AMARE is BACK!

[trick83]

I think Amare is playing his best basketball. He is better than 2004-2005 and better than last season.
he is one of the best shotblockers in this league now and one of the best scorrers like 04/05 and his jumper is even better than last year.
his explosivness is better than last year and almost like the one of 04/05.
i think he deserves all nba 1st team ahead of dwight becaue he is the more complete player!
He is the future of the SUNS. I said it before : in 05/06 we had Marion and Nash but if we had Amare and Nash we would have done even better because AMARE >>>>> MARION!
GO SUNS!

[impulsenine]

... and that occasional 3-pointer.

[PHXfan85]

...and the fact that Shaq has taken it upon himself to make Amare #1, just like his jersey. I can't even imagine a better Amare, but since Shaq has made it his personal responsibility, we only have him to blame if Amare goes anywhere but up.

[b-ball forever]

Amare's been awesome lately, specially in the Last 2 games w/o Marion. He's def done an awesome job on both ends as of late and totally deserved his player of the week award.
If Shaq can teach him a few post moves then offensively he's gonna be clearcut above every single bigman in the league.

That being said, if u think "Amare >>>>> Marion" ur just 1 of those guys that completely overlooks the defensive end of the game.

[BurningHeart]

That being said, if u think "Amare >>>>> Marion" ur just 1 of those guys that completely overlooks the defensive end of the game.

To be fair, the only reason Amare's defense is subpar is because he gets no love from the refs, gets bogus calls against him, thereby getting in foul trouble and causing a hesitant mindset on defense.

[nanoclarkology]

Marion is a straight up balling fool and a basketball stud! With that said I also think that Amare > Shawn. He is back in my opinion.

[tsherkin]

he is one of the best shotblockers in this league now

As much as it is fun to revel in Amare's success and as much as it is quite pleasant to see him performing well for the Suns, let's not be silly here...

His volume of blocks per minute is elite, surely, but he's only barely top twenty (18th in BLK/PF); he's not "one of the best shotblockers in the league."

He is, however, a lot better than he used to be, he's fouling a lot less on his block attempts than he did earlier in his career and that is quite nice to see.

[whambamslam]

Amare has surely been playing much better since the acquistion of Shaq that is easy to see. If the suns had to get rid of either Amare or Marion I'm glad they chose to get rid of Marion.

[NapoleonII]

I'm happy, who isn't? But we need him peaking in May.

[thamadkant]

Amare and Brian are blocking a lot more shots since the Suns interior is a free entry all night long... free drinks too!


but when Shaq gets to play... that should go down... I still expect 1.5+ for Amare.

[Suns_Fever]

I expect Shaq to have 2 blocks a game.

[b-ball forever]

-= original quote snipped =-



To be fair, the only reason Amare's defense is subpar is because he gets no love from the refs, gets bogus calls against him, thereby getting in foul trouble and causing a hesitant mindset on defense.

Well u can def make a case that right now "Amare > Marion", but not that "Amare >>>>>> Marion".

[Sun Scorched]

Well u can def make a case that right now "Amare > Marion", but not that "Amare >>>>>> Marion".

Haha. True, true.

Amare is the future of the franchise. There isn't anyone in the league quite like him and that plays to PHXs advantage. If they ever built the team around anyone other than Amare they would be freakin' crazy.

Going forward I am quite happy.

Amare will be learning from Shaq. That's worth the 20 million a year right there. From an investment standpoint, what we are paying Shaq on the court is nothing compared to what he is bringing us off of the court.

We have a young group in Stoudemire, Diaw, Barbosa and Strawberry.

We still have our ATL pick.

A lot of good things going on for us right now.

[ma_falaa_50]

lets not forget than Amare was very instrumental when the suns got Nash. KG wanted to be here to play with him and now Shaq. I think Amare is playing inspired ball right now and If he can keep it up. Phx could get over the top. I think for phx to get a ring Amare has to be the MVP not Steve.

