cmw17 wrote:With Nash, Hill, Richardson gone (and if the suns don't add anyone promising) this team will be depleted of any kind of star power, The squad will be nothing but mediocre players at every single position. Nash makes everyone better, when he's gone, you will see the true abilities of everyone. And it won't be pretty. The suns are ugly on defense, and without Nash they will be ugly on Offense too.
You have to get over your Nash-is-going-to-leave-and-we're-done-for-if-we-have-no-superstar mantra. We don't any players right now with superstar potential but how many teams legitimately do? Because only a superstar can do what Nash does and make guys look good. Nash made a living out of making a living for role players, that's what he did with Marion, Diaw, LB, Amare and the numerous other players that got paid a fortune after one magical year with Nash. That's what he's done over the years so why are you so surprised we don't have any superstars on our team? Had Nash left 4 seasons ago during the prime of SSOL, even that team with Marion, Diaw, Amare, LB and Bell would barely make playoffs without Nash.
Nash will leave sooner or later and we just have to get through it.
I also think it's naive to think that in a few seasons it will just be this same team except you pluck Nash out of the lineup. Yes, that lineup would be absolute s**t and would be perennial bottom-feeders if we kept it like that. But with a great talent evaluator in Blanks and Babby who has likely done a lot of background planning focusing on the future salary situation, I think we're in good hands. I find it hard to believe we're just going to move forward with basically this same team but with no Nash.
Dragic is a nice player and he is in the position of a lifetime to be tutored by an all-time great at his position, but lets get real here, He is not a star in this league, he is extremely inconsistent and has shown brilliance, followed by total flops. Things may change in the next few years, no one can say for sure, but it's obvious that he will never be a player on the same level as his mentor and with the surrounding cast as it is now, anything less than Steve will be a disaster
You are wasting your time with this point because Nash is a once in a decade player and it's completely irrational to just toss Dragic out just because he won't ever be as good as Nash. Keep in mind however, the system also has a lot to do with Nash's success. I'm not saying the system made Nash but the system made it possible for Nash to turn role players into star players and believe it or not, we've seen the same thing with Dragic. Nash played the majority of his minutes with our starters, which included players like JRich and Amare, but guess who lead the 2nd unit? Goran Dragic. As much credit as Nash was given for turning Lou, Dudley and Frye into more than serviceable role players, some acknowledgment should be made for Dragic too since he was the one leading the 2nd unit with those players as his team mates.
Dragic is not Nash, but Dragic in Gentry's system with a few smart pick ups in FA and a star signing and we're back in the conversation.
He has great height, but has yet to learn how to use it to its full advantage. He is not a star player by any means. He has never been a great rebounder and most likely will never be - and that and defense is the most important thing he can contribute to this team. He is also extremely inconsistent unlike his twin brother. By the way, when he develops like like Brook has, you let me know.
He's going into his 3rd year and big men bloom late, that's a known fact. It's an unfair point to make by comparing him to Brook just because they are twins. Brook was a star in Stanford while Robin came off the bench in college. For Robin to be this good on defense and offense already in the NBA has surprised everyone considering he wasn't even playing starter minutes in college. I can't say Robin will ever be as good as Brook in every facet of the game, but he has potential to be a much better defender than Brook because he's quicker and won't be asked to carry a scoring load like Brook.
The kid has potential so don't hate just because he won't ever meet your everything-or-nothing expectations.
its nice to have, but a 20 minute/game hustle player is not gonna make a team into a contender, now if he's an addition to an already superior team, that's a different storry, he's a nice additional piece, not a guy who's gonna lead his team anywhere.
I guarantee teams like Miami, Boston, Orlando, Lakers and other contenders would run to get Dudley on their team. Contenders loves scrappy defensive guys who can shoot and do the dirty work. He's not on Battier, Bowen or James Posey level yet but he's built in the same mold and even though those guys won't lead a team anywhere, I'll be damned if they aren't a huge part of a championship caliber team if they were signed/traded to one. Not every player has to be a superstar to be a huge help to a team.
He's already 27 tears old, not a rookie in this league. At this age, you should know what his ceiling may be already. He may improve slightly, but nothing shocking. He has already played big minutes in this league and has not proven to even be a consistent starter in this league yet. Again not bad, but in no way will this guy be at a front line of a championship.
