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According to John Hollinger , the Suns offense is better than ever. This is kind of an eye opening, so do you guys think that the Suns FO should keep Alvin Gentry? I just wonder if the Suns would be in the same predicament that we are in now if Alvin Gentry would of coached the whole year instead of Terry Porter.



http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/s ... iem-090317

You add a healthy Amare Stoudemire and we're in the playoffs. People automatically say we need to trade the whole team and start over. Well, no. With this tempo, Amare can lead us to wins. Also, we need maybe 2 more good players off the bench and we're ready for a title run. That's if Stro can get some playing time.

SSOS was the offense in mind at the end of last year, although it wasn't named that yet. Had we ran that way from the start we would be rubbing elbows with the Lakers right now. With a healthy Amare, and the way we are playing right now, we would be considered a top contending team. I also agree that we do not need a "rebuild" as is constantly discussed here, actually we are closer to being a top contending team than a team that needs a "rebuild". In all honesty, I think we really need to pick up a def/off balanced small, someone like Anthony Parker of TOR as I mentioned in other threads. Defensively, I think we really need a player like we had with Marion or Bell, they always guarded the other teams best player, they might not have "stopped" that player, but they made them work so much harder to have a good game that it usually took the rest of their team out of the game, or at least out of sync with the flow of the game. I know it has been an ugly season for the most part, but if you really look at it objectively, when we play to the strengths of this team, we're pretty damn good!!!!! There's no denying that defense has always been our problem, but not with Gentry actually using our bench and allowing them to grow and build confidence, our team defense will get better, prime example, Jared Dudley, is he a defensive stopper, no, but he sure is playing some good defense. Even Dragic is showing good improvement.

I've been thinking this lately, but does he factor in turnovers? We've been insanely efficient ever since Shaq came here (>50% FG is unreal) but somehow this year we are turning it over much more than normal (went from one of the lowest turnover teams to one of the highest.) I'm not sure if Gentry has improved on this part of it much.

hitachi7 wrote:I've been thinking this lately, but does he factor in turnovers? We've been insanely efficient ever since Shaq came here (>50% FG is unreal) but somehow this year we are turning it over much more than normal (went from one of the lowest turnover teams to one of the highest.) I'm not sure if Gentry has improved on this part of it much.

Actually in the past week our turnovers are way down.......

Also, keep in mind out PD is +4.44 under Gentry, which is pretty good considering the tough stretch we had and says a lot more than our 8-8 record.

ok 14.5 turnovers per game under Gentry, which is close to middle of the pack and improves on what was >16 under Porter

Hollinger, talking solely about offense, praising the suns, and giving legitimacy to SSOL?

Mid life crisis? Blackmailed? Held hostage? On crack?

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HOLLINGER?!!?

WTFsunsFTW wrote:Hollinger, talking solely about offense, praising the suns, and giving legitimacy to SSOL?

Mid life crisis? Blackmailed? Held hostage? On crack?

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HOLLINGER?!!?

That's what everyone does. People blamed SSOL (even when it CLEARLY wasn't to blame) for our "failures", said nothing could happen with a run n' gun team, that we need to play defense, blah blah blah, then when we try to be a "defensive team", they say we need to run more and play to our strengths and that we shouldn't try to be something we're not.

People don't know a damn thing, including John Hollinger.

The problem is that Porter tried to shift the team to a defensive minded team that could run. The 2 stars, Nash and Amare pouted because they wanted to keep running, so no one bought into the system. Had they started to play more like the (and I hate to say it) Spurs that run and defend, they would be fine.

jaypo wrote:The problem is that Porter tried to shift the team to a defensive minded team that could run. The 2 stars, Nash and Amare pouted because they wanted to keep running, so no one bought into the system. Had they started to play more like the (and I hate to say it) Spurs that run and defend, they would be fine.

Amare had nothing to do with the "pouting". That were Nash and Bell. Amare expressed displeaure later when the backcourt "pouting" already ruined any chance for Porter's system to succeed. In hindsight, it's hard to distinguish between what caused what. Was Porter's system a pure design failure or was it a failure because the alpha mate Nash didn't buy in? Moot now.