Tyler Johnson.

Yeah that whole Okobo thing tonight was awful and unexpected. If that's our non-Rubio situation we need to make moves. Something hopefully will be done. NYK has both PGs and PFs in abundance and are rumored to be open to moving some. TJ and a 1st for Portis and take a shot in the dark at French Frank or even DSJ would help our depth and give us some young players at positions of need who we can buy low on.

I hope we don't trade a first for guys like that. If we can trade players we are not using for a backup PG, fine, but we shouldn't trade 1sts for subpar players on bad teams.

While there's no way I'd trade a lotto pick for anyone on that team I'd consider a protected pick. We know what our backup situation is. Rubio is older so we need to do something soon. Doesnt have to be NYK but they do have alot of players at spots we need: PF/PG. Not all of those guys suck so maybe we can grab someone from one of the few front offices that's been dumber then ours over these last 5 years.

[Slim Charless]

Since Tatum is a year out from his max extension, perhaps they'd consider it. I don't know how Kemba and Booker would co-exist but that's the deal that I keep coming back to.
I'm not sure who else we can look at who fits that bill.

Note: I realize it's very unlikely Boston considers it since they have a good thing going.

I don't think Boston would consdier that. And not sure if you realize the post you responded to was sarcasm.

I assumed but if the post isn't green, I"m going to respond as if they're serious.

The other day, someone didn't like a comment I posted and sarcastically said something like, 'wow that's a genius idea'.
No green, so I thanked him and delved into it further.
If people aren't going to be adults then I'm going to instead respond like one.

I didn't realize Tatum was that good. Haven't followed. I just know we have a guy putting up 30+ points almost nightly and he's pretty established. Teams have to want that wouldn't they?

The issue could be that Phoenix sees him as a franchise guy while other teams see him as a good second option.
I doubt we consider moving him this year or next, but after that I could see some chatter.

Sorry I was being sarcastic and didn't think to use the green font. I'd agree Boston would prolly say no but Tatum would be the level of player I'd be looking for if we traded Book. I think we need to hold onto him and let this play out though

[King4Day]

I don't think Boston would consdier that. And not sure if you realize the post you responded to was sarcasm.

I assumed but if the post isn't green, I"m going to respond as if they're serious.

The other day, someone didn't like a comment I posted and sarcastically said something like, 'wow that's a genius idea'.
No green, so I thanked him and delved into it further.
If people aren't going to be adults then I'm going to instead respond like one.

I didn't realize Tatum was that good. Haven't followed. I just know we have a guy putting up 30+ points almost nightly and he's pretty established. Teams have to want that wouldn't they?

The issue could be that Phoenix sees him as a franchise guy while other teams see him as a good second option.
I doubt we consider moving him this year or next, but after that I could see some chatter.

Sorry I was being sarcastic and didn't think to use the green font. I'd agree Boston would prolly say no but Tatum would be the level of player I'd be looking for if we traded Book. I think we need to hold onto him and let this play out though

Exactly. If the idea of Kuzma is the best we can do, then I'll happily wait with Book until something blows us away.

[lilfishi22]

I don’t understand how Saric blows so much suddenly. I never liked him even in Philly but at least he was a serviceable player then.

Suns need to sell high on guys like Saric and Baynes instead of holding on to them as if their some treasure. Even if it’s multiple 2nd rd picks, that’s still fine.

He isn't a starter really, and is a bit slow guarding sfs. ATL started basically three wings a PG and a PF. It was doomed from the start to have Baynes and Saric be our bigs. Neither of them dominated the boards and they couldn't guard the faster younger Hawks.

Saric does better against players who are closer to his abilities, and with a floor general like Rubio making the decisions for him.

I honestly thought that he would be, this season, a lower tier starter on a bad team but he's shown he could barely hold onto that title which is disappointing. The guy is smart and does as much as he can with what he's physically limited by but those limitation in this league where athleticism and physicality is in abundance, it's hard to make a living unless you've got some key skill which he doesn't.