Game 8: LA Clippers (5-2) @ Phoenix Suns (3-4)

[Saberestar]

Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough was asked just that on Wednesday during the Burns & Gambo Show of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.

"We feel like we have a decent amount of scoring pop with our first unit with [Eric] Bledsoe, [Brandon] Knight and Markieff Morris in particular, those three guys," McDonough said. "We try to balance out the scoring a little bit and we feel like T.J. will get more shots when he plays with that bench unit. We’re going to play with whoever’s playing the best. Jeff’s going to ride the hot hand at times."

McDonough did add that a starting role is not out of the question, especially if Warren's growth continues to shine on the court.

"Certainly, [Warren starting] something that we’ve looked at and we’ll continue to look at, especially if T.J. keeps playing at the level he’s playing at now," McDonough said.

http://www.nba.com/suns/blog/arizona-sports-mcdonough-talks-warrens-role

[Revived]

Lol McD including Kieff in there shows how much McD's cares about efficiency.

There's no way in living hell that a GM like Daryl Morey for example, an analytical guy, would be hyping up such an inefficient player like Markieff Morris.

Bledsoe should be insulted that he was mentioned along with a guy like Kieff.

[MrMiyagi]

Lol McD including Kieff in there shows how much McD's cares about efficiency.

There's no way in living hell that a GM like Daryl Morey for example, an analytical guy, would be hyping up such an inefficient player like Markieff Morris.

Bledsoe should be insulted that he was mentioned along with a guy like Kieff.

Aren't you the one who used the whole On/Off +/- to say Brandon Knight was terrible despite averaging 18/4/4? How about Markieff being a +8.9 on the court vs. off? That should be all the evidence you need to say he's doing great this year, right?

[letsgosuns]

I heard McDonough on the radio yesterday. Gambo asked about Markieff's shooting percentage and how he is not playing that well. All McDonough talked about was Markieff's plus/minus being so great and that he expects Markieff to have a significantly higher shooting percentage in the future. I really could not listen to it without thinking what a joke. It was disappointing. Markieff is playing like garbage yet McDonough keeps saying how great he is. Does he think fans are complete idiots? And if McDonough is so obsessed with the plus/minus statistic, why didn't he keep Channing Frye? Didn't Frye have the best plus/minus on the team in 2013-14? I think he did if I remember correctly.

[MrMiyagi]

I really don't like the way we're so selective with which stats we like and use. It's always on a player by player basis in a way that feeds our biases. I don't like Kieff? Box score stats are king! I don't like Knight? Box score stats are meaningless! Advanced stats say Knight is bad? They're right! Advanced stats say Kieff is good? They're wrong!

[Revived]

Lol McD including Kieff in there shows how much McD's cares about efficiency.

There's no way in living hell that a GM like Daryl Morey for example, an analytical guy, would be hyping up such an inefficient player like Markieff Morris.

Bledsoe should be insulted that he was mentioned along with a guy like Kieff.

Aren't you the one who used the whole On/Off +/- to say Brandon Knight was terrible despite averaging 18/4/4? How about Markieff being a +8.9 on the court vs. off? That should be all the evidence you need to say he's doing great this year, right?

Now your putting words in my mouth, I remember asking if that was actually true or not. And for the record, Knight is incredibly inefficient as well so if I wanted to show terrible Knight is, I can use his FG %, I wouldn't even need to rely on +/-.

[Revived]

I really don't like the way we're so selective with which stats we like and use. It's always on a player by player basis in a way that feeds our biases. I don't like Kieff? Box score stats are king! I don't like Knight? Box score stats are meaningless! Advanced stats say Knight is bad? They're right! Advanced stats say Kieff is good? They're wrong!

I don't know if you count FG % as advanced stats or box score but both Knight and Kieff are equally pathetic in that regard if it's any consolation.

[MrMiyagi]

I really don't like the way we're so selective with which stats we like and use. It's always on a player by player basis in a way that feeds our biases. I don't like Kieff? Box score stats are king! I don't like Knight? Box score stats are meaningless! Advanced stats say Knight is bad? They're right! Advanced stats say Kieff is good? They're wrong!

I don't know if you count FG % as advanced stats or box score but both Knight and Kieff are equally pathetic in that regard if it's any consolation.

