2023-24 Season Discussion and Speculation 5 - the calm before the storm

[Ghost of Kleine]

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/275200/Shaquille-Harrison-Named-2024-G-League-Defensive-Player-Of-The-Year

Shaquille Harrison Named 2024 G League Defensive Player Of The Year


Shaquille Harrison has been named the 2023-24 NBA G League Defensive Player of the Year. Harrison previously won the award in 2022.

Harrison led the G League in steals per game (2.9) and total steals (99) while averaging 15.1 points and 6.5 assists.

I've mentioned Shaq Harrison before a few times earlier this year as a really good candidate for a bench backcourt role defensively to help lockdown our wing a bit since Kris Dunn was already signed by the Jazz and not available anymore. Shaq Harrison obviously does have familiarity with Phoenix from his previous time playing here, he'd have decent size at 6'4, and even though he's not a traditional playmaker or knockdown shooter, he does possess a modicum of playmaking/passing abilities as he did average 9 assists in his time playing for Portland in the 22-23 season. All I'm suggesting is that we keep him on our radar for this upcoming summer as another potential high end defensive perimeter/POA defensive option. Also he could be a low cost high motor disruptive energizer with good strength creating chaos in the passing lanes and in full court pressure situations for us.

Shaquille Harrison Named 2023-24 Kia NBA G League Defensive Player Of The Year

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Shaq Harrison Posts Near QUADRUPLE-DOUBLE with 23 PTS, 9 REB, 9 AST & 7 STL

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He just played on 5 GAMES for the Blazers and averaged 6 assists per game. Not a playmaker at all.

Shaq Harrison isn't good enough.

Not a playmaker at all. Shaq Harrison isn't good enough.

Your opinion is duly noted man. As I've already stated above, I understand that he's not a traditional playmaker, nor a knockdown shooter either. And I should've mentioned those 9 assists were contextually related to his PER 36 numbers. But in my estimation, Even though his primary value is predicated upon his ability to be an ELITE LOCKDOWN PERIMETER DEFENDER (which we obviously sorely need)!! but still, I believe that he clearly does have the playmaking /passing ability which IS present and has been demonstrated throughout numerous games in the Gleague already. For example:

Shaq Harrison Drops 27 PTS, 10 AST, 6 REB, 4 BLK, 3 STL in Epic Playoff Battle vs. Vipers (1 year ago)

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Shaq Harrison Posts FIRST Triple-Double: 15 PTS, 12 REB, 10 AST, 6 STL vs. Warriors

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13 points, 6 rebounds, 10 assists,4 steals (April 8th 2023).

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Shaquille Harrison Posts a Double-Double in Lakers Win Against the Legends- 18 points, 10 assists, 6 rebounds (1 year ago).

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10 points, 4 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 2 turnovers. VS Spurs 6/04/23 (11 months ago)

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13 points, 6 rebounds, 10 assists, 4 steals, 1 block, 1 turnover VS Clippers 8/04/23 (11 months ago)

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23 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 7 steals (Only 2 months ago).

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So just from these listed examples, Harrison has 5...........10 assist games, and 2...........9 assist games but isn't a playmaker at all?? That's cool I guess man if you see it that way. But would you at least agree that a player with at least 5 games with 10 assists and two more games with 9 assists would at least indicate legitimate playmaking ability?? .......By the way,
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/harrish01.html
during that 22-23 season with the Blazers, he did register a 34.9 assist %
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/advanced?CF=MIN*GE*15&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=-1&sort=AST_PCT
which would put him in the top 17 currently in the NBA, which isn't stellar, but also is far from bad for a non playmaking defensive combo guard/wing.

Lastly, to your comment about him not being good enough! Again, we're talking about a potential vet min or even two way deal consideration here with him. Considering how extremely restricted our available options will be this summer, how much better or more productive do you personally expect a player to be for a possible 3rd rotation limited minutes/matchup dependent role? Are there some other better names that you expect to be available for us that we should be targeting this summer? Again, if you look at his production and versatility, on a vet min or two way deal, is a defensive player of the year guard that has multiple games with 10 assists, 9 assists, near triple doubles, one near quadruple double, etc, etc with high end athleticism, elite lockdown perimeter defensive potential really not measure up to our available options? I want him for his perimeter, POA, and defense in the passing lanes. But his secondary or supplemental playmaking ability I believe could compliment any traditional playmaking guard (Kolek perhaps) that we might add via the draft.

