Suns Just Another Team

[Pachinko_]

All right, before the thread dies a slow death tell us the news from Suns land. Any preferences in 1st round matchups?
Would probably love to smack the Lakers once more yeah?

[Woodsanity]

All right, before the thread dies a slow death tell us the news from Suns land. Any preferences in 1st round matchups?
Would probably love to smack the Lakers once more yeah?

Lakers won't even make the play in at this rate to be honest.
The only team in the 1st round that could be remotely scary was if the Clips had healthy Kawhi and PG but thats impossible.

[spanishninja]

Booker wasn’t even the best player on that team. People forget how good Bledsoe used to be. There’ve been way worse rosters over the last decade. Remember The Process?

Bledsoe played 3 games for the Suns in 2017.

Yes but in that era (the season before),Bledsoe was their best player..

Booker was drafted when Bledsoe was somewhat established on the Suns, and before he wore out his welcome with the hair salon incident. In 16-17 he was better but clearly the Suns saw enough evidence that Booker was the future to consider Bledsoe expendable.

[spanishninja]

I mean, i'll defend them here, they kind of do.

He's not as good as those players but Booker is scoring 26.5 points per game atm.

The Suns are a machine this year and Booker just doesn't stand out as so much as Steph or KD does, but yeah he's capable of going for 30+ points.

Booker doesn't stand out as much because of the truly team concept and dynamic they have going on. Just about any player on that team can go for 25+ in a given night. Booker is a scorer and does that nearly every game, often exceeding that mark even if it isn't necessary for him to do so. If we didn't have Paul, Bridges, or Ayton, Booker's role would be the focal point and things would be very similar to how they were pre-bubble and before those players were drafted.

All that is true.

I guess we were discussing before a statistical fact, that there are extremely few teams in history that won it all without having that 30PPG dedicated go-to guy. Between Booker's 26.5PPG and 30PPG, does it matter all that much? Historically, judging from the results in the playoffs, yeah it seems that it does. Don't ask me the reason because it's as much a technical thing (shortened playoff rotations and increased defensive intensity that makes lesser players shrink) as it is a cultural NBA thing (stars going 1 against 5 because that's simply what everybody expects them to do in the playoffs). But there are always long stretches in most PO games where team basketball shrinks and star basketball grows. It just happens. And then it all comes down to a simple pissing contest "my guy is a 30.1PPG guy and your guy is a 26.5PPG guy". That's just a historical fact with few outliers, Pop's Spurs, '04 Pistons, maybe the Suns now, we'll see.

I guess what we're saying is that historically, Suns are going against the tide. I love to see it in some ways because I prefer team offense, but it is against the tide.

Ask Vampirate the difference between having a great team with Derozan as a leading scorer and a great team with Kawhi as a leading scorer. Both great teams but the second one had Kawhi going 1 against all in the playoffs.

I think we have seen enough from Booker in his first playoffs last year to give him the benefit of the doubt that he can step up in big games beyond his regular season numbers. He already had 3 40 point playoff games to his name, and I think this year he will be more efficient.

[YourCellarDoor]

All right, before the thread dies a slow death tell us the news from Suns land. Any preferences in 1st round matchups?
Would probably love to smack the Lakers once more yeah?

smacking the lakers would be the most fun, yes. outside of that no strong preference. clippers with PG will be the toughest matchup and we'll have to deal with people saying that kawhi is coming back and beating us the whole series, so that's my least preferred.

other tidbits - cam johnson has been ramping up his practicing and should be making a return soon. listed as doubtful for tomorrow.

we also just had our first practice with our new danish signing iffe lundberg - according to bbref he's only the second danish nba player ever and the first since 1979.

[Pachinko_]

we also just had our first practice with our new danish signing iffe lundberg - according to bbref he's only the second danish nba player ever and the first since 1979.

Geez, good find. Long shot of course but he looks like a beast at first glance.

[YourCellarDoor]

we also just had our first practice with our new danish signing iffe lundberg - according to bbref he's only the second danish nba player ever and the first since 1979.

Geez, good find. Long shot of course but he looks like a beast at first glance.

yeah i'm not expecting anything but hopefully he can get some good tape and get a chance to stay on a roster somewhere for a while, even if it isn't here. he can't be much worse than elfrid payton has been for us.