Draft Talk Aftermath - Who will win Rookie of the Year?

[Sunzgunz]

Jackson starting could have been promised to get him to cancel workouts.

It wouldn't be the McD Suns if there wasn't drama and a disgruntled player or three.

Don't believe the hype sir. You know Ainge is called the "minister of disinformation" amongst man execs right? And many, including players have accused him of lying, heard a few just in this years draft.

The sac story has a lot of gaps of information, as well as some oddities. Too much to pass blame, especially when you consider the source.

The only thing I feel certain off, based on the draft spot he settled with, is that Tatum was always Ainges guy.

Phx knew it, and so did bj and jj, hence why bj wasn't too quick to set up a workout and when he finally did....at Jjs request...it was with the stipulation the pick meant jj would be a Celtic and not traded. Fair enough, bj has a fiduciary responsibility to JJ, and JJ only, they both want stability. bj speaks with Phil regarding a possible JJ trade...gets fuzzy from there.

Who's to blame? Who knows?

JJ: for not wanting to play with Boston? Not true! He spoke about wanting to pair up with brown and being part of a good contending nucleus, and said in several situations, prior to Boston trade talks with Chicago, Indiana and new York, that he thought he could be a celtic.

Suns: all they did was work him out and influence him to want to play for phx. EVERY TEAM does that with prospects they covet, it's a major reason for scheduling in person workouts. Furthermore, Phx didn't make the phone call canceling JJs workout.

Boston: while it's not their fault someone may have made that cancelation call late, JJ did want to play for Boston at one point, it was the instability that pushed BJ away. Kid was linked to like 3 trade talks before he even got drafted. At the end of the day, Ainge still could of drafted him. In fact, when ball cancelled his workout, Ainge said he they would still consider drafting him. They drafted people in the past who hadn't worked out for him. He later said, regarding JJ, they couldn't draft someone if they hadn't had an official workout. The only possible wrong doing in all this is making the cancellation call way too late!

BJ: His fiduciary responsibility is with JJ, his very job is to put JJ in the very best position possible. He lobbied for number 1 initially, more money. But BJ said almost from day one he believed Tatum was their guy, JJ didn't get into the picture until all the trade talks packaging JJ came about. So he had his clients best interest at heart.

The only possible wrong done to the Celtics was a very late phone call. And if true, it's a crappy thing to do, or mistake somebody made. Who gets the blame? Maybe BJ, or maybe someone else in the wasserman office. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it was incompetence. Maybe Ainge is living up to his nickname.

The amount of behind the scenes type of information that Ryan and Ainge made public after the fact, was a little odd. Not a whole lot if detail describing the incident, but they sure did reveal their motives when it was over. You usually don't show your poker hand while bluffing.

Is it possible that Ainge, great at acquiring drafts picks, but getting pressure for not always converting them, created a smokescreen regarding really wanting JJ at the last second to squeeze something out of PHX, and when he failed, he came clean with Ryan but in cahoots they created a story that made Tatum the obvious choice even if JJ outplays him? ...ah, conspiracy! Maybe, maybe Not!


Change of subject (jj/tj starter)

All things being equal, JJ probably gets the nod, but we have a summer league, 8 preseason games, and a lot of intense competitive practices to help determine that. Good news is, regardless to who starts, there is plenty of minutes to go around:)

[JMac1]

I like TJ a lot for the record.

[NTB]

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[bwgood77]

His defensive rating pre-ASB is 114, post-ASB is 112. A little improvement there.

Is that the only number we have to look at? I just remember him making a lot of wow plays and sticking to his man like glue in the last 2 months of the season. He did much better offensively. Averaged almost 18 ppg on over 50% shooting the last 2 months as well.

There are a lot of different metrics for defense but I could only reach to this from b-ref.

Offensive rating: pre ASB 108, post ASB 120. Huge I guess.

That's pretty crazy. Curry's offensive rating per b-ref this year was 119.

[PackSuns]

Is that the only number we have to look at? I just remember him making a lot of wow plays and sticking to his man like glue in the last 2 months of the season. He did much better offensively. Averaged almost 18 ppg on over 50% shooting the last 2 months as well.

There are a lot of different metrics for defense but I could only reach to this from b-ref.

Offensive rating: pre ASB 108, post ASB 120. Huge I guess.

That's pretty crazy. Curry's offensive rating per b-ref this year was 119.

That is impressive and I didn't think TJ had a good year. The best part about TJ is he always takes care of the ball.

[AtheJ415]

Again. This team desperately needs D on the wing. Jackson will be our best defender the moment he steps on he court. If PJ started on this team, I guarantee you JJ will be starting and probably immediately. The only chance TJ remains the starter is if he somehow magically steps up his defense.