And his elite defensive potential should/could help cover for any potential defensive inadequacies of that player I'd think too.

[bwgood77]

Agree to all of that bu%t don't discount all of the intangibles and PG experience CP3 brought to the table even when he was a shell of his former self. CP3's ability to control pace, make plays at the highest level and altogether limiting the number of mistakes made by the team because he's running the show shouldn't be understated.

I think having CP3 on this team would significantly reduce if not eliminate our historically poor 4th quarters

limiting turnovers is valuable but towards the end of his time here, CP3 hurt more as much as he helped when it comes to pace. We needed to play a lot faster against the Nuggets for example, and he wouldn't/couldn't.

I just think our issues (esp in the 4th) really stick out like a nail with CP3 being the guy who could hammer it in. Obviously I'm happy with Beal but when looking specifically at what I think is probably our biggest issue so far in the regular season, CP3 seems to be the perfect problem solver. Of course, we also give up a lot elsewhere with CP3 being who he is at this point.

CP3 was awesome and money in the clutch from the mid range...but he can't do that anymore for whatever reason. Two years ago he was 56% from 3-10 ft and 59% from 10-16 ft. Last year he was 42% from 3-10ft and 47% from 10-16 ft. At the rim he went from 77% to 62%. This year his %s are a little better from the mid range but on very very low volume. He almost exclusively takes 3s, but is up to 38%....so that's his game....he was 33% from 3 two years ago when he was great from mid range, and up to 37% last year, so he's been focusing on that. He's only taken it to the rim (or inside 3 ft) 9x this year.

[Saberestar]

[SunsRback4Good]

Nice picture of our whole team.

[Saberestar]

Props to Adam Silver or whoever decided to implement the Play-In because this end of the Regular Season is a thing of beauty.

And the 65-games rule for players awards and the low percentages in the draft that avoid clear tanking.

All in all they have made the league much more competitive from 1 to 82 in the Regular Season.

[lilfishi22]

limiting turnovers is valuable but towards the end of his time here, CP3 hurt more as much as he helped when it comes to pace. We needed to play a lot faster against the Nuggets for example, and he wouldn't/couldn't.

I just think our issues (esp in the 4th) really stick out like a nail with CP3 being the guy who could hammer it in. Obviously I'm happy with Beal but when looking specifically at what I think is probably our biggest issue so far in the regular season, CP3 seems to be the perfect problem solver. Of course, we also give up a lot elsewhere with CP3 being who he is at this point.

CP3 was awesome and money in the clutch from the mid range...but he can't do that anymore for whatever reason. Two years ago he was 56% from 3-10 ft and 59% from 10-16 ft. Last year he was 42% from 3-10ft and 47% from 10-16 ft. At the rim he went from 77% to 62%. This year his %s are a little better from the mid range but on very very low volume. He almost exclusively takes 3s, but is up to 38%....so that's his game....he was 33% from 3 two years ago when he was great from mid range, and up to 37% last year, so he's been focusing on that. He's only taken it to the rim (or inside 3 ft) 9x this year.

I'm not even talking about the CP3 who could just spam the middy pull up and control the 4th like strings on a puppet . *That* CP3, I would take over this Beal as I'm sure most would too. But even the broken down CP3 we got last year was still able to help us get to basically neutral in the 4th (-16pts net points). Only team worse than us (-224) this season is last season's Spurs team (-322). It's so bad, if you take the scoring differential of the 2nd and 3rd worst 4th quarter teams (Miami and Toronto) and add them together, it still doesn't come close (-179). The 64 win season where we were just locking teams down defensively, then executing offensively was far and away the best 4th quarter team in the league and also almost exactly the opposite in net scoring (+221) to this season.

I think one of the biggest, if not the biggest factor is losing CP3's game management. Even when he wasn't close to all-star level, he was still able to bring that to the table and make us close to respectable. As much as I like Beal and what he brings to the table, he just doesn't bring that, nor anyone on this team.

[lilfishi22]

Props to Adam Silver or whoever decided to implement the Play-In because this end of the Regular Season is a thing of beauty.

And the 65-games rule for players awards and the low percentages in the draft that avoid clear tanking.

All in all they have made the league much more competitive from 1 to 82 in the Regular Season.

I'm still iffy on the 65 game rule because on the one hand, yes you avoid the dilemma of having to choose between a guy who's far and away the MVP for like 60 games of the season and a guy who's close to MVP level but played 75 games. So that takes some headache out of the equation.

