Amare update XTRA 910

[Chaplin]

From Tony Meija's recent positional ratings:

3. Amare Stoudemire, Phoenix: Had Stoudemire not required knee surgery last October, he might have already topped this list -- and O'Neal might not have picked up his fourth ring. The Suns excelled without Stoudemire but might have won it all with him on board, especially if he could've picked up where he left off in 2005. He put in the rehab work to bounce back strong, but it remains to be seen whether his body cooperates. In putting him this high on this list, I'm betting the 23-year-old is successful in his comeback.

This actually made me speechless, since he has traditionally been a hater towards the Suns.

 

[George O'Brien]

A lot of writers are holding off jumping on the bandwaggon, but if Amare is even close to healthy it will get awfully crowded.

In recent years the NBA has changed the rules to encourage more offense. The old rule that you need a great defense to win the championship is no longer valid. Decent defense and an unstoppable offense will work just fine.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

In recent years the NBA has changed the rules to encourage more offense. The old rule that you need a great defense to win the championship is no longer valid. Decent defense and an unstoppable offense will work just fine.

Maybe you should wait until a team without a good defense actually wins a championship before you start making these bold proclamations.

 

[Chaplin]

A lot of writers are holding off jumping on the bandwaggon, but if Amare is even close to healthy it will get awfully crowded.

In recent years the NBA has changed the rules to encourage more offense. The old rule that you need a great defense to win the championship is no longer valid. Decent defense and an unstoppable offense will work just fine.

Understand the point-of-view, but there is nothing in recent history that supports that. Perhaps the Lakers of a few years ago, but other than that, Detroit, Miami and San Antonio were never known as offensive juggernauts. Dallas was a MUCH better offensive team than the Heat, but the Heat beat them. And that was just 2 1/2 months ago!

 

[Cheesebeef]

Understand the point-of-view, but there is nothing in recent history that supports that. Perhaps the Lakers of a few years ago, but other than that, Detroit, Miami and San Antonio were never known as offensive juggernauts. Dallas was a MUCH better offensive team than the Heat, but the Heat beat them. And that was just 2 1/2 months ago!

and even though Lakers 3-peat teams, especially the first two, ALWAYS turned the D up several notches in the playoffs, not to mention they never were never considered offensive juggernauts.

Pretty much, George is wrong, but watching the Suns-style, we have to hope he'll be right.

 

[Chaplin]

and even though Lakers 3-peat teams, especially the first two, ALWAYS turned the D up several notches in the playoffs, not to mention they never were never considered offensive juggernauts.

Pretty much, George is wrong, but watching the Suns-style, we have to hope he'll be right.

I don't know if you agree with this, but I hold to the idea that if Raja hadn't been gimpy in the Dallas series, we would have beat them, and then gone on to beat the Heat. If that would have happened, then his theory would hold some water.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I don't know if you agree with this, but I hold to the idea that if Raja hadn't been gimpy in the Dallas series, we would have beat them, and then gone on to beat the Heat. If that would have happened, then his theory would hold some water.

i don't think those are slam dunks, but i don't think they are far-fetched either. i think we would definitely have beaten the mavs. and at the time i thought we would have crushed the heat, but in retrospect i'm not so certain. it would have taken a pretty good series from kurt for us to beat miami. and yeah, i think kurt would have had to play against shaq. guarding shaq with amare is one thing, guarding him with diaw would have been disastrous.

 

[Errntknght]

Well, George is probably right since he said an unstoppable offense - so if you take him literally, how could he be wrong? Of course, there's never been a team that comes close to being unstoppable, which would mean they would score around two points per possession against every opponent.

Traditionally, coaches say the reason defense trumps offense is that you can play good defense every night while offense will be more erratic.

 

[Cheesebeef]

I don't know if you agree with this, but I hold to the idea that if Raja hadn't been gimpy in the Dallas series, we would have beat them, and then gone on to beat the Heat. If that would have happened, then his theory would hold some water.

I think we would have had a serious shot at beating the Mavs - I could have seen us losing in 7, but I would have expected us to win - against the Heat though, it would have been much tougher IMO. KT was such a big part of both of those defeats we handed to the Heat earlier in the season AND We only saw Wade in one of those games and the way that kid was going, it didn't look like there was anything that could stop him. W/ KT totally healthy, I think we would have beaten them, but that wasn't the case - w/o him it probably would have gone 7, and we had a good shot, but I can't say it would have been a foregone conclusion that we would have beaten the Heat - they were a different team come playoff time than they had been all regular season - I mean they kicked the crap out of the Pistons without homecourt, crushed the Nets and then beat another 60 win club in 6 games without homecourt - they were pretty impressive in the playoffs.

 

[CaptainInsano]

i don't think those are slam dunks, but i don't think they are far-fetched either. i think we would definitely have beaten the mavs. and at the time i thought we would have crushed the heat, but in retrospect i'm not so certain. it would have taken a pretty good series from kurt for us to beat miami. and yeah, i think kurt would have had to play against shaq. guarding shaq with amare is one thing, guarding him with diaw would have been disastrous.

If my memory servers right, in the last game of the season against miami we didn't have kurt and had a lead of almost 30 at one point, shaq is rendered ineffective as is yao ming and other true centers because of our running game.

What would have beaten us is if wade got the star treatment and put the suns all in foul trouble like he did dallas. Dallas had a deep bench and could barely afford to keep up, we would have been crushed and I would be contemplating ways to make referees disappear sopranos style at this point if that would have lost us the finals.

