Moderators: bwgood77, lilfishi22, Qwigglez
Stix wrote:RaisingArizona wrote:McD liked his Kentucky guards. I tend to believe that report is true.
Yep he liked them so much he picked Josh Jackson over De'Aaron Fox.
Oh and let's not forget Dragan Bender over Jamal Murray.
lilfishi22 wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:
I've heard the Shai thing before and all the reporting always leads back to Espo being the source so I don't buy Shai was a reality. But if it was, I still think Shai/Mikal was 50/50 at best in terms of talent coming into the league. Nobody thought SGA would be an MVP candidate
The source I cited was actually from Bob Young of the Athletic. But yes, Esposito has repeated these rumors it seems. Although under Sarvers' tenure during the time these things were going down, I believe Greg Esposito was an insider with connections inside the suns front office. Other than that it'll likely always be a topic of controversy that'll have oppositional opinions.
Espo has been parroting it for years as if it was fact and as if he was the source. BW mentioned this already and if I recall the sequence of events, it just doesn't make sense for that deal to not only be on the table but was basically a done deal. I remmeber seeing the report when it came out and I was flabbergasted but once more information came out around the sequencing, it just didn't seem possible.
Does that mean Sarver didn't shout at McD in the background of a phone call? No, I imagine it's likely happened more than once over his tenure with the Suns but I don't buy that a trade was a done deal an Sarver killed that deals specificallybwgood77 wrote:This has all been mentioned before and the Shai stuff is incorrect...I have some inside sources (in the room)...we didn't even KNOW we could get Bridges until we were on the clock at 17 about ready to send in our pick of DiVincenzo...Gambo even said it's the pick..and last second Philly called us and traded Bridges because Smith was available. Everyone was surprised that they got the call, because Philly had turned down the offer AT #10 when they were on the clock. Shai was not taken until a couple picks later. We did not think there was any chance we could get Bridges after he was drafted. It doesn't even make sense. This is all coming from McD trying to spin something or someone that was close to McD believing him or maybe who worked under him and was let go.
I know they initially wanted to try and trade for Shai earlier, by getting a pick in the top 10, but they were turned down. If there was an offer that we could have made at 12 or whenever it was, they would have taken it. Bridges was gone at that point. This "rumor" has been going around forever but it's BS. I can't stand Sarver but it's simply not the case.
SideSwipe wrote:Beal the player just finished a season where he had a record high TS% (.607) on great shooting splits 51+/43+/82 on 18/4.4/5/1. If he was 24 years old people would be clamoring to give him close to the max this offseason. At 30 with the SuperMax and No Trade Clause is where the detractions come in. Let's not act like he is a useless player, though. He is still good as a player, just not as good as future HOF guys Durant and Booker- and he is a bit redundant.
bwgood77 wrote:SideSwipe wrote:Beal the player just finished a season where he had a record high TS% (.607) on great shooting splits 51+/43+/82 on 18/4.4/5/1. If he was 24 years old people would be clamoring to give him close to the max this offseason. At 30 with the SuperMax and No Trade Clause is where the detractions come in. Let's not act like he is a useless player, though. He is still good as a player, just not as good as future HOF guys Durant and Booker- and he is a bit redundant.
You nailed it. People saying he sucks or even acting as if we could have utilized what we are paying him in a different way (we were over the cap with Shamet and Paul who also had no trade value and when they expired the Book max kicked in putting us over the cap limiting adding anyone)....so we rolled the salaries we were paying them forward. Talking about having Shamet at $10 million vs Beal at $50 million makes sense if you could spend the $40 million elsewhere but we wouldn't' be able to. It's not my money and I don't care about the tax so I'd take Beal all day long over Shamet.
2024 NBA Draft Picks By Team
June 7th 2024 at 6:20pm CST by Luke Adams
Teams with more than two picks:
- San Antonio Spurs (4): 4, 8, 35, 48.
- Portland Trail Blazers (4): 7, 14, 34, 40
- Washington Wizards (3): 2, 26, 51.
- Memphis Grizzlies (3): 9, 39, 57.
- Utah Jazz (3): 10, 29, 32.