On the other hand, I think you also potentially have an issue with pretty undeserving players making the 3rd or even 2nd team all-NBA and thereby suddenly becoming super max eligible which is a pretty significant step up in salary.

That's not to say the 65 game rule isn't without merit, I just think they really need to tweak the supermax criteria

[Hitachi77]

I agree with others that say Royce should be starting. I think him being in with the starters would help him get into a rhythm early, while Allen can get into a rhythm anytime. That’s the ultimate compliment to Allen. We just need offense off the bench, and if it’s not Beal then it should be Allen. Otherwise we have had trouble keeping Royce on the floor because sometimes he misses his shots early with the second unit. And he’s a extremely valuable two way player.

Do I expect them to make this change this late? No, but I think it would very likely make us a better team. Allen would still play his normal minutes.

[King4Day]

Nice picture of our whole team.

Crazy that this is the first time all year that we've seen the entire team in uniform together

[Calvin Klein]

CP3 was awesome and money in the clutch from the mid range...but he can't do that anymore for whatever reason. Two years ago he was 56% from 3-10 ft and 59% from 10-16 ft. Last year he was 42% from 3-10ft and 47% from 10-16 ft. At the rim he went from 77% to 62%. This year his %s are a little better from the mid range but on very very low volume. He almost exclusively takes 3s, but is up to 38%....so that's his game....he was 33% from 3 two years ago when he was great from mid range, and up to 37% last year, so he's been focusing on that. He's only taken it to the rim (or inside 3 ft) 9x this year.

He just doesn't have the physical tools anymore to be good at attacking the rim and be as good as he was in pull up jumpers. He's too old now.

But he can still run an offense.

We were lucky to have him during his last great years. The Denver series was a masterpiece. He was just toying with Campazzo and Rivers. And then game 6 against the Clippers and New Orleans. Masterpieces.

[sunskerr]

CP3 was awesome and money in the clutch from the mid range...but he can't do that anymore for whatever reason. Two years ago he was 56% from 3-10 ft and 59% from 10-16 ft. Last year he was 42% from 3-10ft and 47% from 10-16 ft. At the rim he went from 77% to 62%. This year his %s are a little better from the mid range but on very very low volume. He almost exclusively takes 3s, but is up to 38%....so that's his game....he was 33% from 3 two years ago when he was great from mid range, and up to 37% last year, so he's been focusing on that. He's only taken it to the rim (or inside 3 ft) 9x this year.

He just doesn't have the physical tools anymore to be good at attacking the rim and be as good as he was in pull up jumpers. He's too old now.

But he can still run an offense.

We were lucky to have him during his last great years. The Denver series was a masterpiece. He was just toying with Campazzo and Rivers. And then game 6 against the Clippers and New Orleans. Masterpieces.

Yep CP3 got old and looked every bit of 38-39 years on a court full of guys in their 20s and early 30s. As a wise man once said "you ain't got no legs lieutenant Dan"

More players are playing into their mid 30s now but the real frontier has always been to push it closer to 40 where only a select few have been able to do it and there's no shame in not doing so.

Physically for literally every athlete in sports that needs lower body explosiveness that 35-40 range is where things start to fall off dramatically even though we have good (DARKO) data that most guys in the NBA actually start declining at 29. It's an ever so slight decline then 35-40 is just off a cliff.

This data reveals the human limits imo and will probably require some new PEDs to be overcome.

[Calvin Klein]

CP3 was awesome and money in the clutch from the mid range...but he can't do that anymore for whatever reason. Two years ago he was 56% from 3-10 ft and 59% from 10-16 ft. Last year he was 42% from 3-10ft and 47% from 10-16 ft. At the rim he went from 77% to 62%. This year his %s are a little better from the mid range but on very very low volume. He almost exclusively takes 3s, but is up to 38%....so that's his game....he was 33% from 3 two years ago when he was great from mid range, and up to 37% last year, so he's been focusing on that. He's only taken it to the rim (or inside 3 ft) 9x this year.

He just doesn't have the physical tools anymore to be good at attacking the rim and be as good as he was in pull up jumpers. He's too old now.

But he can still run an offense.

We were lucky to have him during his last great years. The Denver series was a masterpiece. He was just toying with Campazzo and Rivers. And then game 6 against the Clippers and New Orleans. Masterpieces.

