2022-23 NBA Season Discussion

[rk2023]

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[Fadeaway_J]

God bless the Wizards At least they seem to have (belatedly) accepted reality.

[Dr Positivity]

The Suns owner giving signs of being full n00b/James Dolan player evaluation to me, he seems to be after as much PPG as he can get. I can't see how using all your salary on Beal on a team with Booker and Durant is the answer.

[Doctor MJ]

The Suns owner giving signs of being full n00b/James Dolan player evaluation to me, he seems to be after as much PPG as he can get. I can't see how using all your salary on Beal on a team with Booker and Durant is the answer.

It's going to be very interesting to see how they figure out the fit between these 3.

As with the previous Big 3 of Booker/Paul/Durant, I won't be surprised if they win the title...but I also won't be surprised if they end up as a 2nd round exit again.

I do have a lot of respect for Vogel particularly as a defensive coach, and I expect that the Booker/Durant/Beal trio is going to buy-in. It's possible that that is what will make the difference.

[tsherkin]

Beal, Booker and KD. No table setter.

Interesting ploy. Should be fun to see how it goes. Tons and tons lf shooting; Beal has not been a high-end playoff performer a lot but it could work with how much defensive gravity Booker/KD have.

Gambit deployed, I guess. Going for it

[The High Cyde]

Suns just launching haymakers since the bubble, can’t really fault them for it. Owner wants to win, he’s going brute force rather than doing the due diligence, talent usually does win out however, and it’s the common denominator at the very least in championships.

[Fadeaway_J]

The Suns owner giving signs of being full n00b/James Dolan player evaluation to me, he seems to be after as much PPG as he can get. I can't see how using all your salary on Beal on a team with Booker and Durant is the answer.

It's going to be very interesting to see how they figure out the fit between these 3.

As with the previous Big 3 of Booker/Paul/Durant, I won't be surprised if they win the title...but I also won't be surprised if they end up as a 2nd round exit again.

I do have a lot of respect for Vogel particularly as a defensive coach, and I expect that the Booker/Durant/Beal trio is going to buy-in. It's possible that that is what will make the difference.

I don't even think the fit is that impossible, although I don't know if Vogel is the guy I'd want trying create a coherent offensive theory around an unusually-built team.

To me it just seems like this doesn't do anything to fix any of their existing issues, but I guess that deal isn't available if you're peddling CP3 and Ayton.

[TheGOATRises007]

Not a big fan of Beal and he's going to overlap with their existing 2 stars. Not the greatest synergy between their 'big 3'.

Don't think he moves the needle much(if at all). Might be way off though.

[GSP]

Fit makes no sense...............Beal and Booker are almost the same player stylistically obviously Book is better

but i cant imagine a better get for Cp3 and Shamet tho. Cp3 we saw visibly turn into a role player halfway through Mavs series. 38yo Cp3 can be a valuable 7th 8th man but your team is cooked if youre asking him to be your 3rd or 4th best player. Thats assuming he stays healthy which he wont. Shamet is ass lol so from that perspective its a big upgrade and you dont lose much of any depth but Suns sitll have core issues

[RCM88x]

Wow, didn't see this coming. Washington has just totally screwed up at every step of this process with Beal you gotta give em credit.

As for Phoenix, well it's a gamble, but it just goes to show there's always a team out there who's **** you can benefit from.

[AEnigma]

Interested to see what I expect to be Point Booker, but otherwise I see this as a comfortably worse version of the 2021 Nets. Sufficiently high offence can outproduce abysmal postseason defence, but nothing indicates that is the case here.

[HeartBreakKid]

An all-star for for a couple of roleplayers is a no brainer. People over think overlapping way too much. Chris Paul is at the end of his career, Beal is in his peak years.

If anything this is a bad trade for DC, though I suppose they don't have many options if they want to get rid of Beal. He'd only agree to go to a handful of teams.

[AEnigma]

An all-star for for a couple of roleplayers is a no brainer. People over think overlapping way too much. Chris Paul is at the end of his career, Beal is in his peak years.

I am not saying the trade is necessarily bad, but it is not generating a serious title contender as is.

[HeartBreakKid]

An all-star for for a couple of roleplayers is a no brainer. People over think overlapping way too much. Chris Paul is at the end of his career, Beal is in his peak years.

I am not saying the trade is necessarily bad, but it is not generating a serious title contender as is.

My impressions isn't they're a contender but I could be wrong. They have a superstar and a couple of all-stars. If Durant is healthy enough, who knows? They have decent depth so Beal doesn't have to be much more than a low tier all-star to get the job done, which I think is well within his capability.