I don't see the relevance of this. He may be 27 but we've revived older, well past their prime, and more injury-prone players before. He may not be a 18/6/6 player but I could easily see him posting career high averages this season. Frye didn't have a 3PT shot until this season, it's not hard to imagine JChill could be a better player than he was when he was with ATL. Besides, teams would kill to have a player of JChill's caliber come off the bench for them. He won't be our savior but we did well in bringing him to the team.
So if everyone is jumping off a building, you should too? Just cause other teams are making mistakes, doesn't mean the Suns should have. Frye is the definition of a one trick pony. He contributes very little to the team other than shooting threes and spreading the floor. Which isn't bad, but not someone you give a big contract to like the Suns did. He would have easily excpeted less from the Suns. He has constantly said how he would play here rather than anywhere else, so why give him so much when it was not neccessary? And if other teams are offering this much, then more power to him, he is in no way worth this kind of contract which will prevent future signings from happening. This is the front office that you have confidence in, huh.
This is the one point I agree with. I think Frye is overpaid. His deal is too long and pays too much over the long term. The positive to this is that his contract isn't cap killing. Also I think we have to understand who in the front office game him this contract. It was Sarver doing most of the negotiations and most likely it was he who overpaid Frye, not our current FO with Blanks and Babby.
Frye's 3PT shooting is really the only thing that most people notice but he does have other good points. I'm a huge Frye critic but even I can see parts of his game which can help the team. His defense is actually better than what most give him credit for. He won't make an All-Defensive team anytime soon, but he's very long and surprisingly quick on his feet. He's also an above-average PnR defender because he has the quickness many 6-11 C's don't have. The guy is also a hard worker and he picked up a lethal 3PT shot in only one off-season, so I'm sure he would be working on other important parts of his game.
I am not concerened about other teams like I am about the Suns. And from everything I've seen, they are building themselves a hole they will not be able to get out of. Thats why people are saying they have one of the worst futures of any team ahead of them.
If the hole you are referring to is the signing of Warrick and Frye to long term deals and the trade for Turk, then keep in mind that while those contracts aren't pretty, we still have plenty of cap space to work with even with the deals in the books. Warrick and Frye's deal aren't the best but are very much tradeable so they could be assets in the future. JRich has an expiring deal so we could see something happen with that. Hill comes off the books after this season and Nash comes off the books in two seasons. We have plenty of cap space to work with. Our young core doesn't look as nice as that of the Bulls and Thunder, but they will do. Smart signings and a star pick up and we'd be looking good again.
Been there, done that. People have been saying this for how many years now? Not gonna happen, they haven't done anything to make us think that it will any time soon. They have simply completely given up on defense and rebounding, and concentrated on fast paced offense, passing and good playmaking, which is great, but not a compelte agenda if you wanna win championships. The team will be fun to watch in the regular season, but has been proven time and time again that it is not the plant that will win you championships,
At least before we had guys who could get you some boards (Amare although he should get more, got you 8-10 boards a game, Marion got 10-12 a game, even Shaq got 8-10) now we have no one who averaged over 5. That's scary. With defense, we always sucked but at least we had some good defenders in Raja, Marion, plus Shaq at least gave us size with his big @ss. Who are we gonna rely on now, Hill who is 38? A zone defense which will be easily predictible and figured out? The fact that team faces these huge problems and the front office have addressed none of them and you are confident in them, says alot about you.
I'll just say this. There's only one person who did the majority of the signings this off-season, his name is Robert Sarver. It's been reported that he was the one doing the majority of the negotiating and signings. This was all before the hiring of Babs and Blanks, so you really can't judge this front office yet just by looking at our roster right now. If anything, what they are left with is Sarver's mess. It was the same mess Kerr walked into after Sarver and D'Antoni got done playing realGM. If a rookie GM could turn an aging SSOL crew leaving their prime and with little preparation for the future, even with the Shaq and T-Porter hiccup, into the team now that has the youth, financial flexibility and tradeable assets, in 3 seasons, I think a front office with legit front office experience would realistically and quite possibly be an improvement over that.
That will teach us. 
But it still needed to be done 