- New York Knicks (3): 24, 25, 38.
- Indiana Pacers (3): 36, 49, 50
Teams with two picks:
- Houston Rockets: 3, 44
- Detroit Pistons: 5, 53
- Charlotte Hornets: 6, 42.
- Sacramento Kings: 13, 45
- Miami Heat: 15, 43
- Philadelphia 76ers: 16, 41.
- Los Angeles Lakers: 17, 55
- Orlando Magic: 18, 47.
- Toronto Raptors: 19, 31.
- Milwaukee Bucks: 23, 33
- Minnesota Timberwolves: 27, 37
- Denver Nuggets: 28, 56
- Boston Celtics: 30, 54
BobbieL wrote:SideSwipe wrote:Beal the player just finished a season where he had a record high TS% (.607) on great shooting splits 51+/43+/82 on 18/4.4/5/1. If he was 24 years old people would be clamoring to give him close to the max this offseason. At 30 with the SuperMax and No Trade Clause is where the detractions come in. Let's not act like he is a useless player, though. He is still good as a player, just not as good as future HOF guys Durant and Booker- and he is a bit redundant.
Thats tghe problem - its the redundancy factor.
bwgood77 wrote:SideSwipe wrote:Beal the player just finished a season where he had a record high TS% (.607) on great shooting splits 51+/43+/82 on 18/4.4/5/1. If he was 24 years old people would be clamoring to give him close to the max this offseason. At 30 with the SuperMax and No Trade Clause is where the detractions come in. Let's not act like he is a useless player, though. He is still good as a player, just not as good as future HOF guys Durant and Booker- and he is a bit redundant.
You nailed it. People saying he sucks or even acting as if we could have utilized what we are paying him in a different way (we were over the cap with Shamet and Paul who also had no trade value and when they expired the Book max kicked in putting us over the cap limiting adding anyone)....so we rolled the salaries we were paying them forward. Talking about having Shamet at $10 million vs Beal at $50 million makes sense if you could spend the $40 million elsewhere but we wouldn't' be able to. It's not my money and I don't care about the tax so I'd take Beal all day long over Shamet.
Crives wrote:My ideal starting 5 next season
1- Book
2- Allen
3- KD
4 - Bol
5 - Nurk
Nothing against Beal, I just think he will benefit from lower minutes and trying to build some consistency.
Fo-Real wrote:bwgood77 wrote:SideSwipe wrote:Beal the player just finished a season where he had a record high TS% (.607) on great shooting splits 51+/43+/82 on 18/4.4/5/1. If he was 24 years old people would be clamoring to give him close to the max this offseason. At 30 with the SuperMax and No Trade Clause is where the detractions come in. Let's not act like he is a useless player, though. He is still good as a player, just not as good as future HOF guys Durant and Booker- and he is a bit redundant.
You nailed it. People saying he sucks or even acting as if we could have utilized what we are paying him in a different way (we were over the cap with Shamet and Paul who also had no trade value and when they expired the Book max kicked in putting us over the cap limiting adding anyone)....so we rolled the salaries we were paying them forward. Talking about having Shamet at $10 million vs Beal at $50 million makes sense if you could spend the $40 million elsewhere but we wouldn't' be able to. It's not my money and I don't care about the tax so I'd take Beal all day long over Shamet.
Still a chance that familiarity and coaching + better total roster construction helps Book, Durant and Beal function better.
lilfishi22 wrote:Fo-Real wrote:bwgood77 wrote:
You nailed it. People saying he sucks or even acting as if we could have utilized what we are paying him in a different way (we were over the cap with Shamet and Paul who also had no trade value and when they expired the Book max kicked in putting us over the cap limiting adding anyone)....so we rolled the salaries we were paying them forward. Talking about having Shamet at $10 million vs Beal at $50 million makes sense if you could spend the $40 million elsewhere but we wouldn't' be able to. It's not my money and I don't care about the tax so I'd take Beal all day long over Shamet.
Still a chance that familiarity and coaching + better total roster construction helps Book, Durant and Beal function better.