Paul George has .7% better FG% than Knight, John Wall and Andrew Wiggins 1.5% worse than Knight, Danilo Gallinari is 1.7% worse, Kevin Love and Boogie are 1.0% worse, Gordon Hayward is .8% worse, CP3 is .3% worse. James Harden has a 1.7% better FG% than Kieff. All the players not on our team are just "having a slow start to the season", our players are "pathetic in that regard"......

[Revived]

I really don't like the way we're so selective with which stats we like and use. It's always on a player by player basis in a way that feeds our biases. I don't like Kieff? Box score stats are king! I don't like Knight? Box score stats are meaningless! Advanced stats say Knight is bad? They're right! Advanced stats say Kieff is good? They're wrong!

I don't know if you count FG % as advanced stats or box score but both Knight and Kieff are equally pathetic in that regard if it's any consolation.

Paul George has .7% better FG% than Knight, John Wall and Andrew Wiggins 1.5% worse than Knight, Danilo Gallinari is 1.7% worse, Kevin Love and Boogie are 1.0% worse, Gordon Hayward is .8% worse, CP3 is .3% worse. James Harden has a 1.7% better FG% than Kieff. All the players not on our team are just "having a slow start to the season", our players are "pathetic in that regard"......

Knight's FG% wasn't good last season either when guys like Wiggins, Love, Cousinsc Harden, Hayward all were much better.

For Kieff, I'm guessing here I'll look it up when I'm home but I would guess that all or most of those guys on your list did better than Kieff last season as well.

[MrMiyagi]

I don't know if you count FG % as advanced stats or box score but both Knight and Kieff are equally pathetic in that regard if it's any consolation.

Paul George has .7% better FG% than Knight, John Wall and Andrew Wiggins 1.5% worse than Knight, Danilo Gallinari is 1.7% worse, Kevin Love and Boogie are 1.0% worse, Gordon Hayward is .8% worse, CP3 is .3% worse. James Harden has a 1.7% better FG% than Kieff. All the players not on our team are just "having a slow start to the season", our players are "pathetic in that regard"......

Knight's FG% wasn't good last season either when guys like Wiggins, Love, Cousinsc Harden, Hayward all were much better.

For Kieff, I'm guessing here I'll look it up when I'm home but I would guess that all or most of those guys on your list did better than Kieff last season as well.

Markieff had a FG% of 46.5% and Knight of 42.2%, Harden had 44%, Wiggins had 43.7%, Hayward 44.5%, Love 43.4%, Gallinari 40%, Boogie 46.7%, Wall 44.5%, Chris Paul 48.5%. Paul George in his best season had a FG% of 42.4% (seems only fair, since he only played 9 games last season). Are you really going to hold .2-2.3% as significantly batter than Knight? Sure CP3 aka The Choker had a much better FG% than both, and Boogie than Knight, but it's damn close with Kieff.

[MrMiyagi]

I don't know if you count FG % as advanced stats or box score but both Knight and Kieff are equally pathetic in that regard if it's any consolation.

Paul George has .7% better FG% than Knight, John Wall and Andrew Wiggins 1.5% worse than Knight, Danilo Gallinari is 1.7% worse, Kevin Love and Boogie are 1.0% worse, Gordon Hayward is .8% worse, CP3 is .3% worse. James Harden has a 1.7% better FG% than Kieff. All the players not on our team are just "having a slow start to the season", our players are "pathetic in that regard"......

Knight's FG% wasn't good last season either when guys like Wiggins, Love, Cousinsc Harden, Hayward all were much better.

For Kieff, I'm guessing here I'll look it up when I'm home but I would guess that all or most of those guys on your list did better than Kieff last season as well.

Also, if you want their Effective FG%, Knight was 49.3%, Kieff was 49.1%. Wiggins was 45.4%, Hayward was 50%, Gallinari was 49.6%, Love was 50.9%, Harden 51.1%, Boogie 46.8%, Wall 47.3%, CP3 54.5%, George in his best season was 49%. So, again, Paul is the only one significantly better than Knight or Kieff, and Harden, Love, Hayward and Gallo are .3-2% better.

[RaisingArizona]

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[RaisingArizona]

I heard McDonough on the radio yesterday. Gambo asked about Markieff's shooting percentage and how he is not playing that well. All McDonough talked about was Markieff's plus/minus being so great and that he expects Markieff to have a significantly higher shooting percentage in the future. I really could not listen to it without thinking what a joke. It was disappointing. Markieff is playing like garbage yet McDonough keeps saying how great he is. Does he think fans are complete idiots? And if McDonough is so obsessed with the plus/minus statistic, why didn't he keep Channing Frye? Didn't Frye have the best plus/minus on the team in 2013-14? I think he did if I remember correctly.