Yep CP3 got old and looked every bit of 38-39 years on a court full of guys in their 20s and early 30s. As a wise man once said "you ain't got no legs lieutenant Dan"

More players are playing into their mid 30s now but the real frontier has always been to push it closer to 40 where only a select few have been able to do it and there's no shame in not doing so.

Physically for literally every athlete in sports that needs lower body explosiveness that 35-40 range is where things start to fall off dramatically even though we have good (DARKO) data that most guys in the NBA actually start declining at 29. It's an ever so slight decline then 35-40 is just off a cliff.

This data reveals the human limits imo and will probably require some new PEDs to be overcome.

And this is basically the main reason that I think the KD trade was stupid. Considering his injury history, the fact that he is playing at this level is a miracle. Even Lebron, who never missed time, started missing lots of games when he was over 35.

Even if you do avoid injuries, you just can't perform at a high level every night. It starts to happen every 2 or 3 games instead.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

He just doesn't have the physical tools anymore to be good at attacking the rim and be as good as he was in pull up jumpers. He's too old now.

But he can still run an offense.

We were lucky to have him during his last great years. The Denver series was a masterpiece. He was just toying with Campazzo and Rivers. And then game 6 against the Clippers and New Orleans. Masterpieces.

Yep CP3 got old and looked every bit of 38-39 years on a court full of guys in their 20s and early 30s. As a wise man once said "you ain't got no legs lieutenant Dan"

More players are playing into their mid 30s now but the real frontier has always been to push it closer to 40 where only a select few have been able to do it and there's no shame in not doing so.

Physically for literally every athlete in sports that needs lower body explosiveness that 35-40 range is where things start to fall off dramatically even though we have good (DARKO) data that most guys in the NBA actually start declining at 29. It's an ever so slight decline then 35-40 is just off a cliff.

This data reveals the human limits imo and will probably require some new PEDs to be overcome.

And this is basically the main reason that I think the KD trade was stupid. Considering his injury history, the fact that he is playing at this level is a miracle. Even Lebron, who never missed time, started missing lots of games when he was over 35.

Even if you do avoid injuries, you just can't perform at a high level every night. It starts to happen every 2 or 3 games instead.

Counterpoint: this entire season. If the KD trade was bad, it's not because the return wasn't awesome. He's exceeded my expectations so far. On the other side of the ledger, Cam and Mikal have disappointed this season - and combined, the twins make only a few million less than KD.

While we haven't been as successful this season as we were in recent years - that story is about CP3, IMO. Dude was All-NBA with us for 2.5 seasons, but his age showed in the playoffs. Without him - even replacing him with Beal, I think - Booker/Mikal/Cam/Ayton just wasn't a strong enough foundation to build on. I thought the vibes of the team had become stale, much like the 7SOL Suns right before we dealt Marion for Shaq in a similar move.

While I've been pretty vocal about thinking this squad is doomed, I can't fault us for the KD trade. It's the reason we're not in the lottery this year. And IMO, KD still has substantial trade value.

[sunsbg]

Point Book + Mikal/Cam/Ayton is not a better team than current one. You still need at least a Rubio level PG to be top 4 team in WC. Once again, Haliburton would've been perfect. Biggest Jones blunder IMO.

[SunsRback4Good]

Point Book + Mikal/Cam/Ayton is not a better team than current one. You still need at least a Rubio level PG to be top 4 team in WC. Once again, Haliburton would've been perfect. Biggest Jones blunder IMO.

All we had to do was keep Booker, Mikal, CamJ, and add guys like Reeves, TJ, few other role players to see where we stand. Not trade our entire farm system for superstar players cause that’s not helping us all season long. We would have already traded Ayton for Nurk and Allen.

Nurkic/CamJ/Mikal/Booker/Reeves

Reserves: TJ/Allen/Filler/Filler

That right there is likely a top 3 team in the west and a title contender.

[sasquatchBob]

Weird poll, isnt it? Interesting, but weird, especially before playoffs

[sasquatchBob]

I dont expect even WCF from us this year, but LFG Suns and f*ck thinking about other teams

[SunsRback4Good]

I can’t wait to watch Caitlin Clark tonight she’s like a newer more improved Steph Curry.

[SunsRback4Good]

I dont expect even WCF from us this year, but LFG Suns and f*ck thinking about other teams

It’d be extremely difficult to beat Twolves/Thunder in first round then proceed to beat Clippers. I’ll be fairly surprised if we can win one round.

[Saberestar]

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