Absolutely. Even when the guys were healthy, it still didn't look like they were consistently potent and a large part of that was whatever system we were running. There were times when they looked dangerous but come 4th quarter, it reverts back to whatever issues we had when we had 1 or 2 of the Big 3 out there.
I said when the season ended the best way to improve this team with all the limitations we had salary-cap wise and roster-wise, is with revamping the coaching and system we run. We're doing that and I hope to see it pay dividends.
Bogyo wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:Fo-Real wrote:
Still a chance that familiarity and coaching + better total roster construction helps Book, Durant and Beal function better.
Absolutely. Even when the guys were healthy, it still didn't look like they were consistently potent and a large part of that was whatever system we were running. There were times when they looked dangerous but come 4th quarter, it reverts back to whatever issues we had when we had 1 or 2 of the Big 3 out there.
I said when the season ended the best way to improve this team with all the limitations we had salary-cap wise and roster-wise, is with revamping the coaching and system we run. We're doing that and I hope to see it pay dividends.
Not to p*ss on your parade, but if you think Snake and WannabeKobe will change their game (MIDDDDDDYYYYY!!!!) for another coach, and start to run and make sensible decisions on offense (like shoot 3 pointers ffs if you happen to be an ex-3pt contest champion), while also be engaged on defense as you don't have to carry the offense all yourself becouse you have another allstar by your side pretty much all time... you might as well believe in the tooth fairy. But otherwise sounds good to me.
lilfishi22 wrote:Crives wrote:My ideal starting 5 next season
1- Book
2- Allen
3- KD
4 - Bol
5 - Nurk
Nothing against Beal, I just think he will benefit from lower minutes and trying to build some consistency.
Doesn't quite work for me. I just don't like Book as basically the sole ball handler in the backcourt. Beal has his shortcomings as a PG but he's needed to share the ball handling load. If Book was better, I would be all for it but this past season showed he isn't quite ready (maybe never will be) as the primary PG on the team.
bwgood77 wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:
The source I cited was actually from Bob Young of the Athletic. But yes, Esposito has repeated these rumors it seems. Although under Sarvers' tenure during the time these things were going down, I believe Greg Esposito was an insider with connections inside the suns front office. Other than that it'll likely always be a topic of controversy that'll have oppositional opinions.
Espo has been parroting it for years as if it was fact and as if he was the source. BW mentioned this already and if I recall the sequence of events, it just doesn't make sense for that deal to not only be on the table but was basically a done deal. I remmeber seeing the report when it came out and I was flabbergasted but once more information came out around the sequencing, it just didn't seem possible.
Does that mean Sarver didn't shout at McD in the background of a phone call? No, I imagine it's likely happened more than once over his tenure with the Suns but I don't buy that a trade was a done deal an Sarver killed that deals specificallybwgood77 wrote:This has all been mentioned before and the Shai stuff is incorrect...I have some inside sources (in the room)...we didn't even KNOW we could get Bridges until we were on the clock at 17 about ready to send in our pick of DiVincenzo...Gambo even said it's the pick..and last second Philly called us and traded Bridges because Smith was available. Everyone was surprised that they got the call, because Philly had turned down the offer AT #10 when they were on the clock. Shai was not taken until a couple picks later. We did not think there was any chance we could get Bridges after he was drafted. It doesn't even make sense. This is all coming from McD trying to spin something or someone that was close to McD believing him or maybe who worked under him and was let go.
I know they initially wanted to try and trade for Shai earlier, by getting a pick in the top 10, but they were turned down. If there was an offer that we could have made at 12 or whenever it was, they would have taken it. Bridges was gone at that point. This "rumor" has been going around forever but it's BS. I can't stand Sarver but it's simply not the case.
Oh, Sarver definitely shouted during phone calls....but that probably happens other places too during draft night.
lilfishi22 wrote:Bogyo wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:Absolutely. Even when the guys were healthy, it still didn't look like they were consistently potent and a large part of that was whatever system we were running. There were times when they looked dangerous but come 4th quarter, it reverts back to whatever issues we had when we had 1 or 2 of the Big 3 out there.
I said when the season ended the best way to improve this team with all the limitations we had salary-cap wise and roster-wise, is with revamping the coaching and system we run. We're doing that and I hope to see it pay dividends.