[-SDU-]

30 free throws in a row too, crazy

amare becoming the focal point of our offense is going to be the best thing we could do

sometimes on such a great team, individual stats go down, but if we run amare as the go to guy, even when shaq is here, i expect 28ppg for the remainder of the season

with shaq defending duncan etc, amares weakside shot blocking is going to become even more of an effort

if we have a proper C playing good minutes next to amare for the next few seasons, i fully expect 30 and 11 and 3.5 from him

[ray ray]

lets not forget than Amare was very instrumental when the suns got Nash. KG wanted to be here to play with him and now Shaq. I think Amare is playing inspired ball right now and If he can keep it up. Phx could get over the top. I think for phx to get a ring Amare has to be the MVP not Steve.

I agree with that statement. I'm not saying that Nash is not the engine of this team but in order for the Suns to get over the hump, Amare needs to play and be the MVP. Shaq will bring out the best out of Amare just with the influance that he is going to bring to him in the locker room. I know that at times Shaq can be lazy but an inspire Shaq( which by all means he is) will only bring out the best out of STAT.

Like I've said in the other topics, we don't need for Shaq to be the savior of this team or do we need him to be an all star type of players.What we need Shaq to do is be effective in what we require of him to do. Defend the post,rebound, get teams into foul trouble, ware out the opposing centers ( i.e Duncan, Bynum, Ming, etc..) and bring in the toughness that we so desperate lack with Marion. I love Marion the player, I hate Marion the complainer. We are definatly going to missed Marion's versitility as a defender but by no means was he a shut down defender like we would like to beleive.

All in all, I beleive that Shaq is going to bring some new excitment to the team as has already but most importantly he is going to bring in some respect from the opposing teams and most importantly, the refs and David Stern.

[walkingart]

His volume of blocks per minute is elite, surely, but he's only barely top twenty (18th in BLK/PF); he's not "one of the best shotblockers in the league."

Relating personal fouls to the number of blocked shots Amare has is extremely misleading. No one is saying Amare is "one of the best defenders in the league.'' His personal fouls don't come on block attempts for the most part, and if you had seen every Suns game for the past 4 years you would know that. The majority of his fouls come because Nash and Barbs can't stay in front of their man to save their lives, and Amare doesn't recognize it soon enough and gets called on a reach in or blocking foul while trying to cover for his teamates.

If Shaq can clog up the middle and ultimately keep Amare on the floor for a few more minutes, he will surely be in the top 5 in blocks. He is a notch below guys like Camby and Josh Smith, but after that there is a cluster of guys, some of whom, I think Amare is not only a better shot blocker than, but an all around defender (J. Oneil, Kaman, Ming).

Keep in mind, Kevin Durant is ahead of Dwight Howard, Duncan and Kirilenko in BLK/PF. No sane individual would argue that Durant is a better shot blocker than any of them or a better defender. From the few times I have seen Durant play, he is a below average defender at best. Let's face it, some of these guys block stats are only as good as they are because of their height, wingspan, and athletic ability. Amare's shot blocking has improved because of his improved court awareness and his timing.

His blocks are going to go up in the near future, but a better thing would be for them to go down a little, because he is getting to the point of attack a step sooner, negating the shot attempt in its entirety and thus decreasing the number of stupid fouls he picks up as well.

[tsherkin]

Relating personal fouls to the number of blocked shots Amare has is extremely misleading. No one is saying Amare is "one of the best defenders in the league.'' His personal fouls don't come on block attempts for the most part, and if you had seen every Suns game for the past 4 years you would know that. The majority of his fouls come because Nash and Barbs can't stay in front of their man to save their lives, and Amare doesn't recognize it soon enough and gets called on a reach in or blocking foul while trying to cover for his teamates.

But he's rotating over and trying to alter the shot a lot of the time, it's the same deal. He's not a great shot-blocker because his rotations aren't stunningly quick or well-timed. Good shot-blockers, even on teams with crap perimeter defense, don't exhibit the same sort of shooting foul to block ratio that Amare has.

Amare's a crap defender no matter how you slice it, regardless of his team's inadequacies.

