Vince Carter, the Suns and the Cost of Adjustment

[rsavaj]

http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/ ... ters-game/

Really good article in the New York Times today about Vince and Phoenix.

So guys...what do we do?

[Dalerax]

What do we do? Exactly what the article implies: nothing.

There's no reason in the world that we should change our offense to better suit Carter's style of play. If we take the ball out of Nash's hands and put it into Vince's... well, I shouldn't have to explain why it's a bad idea to take the ball out of the hands of Steve freakin' Nash.

I'll admit, I'm not sure how well it'd work if we gave Vince the ball instead of Dragic running with the bench. Some posters here believe that Dragic is more of a Ginobili-type SG and if we did go that route, it would allow Dragic to play that role more. On the other hand, it'd dampen his progress on becoming the PG that the Suns want him to be.

In the end, though, my thought process is that we're winning a lot of games lately playing the way that we are, which is to shove Vince to the sidelines down the stretch and not give him mega minutes. It's working well so far.

[RvM]

Nice article.

I think the Suns’s style of play has to go up a bit so that way Vince can be more involved. With the trade deadline likely to be finished without any of our players traded, all we can do now is to make sure we can get the most use of all our players and I think that Vince can still help this team tremendously.


I know most of you hate the guy or want him gone, but like it or not, he’s staying for the rest of the season and if he helps leads us to the playoffs then that sounds good to me. He’s gone after this season anyway, so why not give the guy a chance with this team?

You all have seen how he’s saying the right things and how he’s staying late to work on his game and how he seems to care about this team. He even seems to be playing injured it seems.

Vince has been a class act since he’s been here, and he hasn’t complained or ruined the team’s chemistry, or been “cancerous” to the team. The fact is that Vince Carter has many, MANY faults and no matter how much we complain, he’s still on this team and we can only wish for him to help this team.

It’s not like he’s taking shots away from anybody. It’s not his choice that Gentry is playing him over Childress. The guy is at least trying to be aggressive, and in this article there are a lot of key points that I’d like to point out.

The incongruence between Carter’s ability, the Suns’ needs and Carter’s own expectations have created a bit of dysfunction, but it is not fair to say that Carter has not tried to adapt. According to Synergy Sports Technology, 31 percent of Carter’s used possessions with Phoenix have come in spot-up situations, a symbol of either compliance or complacency. With less ball-handling responsibility, Carter has shifted into a more passive role – one that naturally makes sense while playing alongside a creator of Steve Nash’s caliber.

It’s in that way that Carter is unique, even among other players who have had trouble adjusting to life after stardom. Carter is not overstepping his bounds within the offense or trying to take over out of turn. Instead, he is being a bit underused offensively by the Suns, if only because he has been taken completely out of his element by their system. Even when he played alongside Jason Kidd in New Jersey, Carter was a creator; he had the ball in his hands and was free to initiate offense. Then in Orlando, Carter functioned as the Magic’s most prominent pick-and-roll ball handler, and performed quite well in those situations. Those same opportunities are not available in Phoenix, as control of the offense better rests with the far superior Nash.

Here’s what I recommend. Keep him in the starting lineup, but let him run with the bench.

When Vince was most successful with the Magic, Stan Van Gundy set this at the rotation for him.

1st- Vince starts the game. Leaves around the 5 or 6 minute mark.
2nd-Vince starts the 2nd with a full bench unit, and becomes the focal point on offense.
3rd-Vince starts the 3rd but depending on if he’s acting as the main offense, he plays the full 4th or goes out again around the 5 or 6 min mark.
4th-Vince starts the game EARLY. Comes in around the 8 min mark, and gets a good rhythm to be able to finish out the 4th.

The fact is, if people want Vince on the bench then fine, but what Gentry has done so far in this rotation has led to wins. VC plays limited minutes anyway and I can’t understand why Suns fans are complaining when Dudley and Pietrus are both getting more minutes than him.

I think if Gentry let’s Vince run with the 2nd, Dragic can play off ball at times and then you’ll be able to see VC’s pnr skills with Lopez or Warrick. Give him some more looks in the post and give him an iso at the top of the key and it’ll do wonders for him. Vince has always been a rhythm player, and if you just give him around 8-12 shots a game along with Vince getting to the freethrow line 3-5 times, he’d give you a solid 15/3/3 game. I think that’s the best we can hope for with Vince.


