Expectations For This Year

[JohnVancouver]

http://sportshaze.com/phoenix/phoenix-s ... t-card-746

[Sundamental]

http://sportshaze.com/phoenix/phoenix-suns/phoenix-suns-midseason-report-card-746

Care to comment on the coaching grade? I certainly disagree.

[rsavaj]

I think it's going to be really tough for us to get into the playoffs, but if we DO, that means we'll have significantly improved our play up to that point, and if that happens, then I'll be confident in at least making some noise against the 1 seed in the first round.

PHX-SAS rematch anybody?

[JohnVancouver]

http://sportshaze.com/phoenix/phoenix-suns/phoenix-suns-midseason-report-card-746

Care to comment on the coaching grade? I certainly disagree.

You're less forgiving? I agree that, when all's said and done, the coach has to take the weight for the team's performance but given his starting centre was out for 20 games and he's had two major roster overhauls to deal with, I'm inclined to give Alvin a pass on the season to date. He's had to try so so many combinations in or der to find something that works and we don't know what pressure is put on him to play who, either. There have been some blunders in terms of strategy but really, I put them down to brain seizure after all the stuff he's dealt with.

I may be inclined to go easy on him because I like him but even so, I think he's mostly done well in a crap situation.

[DRK]

http://sportshaze.com/phoenix/phoenix-suns/phoenix-suns-midseason-report-card-746

Care to comment on the coaching grade? I certainly disagree.

I agree, to a certain extent. I'm almost surprised that the grading isn't lower. I have to ask Gentry why he continues to play Nash and HiIl 35 minutes a night, even if we are getting blown out?

This season he has lost the confidence he had in Dragic and the second unit. Whether he has reasons for that, it is still not acceptable that our supposed "point guard of the future" is being limited to 10 minutes a game, even if we are winning by 20..

The coaching staff's job is to improve the team as the season goes on. We have done anything but improve to be brutally honest.

[SunsFever]

You know what? It seem to me that generaly speaking we dont have any identity. Looks like when amare left, we lost then inside presence. We lost that feeling of winning being possible nomater the opponent. In a weird way amare was foundation on which we built this notion. He was our superman so to speak. we could say: "Yeah, we have amare, we're gonna be fine. We dont have anyone this year. It just seems that if we had a real first banana everythin would fall in place, eventhou now it doesnt seem like we don't have compatible parts. it looks like we have a rag tag ansamble of players not necessarily complimenting each other. we have bunch of wings with no clear roles like for example dudley last year. We have a young crybaby of a center who's "trying too much". For god sakes man, go out and play, dont try.
And i dont see anything happening next year also. we would need a stud like amare(so long and thanks for all the fish) or maybee griffin. those are really the two players that i see that are capable of providing the same feeling of invincibility for the suns. If we could draft another monster pf.. but than again, if pigs could fly...
we need a big with winning attitude, not just another crybaby

[rsavaj]

I don't think Amare was our "superman". I felt pretty awesome during the entire 05/06 season.

[Calvin Klein]

http://espn.go.com/nba/lottery2011/mockdraft

out of 4 times I played. The Suns won twice

[Sundamental]

http://sportshaze.com/phoenix/phoenix-suns/phoenix-suns-midseason-report-card-746

Care to comment on the coaching grade? I certainly disagree.

You're less forgiving? I agree that, when all's said and done, the coach has to take the weight for the team's performance but given his starting centre was out for 20 games and he's had two major roster overhauls to deal with, I'm inclined to give Alvin a pass on the season to date. He's had to try so so many combinations in or der to find something that works and we don't know what pressure is put on him to play who, either. There have been some blunders in terms of strategy but really, I put them down to brain seizure after all the stuff he's dealt with.

I may be inclined to go easy on him because I like him but even so, I think he's mostly done well in a crap situation.

Yes, very much less forgiving. As in I'd probably give him a D for his grade. Might even have to put him on double secret probation . But like you, I like him and would really like to see him do well. I'd also cut him some slack because I think he did an absolutely masterful job last year. In fact, I don't think there's another coach in the NBA that could of gotten more mileage out of that team than he did. Counting playoffs, he was my coach of the year.

But this year, I'm just pulling my hair out. Playing Hedo at the four, poor team defense, the Earl Barron fiasco, over playing Nash, under playing Dragic. I could go on and on. And I can't really come up with anything that's he's been good at. Yes, there were problems with Lopez and even Nash a couple of games. But he's the leader and I never felt like he was doing that.

Even the trade I feel he has to take some responsibility for. I 'm sure his input was used. Let's face it, Hedo was a lot better player than people thought. His performance in Orlando isn't luck. He was just poorly used and Gentry has to be blamed for not realizing what he had.

[JohnVancouver]

I think Alvin has been pulled in a lot of directions by different forces - I can't reconcile the guy who did the coaching job last year with the guy behind the bench this year - what changed? I can only assume there are forces and consideration we don't know about

As to Hedo - I'll bet Sarver wanted Childress and Warrick , his signings, to play and that meant Alvin had to put hedo at the four.