What do you want him to say? He's going to put a very general PR spin on everything--especially if we're trying to trade him. Saying he sucks and has been terrible won't work.

[Revived]

Paul George has .7% better FG% than Knight, John Wall and Andrew Wiggins 1.5% worse than Knight, Danilo Gallinari is 1.7% worse, Kevin Love and Boogie are 1.0% worse, Gordon Hayward is .8% worse, CP3 is .3% worse. James Harden has a 1.7% better FG% than Kieff. All the players not on our team are just "having a slow start to the season", our players are "pathetic in that regard"......

Knight's FG% wasn't good last season either when guys like Wiggins, Love, Cousinsc Harden, Hayward all were much better.

For Kieff, I'm guessing here I'll look it up when I'm home but I would guess that all or most of those guys on your list did better than Kieff last season as well.

Markieff had a FG% of 46.5% and Knight of 42.2%, Harden had 44%, Wiggins had 43.7%, Hayward 44.5%, Love 43.4%, Gallinari 40%, Boogie 46.7%, Wall 44.5%, Chris Paul 48.5%. Paul George in his best season had a FG% of 42.4% (seems only fair, since he only played 9 games last season). Are you really going to hold .2-2.3% as significantly batter than Knight? Sure CP3 aka The Choker had a much better FG% than both, and Boogie than Knight, but it's damn close with Kieff.

Ok that's fair.

Other than FG% though, guys like Harden, Wiggins, Love, Cousins, Wall, CP3, George all bring lot more to the table than Knight or Kieff. If you can effect the game in a million other ways then I can see fg% being lower. I don't wanna sound like a hypocrite by saying that fg % doesn't matter now, it does matter and the stats you put out proved me wrong and it was surprising but I hope your able to see why neither Kieff nor Knight are ever in the same tier or even close to the same tier as those guys.

Kieff is one a dimensional player who is only ever good at scoring and awful in the other areas of the game such as defense and rebounding and same thing for Knight with limited playmaking and average defender.

[MrMiyagi]

Knight's FG% wasn't good last season either when guys like Wiggins, Love, Cousinsc Harden, Hayward all were much better.

For Kieff, I'm guessing here I'll look it up when I'm home but I would guess that all or most of those guys on your list did better than Kieff last season as well.

Markieff had a FG% of 46.5% and Knight of 42.2%, Harden had 44%, Wiggins had 43.7%, Hayward 44.5%, Love 43.4%, Gallinari 40%, Boogie 46.7%, Wall 44.5%, Chris Paul 48.5%. Paul George in his best season had a FG% of 42.4% (seems only fair, since he only played 9 games last season). Are you really going to hold .2-2.3% as significantly batter than Knight? Sure CP3 aka The Choker had a much better FG% than both, and Boogie than Knight, but it's damn close with Kieff.

Ok that's fair.

Other than FG% though, guys like Harden, Wiggins, Love, Cousins, Wall, CP3, George all bring lot more to the table than Knight or Kieff. If you can effect the game in a million other ways then I can see fg% being lower. I don't wanna sound like a hypocrite by saying that fg % doesn't matter now, it does matter and the stats you put out proved me wrong and it was surprising but I hope your able to see why neither Kieff nor Knight are ever in the same tier or even close to the same tier as those guys.

Kieff is one a dimensional player who is only ever good at scoring and awful in the other areas of the game such as defense and rebounding and same thing for Knight with limited playmaking and average defender.

Kieff is a one dimensional player, but he isn't terrible. At his best, he's average defensively and an average rebounder. He's probably a great bench big, and I think McD knew that, which is why he went for LMA.

But I'm going to disagree that Knight isn't in the same category as guys like Hayward and Gallo and Wiggins (for now, I know the kid has crazy potential - watching him right now - but in terms of on-court production at this moment, they're in that same tier), and I believe Knight can make a leap to be better. He's still really young and he's a really good player. I hate seeing people dismiss him over some of his flaws. Let him and Bledsoe have some time together. Everyone loves Wall and Beal, but they forget this is their 4th year playing together. Klay and Steph are on season 5. Roster consistency really does help players improve. Let's give our guys a shot before we deem them trash.

