Scutt wrote:NTB wrote:This. Just enjoy it.
Sorry but I am not a casual basketball fan, and I know how the NBA works. I am not going to enjoy watching Bledsoe, Tucker, and Chandler get the lions share of the minutes, all the while holding young players back and hurting our draft position. It is the same reason I watched in disgust during 2014. The NBA is a star driven league and if you want to truly compete, you need a few of them. I do not want to watch Devin Booker and a bunch of veteran role players try and overachieve to the 8th seed.
Two of Booker/Warren/Chriss/Bender/Ulis/Len were on the floor most of the night. Len played more than usual and grabbed 10 boards in 20 minutes. The rest of our guys played well. We just won back-to-back road games over the Raps and the Knicks. Ummm... isn't the bigger deal that our team is putting it together?
Scutt wrote:Devin Booker looks like he could become a #2 guy on a contending team, but we still need that
franchise changing talent to pair with him and
this is the draft to do it in.
We need to secure a top 3 pick. If we keep winning these meaningless games by playing the veterans heavy minutes, I can almost guarantee that the Suns front office spin will go something like this : "Devin Booker has taken the next step and is the franchise savior. We just need to add some more solid veteran role players and we will be ready to compete".
Look at the Pelicans, they drafted
Davis, a player who is way better than Booker, yet they rushed the process and surrounded him with vet role players in an attempt to compete right away and now they are going nowhere.
Why try and rush things? Why not get more experience and playing time for our #4 pick in
Bender, and if a byproduct of that is a few more losses and a better pick, then that is a win win.
The Suns need to pick a direction, either truly embrace the rebuild and go young or go all out and try and compete now. They need to stop with trying to do both, otherwise they are just spinning tires. Other than Bookers play of late, I cannot see how Suns fans can enjoy this season. We are shooting ourselves in the foot, like always. We are 4 years into our rebuild and
our core is Booker, Bledsoe, Chandler, and Tucker. That sounds real sustainable and promising for the future...
I've bolded the various statements I disagree with here. It's more than I usually find in a post. I have a very different perspective.
I wanted to tank from the beginnings of the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons, and from the midpoints of the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. I'm not shy about wanting to tank when it's appropriate. I don't think it's appropriate right now.
The best long-term strategy is to try to maximize the long-term value of your assets - contractual and draftwise. The ideal strategy would be to descend and ascend rapidly and dramatically in order get maximum value out of your assets. But the NBA happens in real life rather than a simulation, and big things happen that nobody can predict. Franchise changing players can ascend from the bottom or middle of a draft class, as they've recently done for Milwaukee and Utah - and for us as well with Booker. You say he can't be a #1 - well, I think that's a rather bold prediction. Elite perimeter scoring is one of the most lethal weapons in basketball. It's what makes KD KD and Steph Steph. He can do it in the clutch; he's versatile; he can handle the ball and create offense; he's almost always in a position to score on the court. He may be the best player in his draft class. Yeah. Crazy but I think it's true.
Bender and Chriss are rotation NBA players, super-young, getting tons of opportunities, and actually - unlike some rookies in this draft class - producing and showing off rare NBA talent. We don't know what we have in them and won't for some time. Alex looks like a solid NBA player - and we may very well sign him to a 5-year deal around I would guess $75m. Warren and Ulis have shown flashes of being good NBA players. And we have Brandon Knight and Eric Bledsoe on long-term deals - two valuable guards, one of whom could still be valuable (even to us, like, on the court and stuff!) if he played better and we won, and the other of whom has clearly increased in value as a result of consistent great play - and now with wins!
Winning increases the value of all your current assets. It also makes you more attractive as a free agent destination, giving you more options for acquiring a game-changing player. While it's nice to play the downside, you're essentially just rolling a dice at a craps table. You can win big, and it can alter your franchise, but usually it won't. And then you'll up winning big on the roullette table down the line.
But right now, I think winning is best for us. I'm most thankful that Brandon Knight has strung together some solid performances. It's come from putting him at the two. The better he plays, the more time Booker spends at the 3.
And since I'm covering so much ground here, I might as well throw this in:
Both of our offseason signings are glued to the bench. Like, stuck there. That's where they sit. JD for over a month now, and now Leandro's joined him there. Is that... is everyone really cool with that?
Did McD re-sign Jared Dudley so he could try to turn him into another Eric Bledsoe?
GO SUNS!!!!!!!
Edit: One last thing, as an addendum to all that.
Remember, we still got lottery tickets to punch in 2018/19 and 2021. Nothing's guaranteed in this world. But one thing's true in the NBA - there's nothing better than the freedom that comes from owning another team's downside when that team's time has come. And the Heat are freaking there, man. We're safe. It's time to play to win.