Not to p*ss on your parade, but if you think Snake and WannabeKobe will change their game (MIDDDDDDYYYYY!!!!) for another coach, and start to run and make sensible decisions on offense (like shoot 3 pointers ffs if you happen to be an ex-3pt contest champion), while also be engaged on defense as you don't have to carry the offense all yourself becouse you have another allstar by your side pretty much all time... you might as well believe in the tooth fairy. But otherwise sounds good to me.
They've changed their games before. KD started off his career middy heavy (55.8% FGA from long 2s) then slow changed his game into more Morey-ball (47% between last few years in OKC and GSW) then over the last few years gone back to being very middy heavy (59%). Sure, between the two he's less likely to change but he certainly could, because he's done it multiple times. Likewise with Book, he didn't start playing heavy in the middle until CP3 came along and taught him the middy pull up game. Just last season, he dropped his post-CP3 long 2 FGA from an average of around 54.3% down to just over 50%. Should also mention Book was an absoultely god awful defender for most of his early career and most of us really questioned whether he could even be a passable defender. Then a flip was switched and he started to give a damn on that end of the court, he showed what he could defensively and was actually a plus defender.
Likewise, Beal has never been a massive middy player until he became "the man" in Washington after Wall relinquished control. When he played second fiddle he averaged 43% from the mid range, then when he became the man, it went up to 54-55%. Then that figure dropped a full 10% once he came to Phoenix.
So while none of these Big 3 are likely to start playing full Morey-Ball ala Harden, Markkanen or Steph, both Beal and Book are amenable to changing their game where required. We saw first hand last season Book deferring his much of his game to take on PG duties and sure it didn't work well because he's not the PG we need, he was at least open to it and tried. Similarly, Beal went from playing an off ball game for most of the season to taking on almost full PG duties by the end of the season.
Yes, what I'm asking/hoping for sounds like a very tough ask and would require everything to fall into place...but generally teams that tend it win it all needed everything to fall right into place. For the record, I never said I expect it happen but I'll continue to keep an open mind
bwgood77 wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:I've heard the Shai thing before and all the reporting always leads back to Espo being the source so I don't buy Shai was a reality. But if it was, I still think Shai/Mikal was 50/50 at best in terms of talent coming into the league. Nobody thought SGA would be an MVP candidate
The source I cited was actually from Bob Young of the Athletic. But yes, Esposito has repeated these rumors it seems. Although under Sarvers' tenure during the time these things were going down, I believe Greg Esposito was an insider with connections inside the suns front office. Other than that it'll likely always be a topic of controversy that'll have oppositional opinions.
I've explained before not only that I know that didn't happen but that the whole concept/idea of it happening makes zero sense. We didn't even KNOW about the Bridges possibility until we were on the clock and about to pick Divinzenzo, so there never even could have been a conversation about "overruling the Shai deal because Sarver wanted to do the Bridges deal". Philly had shut us down earlier on a Bridges possibility.
I know they wanted to get another pick earlier in the top 10 to get Shai, and perhaps Sarver preferred Brides for whatever reason (even though at the time we had Warren, Josh Jackson and were later going to sign Ariza and trade him for Oubre). I had only heard going up to the draft that we wanted to get a 2nd pick in the top 10 to get Shai. We wanted to move up. We were unable to so were set to take Divincenzo until Philly called back and with Zhaire Smith on the board, figured they'd rather have him and the unprotected pick. We were shocked they called us because we didn't know that was still a possibility after being shut down.
We didn't even KNOW about the Bridges possibility until we were on the clock and about to pick Divinzenzo, so there never even could have been a conversation about "overruling the Shai deal because Sarver wanted to do the Bridges deal". Philly had shut us down earlier on a Bridges possibility.
I had only heard going up to the draft that we wanted to get a 2nd pick in the top 10 to get Shai. We wanted to move up. We were unable to so were set to take Divincenzo until Philly called back and with Zhaire Smith on the board, figured they'd rather have him and the unprotected pick. We were shocked they called us because we didn't know that was still a possibility after being shut down.