[bwgood77]

Lol McD including Kieff in there shows how much McD's cares about efficiency.

There's no way in living hell that a GM like Daryl Morey for example, an analytical guy, would be hyping up such an inefficient player like Markieff Morris.

Bledsoe should be insulted that he was mentioned along with a guy like Kieff.

Aren't you the one who used the whole On/Off +/- to say Brandon Knight was terrible despite averaging 18/4/4? How about Markieff being a +8.9 on the court vs. off? That should be all the evidence you need to say he's doing great this year, right?

I found it humorous with the Brandon Knight deal too because when I mentioned it with Kieff being the highest +/- guy he talked about Frye having had a better one than LeBron once or something of that nature so it doesn't mean anything.

[bwgood77]

I heard McDonough on the radio yesterday. Gambo asked about Markieff's shooting percentage and how he is not playing that well. All McDonough talked about was Markieff's plus/minus being so great and that he expects Markieff to have a significantly higher shooting percentage in the future. I really could not listen to it without thinking what a joke. It was disappointing. Markieff is playing like garbage yet McDonough keeps saying how great he is. Does he think fans are complete idiots? And if McDonough is so obsessed with the plus/minus statistic, why didn't he keep Channing Frye? Didn't Frye have the best plus/minus on the team in 2013-14? I think he did if I remember correctly.

Dude, Markieff is playing like **** but part of the reason his +/- is so much better is because we don't have many other options at that position. Leuer is a nice guy to come in off the bench and hit some shots. I enjoy his play this year more than Markieff's.

But most of us know Markieff has the ability to play well and sometimes really well, and particularly in clutch moments.

And you have got to be kidding me if you think a GM is going to go on a radio show and talk about how Kieff sucks. Of course he's going to talk him up, especially if he is trying to trade him. But regardless, there is zero upside to talking about how bad he is playing. Stuff gets back to players.

I expect Kieff to start shooting better too. He's had a slow start. I know many think he is trying to suck but I seriously doubt that will be the case going forward.

[bwgood77]

I really don't like the way we're so selective with which stats we like and use. It's always on a player by player basis in a way that feeds our biases. I don't like Kieff? Box score stats are king! I don't like Knight? Box score stats are meaningless! Advanced stats say Knight is bad? They're right! Advanced stats say Kieff is good? They're wrong!

I don't know if you count FG % as advanced stats or box score but both Knight and Kieff are equally pathetic in that regard if it's any consolation.

Paul George has .7% better FG% than Knight, John Wall and Andrew Wiggins 1.5% worse than Knight, Danilo Gallinari is 1.7% worse, Kevin Love and Boogie are 1.0% worse, Gordon Hayward is .8% worse, CP3 is .3% worse. James Harden has a 1.7% better FG% than Kieff. All the players not on our team are just "having a slow start to the season", our players are "pathetic in that regard"......

Most guards don't shoot that well unless most of their shots are at the rim. I mean even guys like Kobe usually shoot in the low 40s...Melo...many stars don't shoot well. I don't expect guards to shoot THAT high of % from the outside, which is why if you ARE going to shoot from the outside, I'd rather it be a 3 than a long 2. Knight mostly just needs to learn two things. How to be more efficient...drive or shoot 3s and how not to turn the ball over. You can always improve on defense, no matter who you are.

[bwgood77]

Knight's FG% wasn't good last season either when guys like Wiggins, Love, Cousinsc Harden, Hayward all were much better.

For Kieff, I'm guessing here I'll look it up when I'm home but I would guess that all or most of those guys on your list did better than Kieff last season as well.

Markieff had a FG% of 46.5% and Knight of 42.2%, Harden had 44%, Wiggins had 43.7%, Hayward 44.5%, Love 43.4%, Gallinari 40%, Boogie 46.7%, Wall 44.5%, Chris Paul 48.5%. Paul George in his best season had a FG% of 42.4% (seems only fair, since he only played 9 games last season). Are you really going to hold .2-2.3% as significantly batter than Knight? Sure CP3 aka The Choker had a much better FG% than both, and Boogie than Knight, but it's damn close with Kieff.

Ok that's fair.

