Interesting. As I have said they needed a secondary scorer. Just not enough firepower when they clamped down on Book. While many fans criticize Stone, he knows the value of Gordon and played hardball since a low first round pick or protected isn’t desirable. But interesting that Gordon could’ve been that guy to help some of these contenders. https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/jj-redick-suns-missed-big-181300426.html
Yes! That means there is no Jabari or Chet, but the Suns know they can’t let Ayton walk he and booker are their future.
This is why I say stay away from 6'3" and under guards and Bigs that don't pop out to guard the 3 well. This guy mentions it here. They get exploited in the playoffs
you cant just hope! you need to coach and develop and actually play the guys...if you play sengun 5 minutes a night in the tank year(!!!) it doesnt matter if you have a gem or just an ordinary stone, youre hopeless...
cf: imagine if we tanked all those years how much better off we would have been...30 top picks! it would be a helluva team!
The suns biggest mistake is the same as the Rockets all the Harden years. You gotta get players on the same timeline. The suns got impatient and traded for CP3 who is soo much older than the rest of their core. Now they are stuck in Limbo again. The Rockets kept pairing Harden up with aging stars or stars coming off injury. We just need to hold the line and keep getting players the same age and not trade for older vets. Also just draft best player available and not based on fit. Luka was the obvious pick in that draft and the Suns took Ayton. Then Luka destroys them In the playoffs. They get what they deserved.
people are acting like the Suns weren’t just up 2-0 in the finals last year with a great shot at winning it all…regardless of making the mistake of selecting Ayton over Luka, they still had their chance to win a title and couldn’t get it done most teams don’t even manage to get the chance…we haven’t even been to a finals in almost 30 years Booker, Bridges, and Ayton is still a very good core and one that can be used to be very competitive for years to come…now if they just let Ayton walk, then that will be another story
Rockets have been one of the most relevant teams of the last 30 years. Mcgrady/Yao and Prime Harden were fun to watch. Luck and chemistry has a lot to do with it. Warriors were irrelevant for half a century almost before Curry came along. Now we have one of the 5 most exciting young players in the league.
They need another scorer. They have a bunch of players that can score but aren't "scorers" if that makes sense. Crowder, Bridges, Cam Johnson, Shamet, 38-year old Paul...they can all have nice nights but you can't confidently pencil them in for 20+ every night. Ayton can be that guy but, as a big man, you're going to need to shift some of the offense to have plays for him to get him to 20+. It wouldn't be hard considering he's averaging 17 only on 7 shots a night but he has too much talent to just be an afterthought. One of Ayton (if re-signed), Bridges or Cam Johnson needs to take that leap next season and be that scorer, even if that means Paul has to take a lower place on the totem pole in terms of shot volume.
Rockets made the playoffs just 5 times in 13 years before the Harden trade, and only past the 1st round once…now we’re back to irrelevancy trying to climb up from being the worst team in the league for 2 years running
Preach. And the village idiots here are running around thumping there chests because a former washed Rocket loses a playoff series.
Honestly I'm starting to think those guys/gals are actually Harden stans by the way they constantly post about him. It takes a high level of fanaticism to be able to dedicate your CF life just to one player, one that's not even on the team anymore.
There's quite a lot of posters that peaced out of the garm entirely after Harden left. Both his fans and his biggest critics. Makes me wonder what or who exactly they're a fan of. I can't lie i was quite happy to see Harden fail because he did disappoint me with the way he handled his exit but I wasn't actively rooting for it. Actually I'm quite sad at how unimpressive his game has become. Wasn't it just 2 years ago that he still easily looked like a top 5 player...?
At least those that left in the exodus were rooting for an all-time great, unlike the mass exodus we saw when Lin got traded. Harden is a polarizing player for sure. I was a huge Harden fan when he was in Houston and wouldn't have mind to see him get to the Finals again. Father time, lack of offseason conditioning in terms of today's NBA, usual Harden-hardheaded play style that don't work when you're athleticism is sapped, etc...it hasn't been pretty that's for sure.
The one thing to be careful here is that while Ayton is a great players, he will cost a max contract which limits what you can do down the road, where the number 5 pick if it does turn into a star, gives you years of a star at a low price, allowing you to sign an Ayton as a free agent because you have cap room. In other words, two stars for almost the price of one.
That's the way I look at it as well. They didn't have a great postseason based on expectations, and they obviously had an awful Game 7. But that's a damn good team they built in Phoenix. If Booker doesn't hurt his hammy, I question if things could have gone differently in these playoffs. Regardless, Phoenix is a team to emulate, not one to mock. They built through the draft around guys who complemented one another, added a known star at the right time and went from a lottery team to a contender almost overnight. That's the model Houston should look at for its blueprint for the next two offseasons once all these big contracts come off the books.