I think JJ may start initially and should start eventually. But he should show what he's got on the court against NBA competition before he gets the starting nod, even if it's just a handful of games.

PJ didn't start last year until TJ was out.

I think it's possible we play a lot of JJ and TJ together with one of them seeing time at the 4. It limits the role of our 5s, but going forward I'm not sure that is a bad thing. In this type of lineup, I think we'd see more of Chriss and Bender at the 5.

[bwgood77]

Again. This team desperately needs D on the wing. Jackson will be our best defender the moment he steps on he court. If PJ started on this team, I guarantee you JJ will be starting and probably immediately. The only chance TJ remains the starter is if he somehow magically steps up his defense.

I think JJ may start initially and should start eventually. But he should show what he's got on the court against NBA competition before he gets the starting nod, even if it's just a handful of games.

PJ didn't start last year until TJ was out.

I think it's possible we play a lot of JJ and TJ together with one of them seeing time at the 4. It limits the role of our 5s, but going forward I'm not sure that is a bad thing. In this type of lineup, I think we'd see more of Chriss and Bender at the 5.

Funny you mention because I was just sitting here thinking I wouldn't mind seeing Bledsoe/Booker/JJ/TJ/Chriss start, but rebounding would probably be an issues unless they just all really crashed the boards. I think we can definitely run lineups like that at times, and TJ rebounded really well at the end of the year and Chriss had some good games. They'd really need to make sure to box out well too.

I don't think Booker can really run point but also briefly thought of a Book/JJ/TJ/Chriss/traditional C starting lineup if Bled got traded.

Ultimately I think the first lineup I mentioned would be the type of lineup we would run in the future with Bender at the frontcourt positions some as well. A lot of the old 3s (like Diaw or Dudley) and even some 2s (like Joe Johnson) end up playing some PF later in their careers anyway, and with the league trending smaller and smaller, it could happen earlier now.

McD has already alluded to playing them together.

They would need to really get better at 3 pt shooting though.

[NTB]

Chriss' post ASB 3pt percentage is 36%. So I'm hopeful about his 3pt shooting.

[bwgood77]

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That's an interesting quote in the background, considering Jabari and Wiggins were both SO highly thought of coming out. There definitely seemed to be more hype surrounding those two coming out. It doesn't seem like people have given up on them but obviously it's taking them a while to have a significant impact, even though they are both playing fairly well and are 20+ ppg scorers.

Thinking of players from the 2014 draft, I had decided to compare Warren to Parker, and Parker measures better by advanced metrics, mostly all due to 3 pt shooting, but then I decided to throw Wiggins in there.

I didn't realize Wiggins was THAT bad defensively. He's worse than Booker at least in DRPM, and about as bad in DRtg. But both Parker and Wiggins are significantly worse in DBPM than Warren.

As a matter of fact, Warren is better than Wiggins in every advanced stat metric on b-ref, ORtg, DRtg, TS%, eFG%, WS/48 and VORP.

http://bkref.com/tiny/yQeoQ

[Qwigglez]

^Yeah basically Warren is severely underrated and I feel that is mostly because he isn't as flashy as other players. If he could consistently hit the three ball even at a Jimmy Butler level (1.2 3M- 3.3 3A) I think he would garner more attention. Warren is becoming the Shawn Marion of the team where fans hardly recognize or don't appreciate all his efforts on the floor.

[Bogyo]

^Yeah basically Warren is severely underrated and I feel that is mostly because he isn't as flashy as other players. If he could consistently hit the three ball even at a Jimmy Butler level (1.2 3M- 3.3 3A) I think he would garner more attention. Warren is becoming the Shawn Marion of the team where fans hardly recognize or don't appreciate all his efforts on the floor.

Which is not bad for us, if it stays that way before he gets a new contract. If we don't have to max him out (ie: flys under the radar so other teams don't throw the max at him in free agency), that could be a major step to keeping this young core together.

As for being underrated or just not appreciated - I think we do appreciate what he brings, see the Nashty votings. It's just we want to see our shiny new toy, and him to reach the ceiling that he is supposed to have. We all have seen the Pippen, Sprewell, Iggy, Khwai, Wiggins, etc... comparisons and we want a player like that on the Suns. While we like TJ a lot, it's veryvery unlikely he becomes like any of these guys mentioned above.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Breaking news breaking news breaking news.... Amin Elhassan took a shot at the Suns for picking Jackson saying they already had too many wings. Shocking I know. LOL

So I just learned that him and Brian Windhorst have a podcast together, which is really something since they might be the two NBA reporters I dislike the most, so naturally I had to give it a listen. They did a live draft thing and it was as bad as I thought it would be so I was really looking forward to seeing how Amin could take his normal pot shot at the suns and he didn't disappoint. I mean come on dude at least rip Jackson as a prospect or something don't go to the "what are the suns doing with a million wings." I mean of all things the fit standpoint is probably the weakest argument you could come up with.