Anyways, I’m always disappointed on the bashing on Vince, but it is rightfully so, and hopefully he can get his game back together because we need him if we want to make any noise heading to the playoffs.

[Mac1]

i totaly agree. Vince clearly has an issue with his knee too..he was supposed or planning to get surgery and opted not too. I can say we have one of the best if not top bench in the league. Vince is aware of this and hes not ego. Hes dissapointed he cant bring the numbers he had been for the best part of the decade. He still is however if you can appreciate him outside of scoring putting up decent numbers elsewhere.

We have a good all round team ( outside of a PF)..vince hasnt really hurt us. We are loaded in the shooting gaurd position.

Apart from the past 2 weeks hes been pretty good for us. We all tend to have a short memory. When hes on form and confident though he is better then our other options by A LONG SHOT even at the age of 35.

[Velociraptor]

When Carter was traded to the Suns the most obvious way to use him was to play him with the second unit when Nash was on the bench and then run the offense through Carter. But for some reason Gentry hasn't used Carter in that way. He plays with Nash and spots up in the corner. Which is fine when he's on the court with Nash because Nash is such a complete offensive player that you want the ball to be in the hands of. Carter is also at fault here. For several years now he has been little by little taking a more deferential role on his teams and it has gotten really bad recently how non-assertive he is out there and so willing to take a back seat. Letting Carter carry the bench was the way to use him and still might be but it's probably less so now because Aaron Brooks will likely fill that offensive spark plug off the bench role. All Carter can do is just try to best fill the limited role the Suns need from him and in the off-season part ways. Suns don't need a SG like Carter when they have such a complete offensive PG like Nash. They need a talented bigman to play with Nash and a bunch of supporting defenders and spot up shooters.

[Mac1]

yeah..nash has never really been good for SG of the carter mode. KIdd was far better chemistry.Carter seems accepting of the situation which on the other side of the equation with a very good bench is a good thing though. He also does care about his team and you can see he is upset with himself for not putting up the numbers..hes matured a lot since his days in toronto.

he was doing good until 2 weeks ago. lets just see how this all goes.

[gino_giode]

Buy him out.

Even in Vince's declining usage days in Orlando he still managed to put up ~13FGA/game with respectable %s. Now he's shooting <10 every night and he seems fine with not looking for his shot.

When Vince came over he had free reign to shoot and so averaged ~18-20 PPG with average shooting %s.

No point in keeping him and having him pout on the bench.

[Mac1]

vince carter and probably his cousin as well will try and get a spot at a championship winning side as bench players ( altho i still feel tmac has some more to offer)

[Fat_Borbath]

With all the VC hate, I just thought I'd point out a nice little fact:

Phoenix Suns record this season pre-Vince Carter: 0.448 (13-16)
Phoenix Suns record this season since VC's debut: 0.577 (15-11)

[rsavaj]

You could change "VC"'s debut to "Gortat's" or "Pietrus's"

It's a collective thing, not due to any one single player.

[Fat_Borbath]

You could change "VC"'s debut to "Gortat's" or "Pietrus's"

It's a collective thing, not due to any one single player.

You could, but you wouldn't get the same numbers:

Suns record since VC's debut: 15-11
Suns record pre-VC: 13-16
Difference since VC's debut: +0.129

Suns record since Pietrus/Gortat debut: 15-13
Suns record pre-Pietrus/Gortat: 15-16
Difference since MP/MG's debut: +0.052

The improvement in the winning percentage since MP/MG's debut is only about 40% the improvement in the winning percentage since VC's debut. (0.052/0.129)


The two games the Suns played with Pietrus/Gortat pre-VC they were 0-2 including a loss to the lowly Clippers. They're barely above .500 since Pietrus/Gortat debuted, but are on a 47-win pace since VC debuted.

Again, I'm not saying VC has played well, or is the main cause of the better record, I'm just pointing out the correlation. Conversely, the Magic's record is worse since they traded VC, and they only have one win over a plus .500 team since Jan. 5th. They have won one game over a winning team in nearly two months.