Good Analysis of the demise of the Suns

[JohnVancouver]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1922

interesting excerpt - "No, it was actually the defense that led to Phoenix’s downfall in 2009, as the Suns fell to 26th after hovering around the league average throughout Mike D’Antoni’s tenure as coach. What’s especially ironic is that the mainstream media’s biggest criticism of the D’Antoni Suns was a perceived lack of defense on their part (an illusion of the Suns’ breakneck pace and proof of the fallacy of looking at points allowed per game to assess defensive ability), and that Porter was largely hired by Kerr to “fix” Phoenix defensively. Instead, the Suns declined in literally every defensive metric, save for a slight increase in the % of opponent possessions on which they recorded a steal (and they still ranked just 23rd in that category).

Porter was fired, though it wasn’t exactly his fault that Kerr expected a defensive improvement from a team with no real defenders (shockingly, trading Shawn Marion and Raja Bell in the same calendar year will hurt your D! Who knew?).

[dantian]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1922

interesting excerpt - "No, it was actually the defense that led to Phoenix’s downfall in 2009, as the Suns fell to 26th after hovering around the league average throughout Mike D’Antoni’s tenure as coach. What’s especially ironic is that the mainstream media’s biggest criticism of the D’Antoni Suns was a perceived lack of defense on their part (an illusion of the Suns’ breakneck pace and proof of the fallacy of looking at points allowed per game to assess defensive ability), and that Porter was largely hired by Kerr to “fix” Phoenix defensively. Instead, the Suns declined in literally every defensive metric, save for a slight increase in the % of opponent possessions on which they recorded a steal (and they still ranked just 23rd in that category).

Porter was fired, though it wasn’t exactly his fault that Kerr expected a defensive improvement from a team with no real defenders (shockingly, trading Shawn Marion and Raja Bell in the same calendar year will hurt your D! Who knew?).

Bell openly admitted that he was not motivated to play for Porter from the start on. Nash's hatred for Porter's wasn't conducive to bringing more effort, which is the only thing Nash could do on defense being overmatched by every player on the other team. The backcourt were a sieve to put the burden on Shaq/Amare to protect the basket, which was a failure waiting to happen. When Shaq came in last season, despite in a worse shape, he was a force under basket and was only got exposed by P&Rs. But this season, everyone could drive on him easily because they didn't get any resistence on the perimeter at all.

[albasuna]

I was wondering this the other day, let's say the Suns don't trade Marion. Where do you think they'd stand?

Amare
Marion
Hill
Bell
Nash

Barbosa
Diaw
Giricek

[albasuna]

double posts suck

[suns12345]

if kerr didnt make any trades i love our team. goran our bckup pg imo. rolo is some size hope he develops so we can play stat at 4 sometimes. and then barbs sg, barnes, diaw. lou for energy. 4 min a half.

I CRY

[dantian]

I was wondering this the other day, let's say the Suns don't trade Marion. Where do you think they'd stand?

Amare
Marion
Hill
Bell
Nash

Barbosa
Diaw
Giricek

one and done, witnessing Nash's decline and how other teams are prepared to stop him. but high scoring regular season games are great fun anyway.

[lilfishi22]

I was wondering this the other day, let's say the Suns don't trade Marion. Where do you think they'd stand?

Amare
Marion
Hill
Bell
Nash

Barbosa
Diaw
Giricek

Tough to say nowadays. When we were in the SSOL prime everybody else tried to play like us and that is why we could outplay them, because we were the best at what we do. But then other teams began to get bigger and better defensively, Gasol trade, Oden draft, Artest trade and Millsap emergence.

Even though Dallas pulled the Kidd trade, that only got them so far. Between the Mavs and us, either of us could've been on the outside looking in. They got in instead because they benefited from having kept a stable roster of personnel and coaches.

I would say though, we could've been a force if we were healthy and hired Gentry in the beginning. If we had kept Diaw and Bell, and Amare didn't get injured, we'd definitely would've been in the up echelon of the WC.