Amin - if you are reading this (and you might be because you seem like a super sensitive punk) just get over it dude. You got fired, it happens just move on with your life.

[carey]

Breaking news breaking news breaking news.... Amin Elhassan took a shot at the Suns for picking Jackson saying they already had too many wings. Shocking I know. LOL

So I just learned that him and Brian Windhorst have a podcast together, which is really something since they might be the two NBA reporters I dislike the most, so naturally I had to give it a listen. They did a live draft thing and it was as bad as I thought it would be so I was really looking forward to seeing how Amin could take his normal pot shot at the suns and he didn't disappoint. I mean come on dude at least rip Jackson as a prospect or something don't go to the "what are the suns doing with a million wings." I mean of all things the fit standpoint is probably the weakest argument you could come up with.

Amin - if you are reading this (and you might be because you seem like a super sensitive punk) just get over it dude. You got fired, it happens just move on with your life.

Don't take it so seriously. Amin is team #HateHard. It's a joke to him. He's already admitted as much numerous times. He enjoys playing the heel here. If you give it more than a passing thought from now on that's on you. His "black in my day" stuff on the LeBatard show is hilarious. He has a sense of humor and brings more color to ESPN's typical coverage. Windy is a bag of hot air that was made by LeBron. Literally. LBJ let him follow to Miami and then back to Cleveland. It's the only reason he has a job and that's well known by everyone. My point is, don't get your panties in a twist over anything these dudes say. They don't really know **** all. Now if Lowe says something, then sit up and pay attention but even he is not infallible.

[Jdiddy701]

Everything about Josh Jackson reminds me of Shawn Marion. Really surprised no one has made this comparison.


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[Jdiddy701]

I see what's going on...

Joe Johnson - Devin Booker
Shawn Marion - Josh Jackson
Amare Stoudemire - Marquese Chriss


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[carey]

Everything about Josh Jackson reminds me of Shawn Marion. Really surprised no one has made this comparison.

By no one you mean everyone? It was made on Empire of the Suns and I've heard it a dozen times since.

For the most part I think commenters on this forum were afraid to make the lazy former Phoenix Sun comparison. Also, Marion's 2nd jump was quicker than most players first. I'm not sure Jackson is as twitchy or as good on the boards. He's also a much better and willing passer. We will see very soon though. Summer league in a couple weeks!

[carey]

I see what's going on...

Joe Johnson - Devin Booker
Shawn Marion - Josh Jackson
Amare Stoudemire - Marquese Chriss

Who's the former Suns PG we traded away that's going to bring it all back together? It ain't going to be Tyler Ennis or Kendall Marshall! Dragic?

[NTB]

I see what's going on...

Joe Johnson - Devin Booker
Shawn Marion - Josh Jackson
Amare Stoudemire - Marquese Chriss


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Wow I was literally thinking this yesterday

[NTB]

Breaking news breaking news breaking news.... Amin Elhassan took a shot at the Suns for picking Jackson saying they already had too many wings. Shocking I know. LOL

So I just learned that him and Brian Windhorst have a podcast together, which is really something since they might be the two NBA reporters I dislike the most, so naturally I had to give it a listen. They did a live draft thing and it was as bad as I thought it would be so I was really looking forward to seeing how Amin could take his normal pot shot at the suns and he didn't disappoint. I mean come on dude at least rip Jackson as a prospect or something don't go to the "what are the suns doing with a million wings." I mean of all things the fit standpoint is probably the weakest argument you could come up with.

Amin - if you are reading this (and you might be because you seem like a super sensitive punk) just get over it dude. You got fired, it happens just move on with your life.

Too much wings? lol wtf

[King4Day]

Breaking news breaking news breaking news.... Amin Elhassan took a shot at the Suns for picking Jackson saying they already had too many wings. Shocking I know. LOL

So I just learned that him and Brian Windhorst have a podcast together, which is really something since they might be the two NBA reporters I dislike the most, so naturally I had to give it a listen. They did a live draft thing and it was as bad as I thought it would be so I was really looking forward to seeing how Amin could take his normal pot shot at the suns and he didn't disappoint. I mean come on dude at least rip Jackson as a prospect or something don't go to the "what are the suns doing with a million wings." I mean of all things the fit standpoint is probably the weakest argument you could come up with.

Amin - if you are reading this (and you might be because you seem like a super sensitive punk) just get over it dude. You got fired, it happens just move on with your life.

Did he say who he thought the Suns should draft? I'm guessing Markkanen or Collins? We have an abundance of guards too. Maybe he feels the Suns don't know how the off-season works where trades can lead to moving players off the team to make room for others.