Well, the only low post presence on the team just bolted. The backcourt looks nice, but the frontcourt is nothing but a bunch of perimeter shooting big men or hustle guys with no offensive game. Basically what the Suns are right now is just a better version of the Golden State Warriors. Is that good enough to make the playoffs? Probably, but it's debateable.
Yup although I think they're still in the race to get to the playoffs next season. Amar'e was playing an incredible second half of the season, he looked like the second best big man in the NBA. Amar'e was the biggest mismatch problem the Spurs and just about every non-LA team has had playing against PHX.
Don't you think this lineup can do some damage?
Brooks
Martin
Ariza
Scola
Yao
if Martin and Yao can stay healthy, that can be a damn good team.
Yeah, but that's where that team ends. I don't expect Yao to show up. I wish him the best, too, but I'm afraid he's too big to repair to former "heights."
Yao and healthy should never ever be used in the same sentence
The Spurs beat the Amare/Nash Suns consistently until they woke up and got some role players who could play defense, rebound, and bring some team-oriented energy. Amare gets his but he did NOT beat the Spurs.
Lakers and Thunder are still the clear top dogs
The Thunder never were a top dog. At this writing, the Spurs are the second best team in the conference. We haven't seen whatever improvement the Thunder may make (I'm talking in terms of growth from their young players) and the other conference semi-finalists just got significantly weaker, by losing Stoudemire and Boozer, respectively.
As I said a few days ago, I think the Thunder and Trail Blazers have the potential to pass the Spurs without any changes, because of their young talent and in the Trail Blazers case, it might only take just staying healthy. But short of that, barring the unforeseen, I don't see any other team in the West positioned to pass the Spurs next season.
A major part of the Spurs' success against the Suns was allowing Amar'e to go nuts and take everyone else out of the game by closing down the three-point line. The Spurs were the rope to Amar'e's dope.
It wasn't until the Spurs lost the personnel to be the Spurs and the Suns found the type of personnel and chemistry in their supporting cast to make the next step that the Suns finally broke through this last year.
I actually wouldn't be all that surprised if the Suns surprised some people next year if their fortunate enough health-wise. They've got a good group.
umm...the sleepers are mep/sac, the kings got crazy bigs now with thompson, cousins, and whiteside, a big ol pg in evens, nice shooter in that Israeli dude caspi or w/e his name is, and some other nice role players I see them taking pho place, houston sucks, yao will never play a full season, if he could yea, remember he almost took the lakers him self a couple years ago and as usual he got hurt. The thunder are gunna be beast but the jazz, nuggets, blazers, and mavs idk have bad luck and self esteem issues they never pan out.
Exactly. And I was always amazed that the so-called "expert commentators" never caught onto this. It was always, "Amare scores 44 but the Spurs somehow prevail! How could this have happened!" Geez, it was so obvious to see what they were doing.
And then Popovich would switch it up in the last 8-9 minutes of the game and challenge the P&R with help defense, and the Suns never seemed to catch on. They'd revert to Nash becoming a scorer, and they'd just try to make Nash shoot long two-pointers or tough layup attempts, while Amare just stood there with his thumb up his ass. Nash did OK but it wasn't enough back in the day. I have to give a lot of credit to Alvin Gentry for figuring this out and utilizing his whole team. D'Antoni is so overrated it's ridiculous.
I don't get how losing Amar'e and replacing him with a much less talented player keeps them in the same league as they were though. If the Suns effectively lose their ability to score in the paint, then they become a predictable outside shooting ball club.
Amar'e may not have put them over the top, but he certainly kept them in it. Now they have a bunch of role players and one less dominant superstar.
Because there's a difference between being talented and helping your team win.
Are you suggesting Amar'e didn't help his team win?
The Suns in the D'Antoni era were (perhaps not intentionally) built to win in the regular season, not the playoffs. The get-it-and-shoot-it philosophy works when opponents are tired from the regular season grind and travel and they only get to see it once every few weeks. In the playoffs teams are focused, they get to study how to play against the opponent, they aren't tired (no back to backs, days off, much less travel), and they step up their defense. They figure out how to beat a team like the Suns.
Here's D'Antoni and Amar'e together (Amar'e was out for one of these playoffs with the knee). Regular season first then playoffs.
PHO 2004-05 62 20 .756 1st in Pacific 9 6 .600 Lost to San Antonio Spurs in Conference Finals
PHO 2005-06 54 28 .659 1st in Pacific 10 10 .500 Lost to Dallas Mavericks in Conference Finals
PHO 2006-07 61 21 .744 1st in Pacific 6 5 .545 Lost to San Antonio Spurs in Conference Semifinals
PHO 2007-08 55 27 .671 2nd in Pacific 1 4 .200 Lost to San Antonio Spurs in First Round
See? They kill in the regular season but sink to an average team in the playoffs.
Well, now that the Jazz just traded 2 1st rounders for Al Jefferson, they remain a strong player in the west.
On the top end, not much has changed IMO.
Injuries, overall health, and the Lakers.
Still our biggest hurdles.
Utah replaces Boozer with Jefferson.
Phx replaces Amare with Warrick.
Dallas replaces Dampier with Chandler.
San Antonio replaces Mahinmi with Splitter.
I think I know who got better.
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