Nearly everyone regards the Shaq trade as the moment when PHOENIX (capital letters to represent the fact the Suns stood out) turned into Phoenix (lower-case letters, representing the fact that they were now just like any other team), but that's not necessarily true. Already straddling the fence between "run-and-gun Phoenix" and "more-conventional-than-you-think Phoenix," last summer's Grant Hill signing pushed them over the fence and made them hopelessly normal, even if we didn't want to admit it. Great guy, great athlete, phenomenally intelligent player, steal of a signing for the price ... and you could yell "Pull!" every time Hill launches a 3. For a team that revolved around high screens with Nash and Stoudemire, perfectly executed fast breaks and high-percentage 3s, Hill subtly changed what the Suns were. You didn't have to worry about defending him or Marion 25 feet from the basket -- two of the five Suns on the court, by the way -- making it impossible for them to spread the floor on those Nash/Stoudemire high screens.
So what were they? On paper, Hill made up for his long-range shooting faults with defense, leadership and all-around skills ... but did they want to get better defensively? What's the difference between being a D-minus defensively or a plus? Does it really matter? Two years ago, Jack McCallum called his season-in-the-life Suns book "Seven Seconds or Less" because that was their mentality -- they didn't care about getting defensive stops, only about forcing a high-speed tempo and taking high-percentage shots as quickly as possible (especially 3s). One of the great basketball chess matches happened in Round 1 of the '06 playoffs, when the Lakers were determined not to get caught up with Phoenix's breakneck pace, only the Suns kept dangling their high-speed game like a carrot -- "come on, run with us, it will be fun, come on" -- and the Lakers kept fighting them off and slowing things down. Ultimately, they couldn't hold the Suns off. That was the PHOENIX we knew and loved, but that "Seven Seconds or Less" mentality had faded into Bolivian well before the Shaq trade.
Simmons goes on to detail Sarver's numerous miscues over the years, and how Phoenix and S.S.O.L. slowly faded. Pretty interesting article. He claims S.S.O.L. is anti-defense. I disagree. D'Antoni isn't a good defensive coach, and the Suns haven't had good defensive players over the years, but it is possible to play S.S.O.L. and play good defense. Sometimes there are choices made to go small and fast, but that doesn't necessarily equal poor defense. The thing is, S.S.O.L. is incredibly effective. Efficient and brilliantly simple. If you can do it with players who also play good defense, you can win a championship. The Suns never won a championship with Nash-Amar'e, but they lost to exactly two teams in the playoffs over the years: Timmy's Spurs and Gasol's Lakers. Why? Amar'e faced a big who could defend him pretty well and who could score on him at will. Because Amar'e is a horrendous defender.
Look, we're seeing the Knicks starting to thrive in this system again. It's Amar'e, sure, but it's the system. They're playing faster than we are, jacking up more threes than we are (they're leading the league in attempts), and winning more than we are. They're shooting more than us at the rim and within 10 feet; we're shooting more than them between 10 and 23 feet. We have to buy into the system like that again, wholeheartedly.
We saw signs of it last night during that comeback, and it was beautiful.
Have you not seen Kerrsed post before?