So maybe the fact that we didn't get to the finals was in some ways a good thing..

*edit just found out and it was the second to last game of the season, the last one wade scored 25 and shaq had 15 and 12 and we still beat them somewhat easily

 

[devilalum]

The Suns had the best defense in the league when KT was healthy.

I firmly believe that a healthy KT would have equaled a Suns championship.

Of course if you want to go that route a healthy Ced would have got us past the Bulls and a healthy Danny Manning would have had the Suns rolling to another championship

 

[George O'Brien]

I'm surprised no one asked where the line is betweeen"decent" defense and "great" defense. For example, in my mind, the Mavs were no more than a decent defensive team. In terms of opponent's shooting percentage, last season they ranked 10th, holding opponents to 44.3%.

The Heat were 8th, holding opponents to 44% (The Heat certainly stepped up their defense during the playoffs, holding opponents to 42.9%)

The best team in terms of defensive shooting percentage was the Bulls, holding opponents to 42.6%. However, the Bulls had only .63 ppg advantage over their opponents; showing great defense alone didn't get it done.

Last season, the Suns finished 16th, letting opponents shoot 45.4% and had a terrible time stopping teams like the Clippers.

The Clippers were ranked 5th in terms of opponent's shooting, holding opponents to 43.5% during the regular season. But in their games against the Suns, the Suns shot 47.3%. The Clips had better shooting percentages than the Suns, shooting 50.9%. However, the Suns hit 77 three point shots to only 31 by the Clips.

My impression is that the Suns have a reasonable chance of bringing their opponent's shooting percentage down to close to 44%. This is decent but not great by the standards of recent years. The 2004-05 Suns team held their opponents to 44.5% without Bell and KT, so 44.0% is quite within reach. The big unknown is whether the Suns will be to cut down their rebounding differential. They really need to get close to even on the boards to qualify as a decent defensive team.

 

[SirStefan32]

The Suns had the best defense in the league when KT was healthy.

I firmly believe that a healthy KT would have equaled a Suns championship.

Of course if you want to go that route a healthy Ced would have got us past the Bulls and a healthy Danny Manning would have had the Suns rolling to another championship

Let's not get carried away. Suns D was much better with KT, mostly because he can hold his own against any Center/ Power Forward, which makes it easier for the whole team, but they were by no means the best defensive team in the league.

 

[BC867]

Let's not get carried away. Suns D was much better with KT, mostly because he can hold his own against any Center/ Power Forward, which makes it easier for the whole team, but they were by no means the best defensive team in the league.

I agree. But with the most explosive offense in the league, an OK defense might get the Championship.

As George O'Brien said on his post, though, we've got to play "even" on rebounds for that to happen.

 

[devilalum]

Let's not get carried away. Suns D was much better with KT, mostly because he can hold his own against any Center/ Power Forward, which makes it easier for the whole team, but they were by no means the best defensive team in the league.

There was a long article on ESPN just before KT went down explaining why the Suns had the best D in the NBA.

The just of it was scores per possession. The Suns gave up a lot of points because they run and shoot a lot early in the clock. For this reason you can't evaluate the Suns defense based on the number of points they give up.

Here's an article that refers to it.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dailydime-060331

 

[ShuHanGuanYu]

The best team in terms of defensive shooting percentage was the Bulls, holding opponents to 42.6%. However, the Bulls had only .63 ppg advantage over their opponents; showing great defense alone didn't get it done.

A major reason for that is that, while they did lower opponent FG%, they also put their opponent on the free throw line the 6th most in the NBA. They played great defense, but were too aggressive in doing it.

 

[George O'Brien]

A major reason for that is that, while they did lower opponent FG%, they also put their opponent on the free throw line the 6th most in the NBA. They played great defense, but were too aggressive in doing it.

Very good point. The "no layups" strategy keeps shooting percentages down, but not necessarily the points per possession.

BTW, the Suns points per possession was helped a lot by the fact that they not only had the best shooting percentage, but also the best three point percentage to go with their record high number of attempts. Add in Amare, who used to go the line all the time and the Suns offensive points per possesion should be extraordinarily high.

 

[Bufalay]

The Suns knew Amare's knee was bad, but they rolled the DYESS thinking he was worth every PENNY.

 

[JS22]

The Suns knew Amare's knee was bad, but they rolled the DYESS thinking he was worth every PENNY.

Sadly, this post makes sense.

 

[Nash]

The Suns knew Amare's knee was bad, but they rolled the DYESS thinking he was worth every PENNY.

that's a good one!

 

[BC867]

The Suns knew Amare's knee was bad, but they rolled the DYESS thinking he was worth every PENNY.

Welcome aboard, Bufalay. That's very punny.

 

[devilalum]

Its also becoming more and more ironic that Amare changed from #32 to #1.

 

[Griffin]

4 days after this thread was started and still no confirmation or any news concerning Amare. Training camp is staring soon. I think he'll be fine.

 

[arthurracoon]

That's very punny.

But not funny.





(its depressing....stupid injuries...)

 

[George O'Brien]

At various times I noted that the decision to pass on MyDyess and go after Q was a mistake. I might note that the case against McDyess was not simply his health risks (what was it, three years out of commssion?), but lingering unhappiness over the way he hurt the Suns when he bailed during free agency. Maybe BC didn't feel that way, but I know a lot of fans did.