This is a step forward for them most likely. There is no way Beal is going to be worse than CP3 next year (watch me be dead wrong about this somehow). Can't imagine CP3 getting them much value anywhere else.

[GSP]

Jesus Shamet is on a 4yr 43mill contract.............how the **** did he get that contract and why does he keep getting paid? Hes a bum and should be playing for Mvps in Puerto Rico

[Doctor MJ]

Suns just launching haymakers since the bubble, can’t really fault them for it. Owner wants to win, he’s going brute force rather than doing the due diligence, talent usually does win out however, and it’s the common denominator at the very least in championships.

The bolded part really struck me. The Suns are - and have been for a while - a franchise where it's not really clear where they should go next, and so each move has been defensible...but we might end up looking at all of this as a series of horrible mistakes.

When we go back in time, we see a franchise that had sucked for years and didn't seem to be making any progress despite anointing one guy as their franchise player and giving him a max deal.

So you push to pick the hometown boy with the fit argument, you get rid of the GM, get rid of the coach, and you decide to make a splash bringing in a legendary veteran, and boom, you make the finals the next year. Clearly the moves were reasonable!

Then when the team starts taking a step back with that legendary veteran taking a step, boom, you acquire an even bigger star.

Then when the team doesn't take the leap forward, you "trade in" your first legendary veteran for a star that's younger than your "bigger star", and thus realistically adding effective talent to your roster yet again.

If from here they win the chip, all of this might go into a book about the need to make bold moves.

But if it does, we should probably remember:

The GM that was fired, Ryan McDonough, drafted Devin Booker & Mikal Bridges as absolute steals and his big draft error (Ayton at #1) was a really weird thing that seemed to have the owner's influence all over it.

If we consider what would have happened if McDonough had been allowed to continue in his job with autonomy, you're possibly looking at Booker being joined by Doncic & Bridges while playing for Luka's coach (Igor Koskoskov).

Knowing what we know now, I think you take that future over what has actually played out.

That might sound like an eye-rolling thing, because we can always play the game of "They almost drafted X, imagine how great they would have been!", but what's really interesting here is the fact the Suns just keep falling this bend.

Had they not started with the whole I'm-out-of-patience series of moves, they'd have a young cast built around Booker's age. Instead they've sacrificed most of the young guys around Booker's age...to build around Booker.

So then, when those guys age out and you can't get anything for them, Booker's just supposed to suffer through his prime now in an age where everyone else - including the guys he's played with, have asked for, or demanded trades?

The Suns may well end up using up a young core that could have been great for more than a decade with one that is only great for a few. And while we'll say "It's worth it if you get the chip", even if they do, it's sad to me to think about folks working to build something for years, only to have it wrested from you right as it's about to come to fruition as home-grown success story.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I get that Beal isn’t the best max player but how they get him for potato chips

[MartinToVaught]

An all-star for for a couple of roleplayers is a no brainer. People over think overlapping way too much.

For me, overlapping isn't as much of a problem as Beal's contract, injury history, and the fact that he's simply not good enough to make either of those worth the risk.

Is Beal going to get them past Denver? Doubtful. If he was that good, his trade value would have been so much higher than this. Is he going to keep the rest of the team from quitting in elimination games like they've made a habit of doing? Judging from what Wizards fans have said about his own effort and commitment to winning in recent years, probably not. He also constantly misses time with injuries. So it's hard to understand why the Suns would bother getting into cap hell under the new CBA for this. Just seems like New Owner Syndrome at its finest.

[MyUniBroDavis]

If ur Beal forcing ur way to the Suns instead of the bucks is crazy lol

Like I don’t think the Suns are this super team or anything after this trade but damn if you wanted to chase rings a healthy bucks are pretty arguably the best team already lol and the fit would be pretty nice they would have destroyed

[Doctor MJ]

An all-star for for a couple of roleplayers is a no brainer. People over think overlapping way too much.

For me, overlapping isn't as much of a problem as Beal's contract, injury history, and the fact that he's simply not good enough to make either of those worth the risk.

Is Beal going to get them past Denver? Doubtful. If he was that good, his trade value would have been so much higher than this. Is he going to keep the rest of the team from quitting in elimination games like they've made a habit of doing? Judging from what Wizards fans have said about his own effort and commitment to winning in recent years, probably not. He also constantly misses time with injuries. So it's hard to understand why the Suns would bother getting into cap hell under the new CBA for this. Just seems like New Owner Syndrome at its finest.

I just realized that the acronym for New Owner Syndrome is NOW.
How often does the acronym of a disease speak to the symptoms so aptly?