If Shaq can clog up the middle and ultimately keep Amare on the floor for a few more minutes, he will surely be in the top 5 in blocks. He is a notch below guys like Camby and Josh Smith, but after that there is a cluster of guys, some of whom, I think Amare is not only a better shot blocker than, but an all around defender (J. Oneil, Kaman, Ming).

Jermaine O'neal is indeed of a level with Amare; he's just a considerably better man defender, he's not actually that impressive a shot-blocker. Yao Ming is a little bit better than Amare but they're also of a level, yes. Kaman, this year only, has been a LOT better than Amare. In an average year for him, though, he's actually been worse, so he's either figured it out and had a huge breakthrough or this is a massive outlier season for him.

Amare is a horrible defender, much worse than O'neal or Ming; I've never seen a player play with his hands down on defense so often, he's fundamentally the worst defender I've seen in years. I will admit, however, that at least this year, he has improved as a shot-blocker. Like Kaman, however, it's so far different from his previous seasons that it's more than likely a complete tease and not a real long-term improvement. Like Kaman, if it IS an indicator of a real change and not a seasonal boom, then it's a rather dramatic and unlikely but very positive shift.

Keep in mind, Kevin Durant is ahead of Dwight Howard, Duncan and Kirilenko in BLK/PF.

Sure, but you're talking about linking volume of shots blocked to blocks per shooting foul, not just blocks per foul; Durant's only getting 1.2 blocks per 36 minutes (he's only playing 33), so clearly that comparison is bunk. It's a stat designed for comparison between players who are actually shot-blockers.

What I have liked is his increased attention to the defensive glass, even if he's dropped off as an offensive rebounder. There's only a marginal improvement (+0.1) in his drpg but he's definitely making a superior effort on that end of the floor on the glass and that's been positive. And he's shooting over 78% from the line again, which is wonderful to see from a guy who draws so many FTAs.

[walkingart]

Amare's defense is vastly improved, especially his man to man defense. His BLK/PF stat is an indicator of his poor defensive rotation and just plain stupid mistakes by reaching and such. That being said, he is a far better defender than Jermain Oneil, who gets owned by every west coast big man. He is also much better than Kaman. Yao is debatable, although being a Sun fan, Yao hasn't seen much playing time against us over the years. Also keep in mind, Amare is smaller than all of these players and has been guarding them for years. We can all step back and watch to see how Amare plays now that he is going to be guarding PF's instead of C's.

[trick83]

Well u can def make a case that right now "Amare > Marion", but not that "Amare >>>>>> Marion".[/quote]

i definitely think that the suns with nash and AMARE are >>>> that with nash and MARION...that's my point. marion is a good defender but overrated because of his stls and blks that's not the only defense u have to shut down ur opponent..and he never shut down parker and some others. bell shuts down his opponents (u cannot shut down kobe) he is an elite defender.
But i never said that Amare is a good defender he is better but not good, the only thing i think his D is underrated like Marion's D is overrated. But he is worse defender than Marion but nevertheless he is one of the top shot blockers in the league! top 10 right now i don't care too much about the BLK/PF statistic, AMARE get a lot of silly foul calls, too.

..and offensive wise nobody will question that AMARE >>>>>>>>>>>MARION. Marion cannot create shots for himself, is a worse shooter than AMARE and he needs no double teams at all. he is mainly a hustler and a warrior and he is the best hustler in the LEAGUE but not worth a max contract and he is no way a franchise player.
But an elite rebounder for his size! But a crying baby, i hate that.

Watch out and look at AMARE'S play he now knows that he is the main man in PHX along with Mr MVP Nash.
BTW i don't think his blocks will go down, he will be blockings shots from the weak side and will get his 2blks per game.. is see an average of 2.3 at the end of the season. his rebounding numbers will raise to almost 10 per game. and either he or dwight will be all nba 1st team..if his play holds up during the PO we should be very confident winning it all. He is the key to our success! I agree with u we need a MVP AMARE during the PO..but i am convinced that he along with his buddy SHAQ can do it.
Cannot wait for the PO and for seeing SHAQ play at 100% (maybe in 1-2months he will be at 100%).

GO SUNS!