Other than FG% though, guys like Harden, Wiggins, Love, Cousins, Wall, CP3, George all bring lot more to the table than Knight or Kieff. If you can effect the game in a million other ways then I can see fg% being lower. I don't wanna sound like a hypocrite by saying that fg % doesn't matter now, it does matter and the stats you put out proved me wrong and it was surprising but I hope your able to see why neither Kieff nor Knight are ever in the same tier or even close to the same tier as those guys.

Kieff is one a dimensional player who is only ever good at scoring and awful in the other areas of the game such as defense and rebounding and same thing for Knight with limited playmaking and average defender.

Ironically, you just made a nice argument why it would be good to have two guards who can handle the ball and run the offense...a SG who can only shoot isn't worth a whole lot unless he can REALLY shoot from the outside...you can count those guys on one hand. A guy like JJ Redick is kind of useless if his shot isn't falling....and if you read my post earlier about how him and the rest of the supporting cast went cold last year in the Houston series in games 5-7 than you can understand why he isn't good.

The funny thing is, most 2 guards people consider "stars" are guys that are the primary ball handlers, so they are not traditional shooting guards, but actually act more as a PG. Most of the PGs that played with Jordan mostly became spot up shooters.

But I would love to have a great shooter at the 2 spot...a guy that could shoot like Curry or Korver but those guys are pretty rare..I'm hoping Booker can become that in the future.

[Revived]

Markieff had a FG% of 46.5% and Knight of 42.2%, Harden had 44%, Wiggins had 43.7%, Hayward 44.5%, Love 43.4%, Gallinari 40%, Boogie 46.7%, Wall 44.5%, Chris Paul 48.5%. Paul George in his best season had a FG% of 42.4% (seems only fair, since he only played 9 games last season). Are you really going to hold .2-2.3% as significantly batter than Knight? Sure CP3 aka The Choker had a much better FG% than both, and Boogie than Knight, but it's damn close with Kieff.

Ok that's fair.

Other than FG% though, guys like Harden, Wiggins, Love, Cousins, Wall, CP3, George all bring lot more to the table than Knight or Kieff. If you can effect the game in a million other ways then I can see fg% being lower. I don't wanna sound like a hypocrite by saying that fg % doesn't matter now, it does matter and the stats you put out proved me wrong and it was surprising but I hope your able to see why neither Kieff nor Knight are ever in the same tier or even close to the same tier as those guys.

Kieff is one a dimensional player who is only ever good at scoring and awful in the other areas of the game such as defense and rebounding and same thing for Knight with limited playmaking and average defender.

Kieff is a one dimensional player, but he isn't terrible. At his best, he's average defensively and an average rebounder. He's probably a great bench big, and I think McD knew that, which is why he went for LMA.

But I'm going to disagree that Knight isn't in the same category as guys like Hayward and Gallo and Wiggins (for now, I know the kid has crazy potential - watching him right now - but in terms of on-court production at this moment, they're in that same tier), and I believe Knight can make a leap to be better. He's still really young and he's a really good player. I hate seeing people dismiss him over some of his flaws. Let him and Bledsoe have some time together. Everyone loves Wall and Beal, but they forget this is their 4th year playing together. Klay and Steph are on season 5. Roster consistency really does help players improve. Let's give our guys a shot before we deem them trash.

He's in the same category as Gallo maybe even higher than Gallo, I think he's in the same category as Hayward even though Hayward is somewhat better than him overall imo. Wiggins I respectfully disagree. I don't like the Knight is young argument because that only works IMO when a player is 2 or 3 years in the league. If you told me that about Goodwin or Warren, I'm open ears. Knight may only be 23 but he's been in the NBA for a while now. He has the same looking down while dribbling and bad shot selection issues that plagued him in Detroit and Milwaukke. He's a really nice kid and a really coachable kid based on what I've seen but for what ever reason, the coaches haven't been able to get through to him.

He has one really good game then like 2-3 bad ones. He's due for a good game tonight and I think he'll hopefully go off especially with Redick out.

I agree with you about Kieff being a bench big. I said it all last season that Kieff should play the Lakers Lamar Odom role for us, nothing more. At his best he may be an average rebounder and defender but at his usual self, he's terrible in both categories imo. Wall and Beal showed signs of promise and Wall is a really good distributor and makes teammates better, same with Steph. We can't quite say that about Knight/Bledsoe even though I'm liking Bledsoe's game from an overall standpoint this season.