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And in the time-honoured tradition of journalism, the answer is - "Geez, I dunno. Maybe? We'll see, I guess."

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=14644

My take is that with Nash and under Gentry, we're getting close to maximum results from the the talent we have. How much more we can accomplish comes down to improving in a couple of areas, and we all know what they are. How good we can be depends almost entirely on that and how lucky we are in terms of health.
And how unlucky other teams are.

Thoughts?

There 17-8 which is good but only 25 games are played, 57 games to go. I assume they make the playoffs barring any major injuries they can't possibly break down and end up below .500 right?

Hoopsworld really, really hates the Suns for some reason. Every single one of their analyses (I use that term loosely) is skeptical and generally has the slant of "every time the Suns win, it's something the other team didn't do right".

Then there's this viewpoint

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/ ... -all-star/

JohnVancouver wrote:Then there's this viewpoint

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/ ... -all-star/

lol wow. haters

JohnVancouver wrote:Then there's this viewpoint

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/ ... -all-star/

I want to throw up in my own mouth, then throw up that throw up into a bucket, then hit myself in the head with that bucket when I read articles that rely completely on advanced statistics.

And after one-quarter of the 2009-10 season, it appears that Shaq’s departure has made the Suns better and caused the Cavaliers to decline.

I stopped reading that second article after that line. It's obvious where it was headed. That was obviously written by some (Please Use More Appropriate Word) casual fan.

The Suns have a good team. Lost against the Nuggets but had a double digit lead at one point. If the Suns can manage to hold big leads instead of letting the opposition come back, then I think its fair to say the Suns are for real (lol).

I agree with the "we're getting the most out of this group" sentiment ... especially when you consider how many away games we've played. So I would actually expect our W-L to be better even if we don't improve by the end of the season purely because we'll be playing more games at home (if that makes sense).

I think we'll end up with about 58 wins for the season which will easily exceed my expectations from the start of the season. Hopefully the old legs hold up. I don't expect us to do that well in the play-offs but we'll wait and see. A bit of tinkering before seasons end and my mind could change about that.

At the start of the season I was expecting a 1st round exit ... now I'm thinking more 2nd round!

KJ7 wrote:At the start of the season I was expecting a 1st round exit ... now I'm thinking more 2nd round!

Pretty soon you'll be thinking NBA Finals. Lol.

Qwigglez wrote:

KJ7 wrote:At the start of the season I was expecting a 1st round exit ... now I'm thinking more 2nd round!

Pretty soon you'll be thinking NBA Finals. Lol.

Maybe the Lakers will run into some problems at some point.

I think the Suns should be able to beat the bottom 4 playoff teams. I think they have a shot against the Mavericks or Nuggets in the second round. As long as Barbosa comes back strong and the Suns do something about those 3rd quaters they could be in the WCF.

Amar'e is looking better and better, but it would take a 26 and 12 (or around there) series from him, as well as hot shooting from everyone else to have even a shot at beating the Lakers.

The Suns will have to play flawless to beat the Lakers in a seven game series.

Qwigglez wrote:The Suns will have to play flawless to beat the Lakers in a seven game series.

Thats why we need to push Denver or the Mavs to 4th seed or drop to the 6th if we're gonna get irrationally high hopes

I like the idea that this team is no longer the "shoot the ball in seven seconds or less" team. Yes, they are trying to keep the ideals of a fast-breaking team, but Gentry and Nash said it perfectly in the article, they play in a tempo and rhythm, and so far, that is working pretty nicely for the make-up of this team.

The thing that intrigued me was Nash talking about the lack of a big man presence, which was sort of an obvious thing, but its good to hear it from him. Would love to see the Suns pull off a move which lands us a big-man that fits the team (although I'm highly doubtful that happens).

When asked if Phoenix's tweaked style of play might benefit them come playoff time, Nash replied: "Well maybe, but I think the truth is that you need big guys. The teams that win championships have big guys that protect the paint and rebound. I think that's been more of our Achilles' heel than the offense."

I hope thats a HINT for the front office

kuberV wrote:When asked if Phoenix's tweaked style of play might benefit them come playoff time, Nash replied: "Well maybe, but I think the truth is that you need big guys. The teams that win championships have big guys that protect the paint and rebound. I think that's been more of our Achilles' heel than the offense."

I hope thats a HINT for the front office

he said that? is he taking a shot at amare?

I don't think he was referring to STAT in general, just the need of some big bodies that can play at the NBA level.

We're playing above and beyond what we thought was possible and if it wasn't for our young guys playing better than expected, we wouldn't be 16-8. I absolutely agree that we're getting the most out of this group and the only way to get better is to add talent. There comes a point where you can't keep saying that we're going to keep improving because our guys are going to get to their limits and the only way to actually improve our team and improve our chances is to add talent.

kuberV wrote:When asked if Phoenix's tweaked style of play might benefit them come playoff time, Nash replied: "Well maybe, but I think the truth is that you need big guys. The teams that win championships have big guys that protect the paint and rebound. I think that's been more of our Achilles' heel than the offense."

I hope thats a HINT for the front office

+1. It's no knock on Amare, but Nash understands that we can only be so good and that good is probably still not enough to bring down the top teams in a 7 game series. He knows if we want to win we're going to need an upgrade in defensive talent in the paint.

we are for real except that we cant beat the lakers in a 7 game series....

that is the truth but who knows ? maybe the nuggets will beat them for us...

and im still afraid of the spurs...

I think Nash was just trying to downplay the Suns again. Trying to stay under the radar. How sneaky. He even got some of you Suns fans