and the award for the worst defender in the nba

[scotsman13]

goes to penny hardaway. i have never seen him play defense in all of the time that he has been with the suns. this guy believes that you only need to worry about what happened on the offensive end. how many lay up happened tonight with him lefting his hand up in the air to stay away from the person with the ball? this guy should be fined and sit on the bench for conduct detimental to the team for total lack of effort on the defense end.

 

[Chaplin]

Funny how you place the fault for this game on the leading scorer. Defense or no defense, there was a lot more wrong than Penny in this game.

 

[jbeecham]

I'll be one of the 1st to complain about Penny for his poor defense, but he was the only bright spot for the Suns offense tonight. Jason Richardon and Mike Dunleavy got a lot of easy basket buy cutting baseline but they did that against Penny, Casey, JJ, and anyone else that tried to guard them.

 

[scotsman13]

yea chaplin, i do place the blame for this lose right on pennys head. i can tell you of at least a couple times in this game where penny was the weakside defender and was right there to help and did nothing. i will tell you that for every point that penny scored that he gave at least .5 points on the defense end. let me ask you why isnt cedrick ceballos in the nba any more? because he doesnt play defense. if penny were out looking for a contract today he would be hard put to find one because defense is so god dang bad. he doesnt even try.

 

[Joe Mama]

Scotsman, you are getting a bit out-of-control with these anti-Penny Hardaway posts. Not every problem with the Phoenix Suns can be pinned on Penny Hardaway. As others here have pointed out already, he was one of the only bright spots in tonight's game.

I think you should have shifted some of your attention towards the starting backcourt of Marbury and JJ. Joe Johnson did absolutely nothing on the offensive side of the court (where the Suns really lost this game) while his defense was nothing to write home about. Marbury could not buy a basket tonight, yet he kept taking bad shots. In fact the Suns came within a few baskets a couple times in the second half only to watch Marbury come down and take a couple bad shots in a row instead of getting the ball to players like Scott Williams, Casey Jacobsen, and Penny Hardaway who could actually shoot last night.

Hardaway's weak side defense leaves a lot to be desired. There's no doubt about that. But you picked a poor time to blame everything on him. Overall his contribution on the court last night was definitely a positive one.

Joe Mama

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Originally posted by Joe Mama
Scotsman, you are getting a bit out-of-control with these anti-Penny Hardaway posts. Not every problem with the Phoenix Suns can be pinned on Penny Hardaway. As others here have pointed out already, he was one of the only bright spots in tonight's game.

I think you should have shifted some of your attention towards the starting backcourt of Marbury and JJ. Joe Johnson did absolutely nothing on the offensive side of the court (where the Suns really lost this game) while his defense was nothing to write home about. Marbury could not buy a basket tonight, yet he kept taking bad shots. In fact the Suns came within a few baskets a couple times in the second half only to watch Marbury come down and take a couple bad shots in a row instead of getting the ball to players like Scott Williams, Casey Jacobsen, and Penny Hardaway who could actually shoot last night.

Hardaway's weak side defense leaves a lot to be desired. There's no doubt about that. But you picked a poor time to blame everything on him. Overall his contribution on the court last night was definitely a positive one.

Joe Mama

I totally agree. As much as I want Joe Johnson to succeed, Penny has been vastly outplaying him recently. Games like last night remind me why he will never be a great player, despite all his talent. He just doesn't appear to have the mental makeup to be a top NBA player. Penny appears to be making things happen, and I think he will start seeing more time. Also, Joe Johnson's shooting is just horrendous, last night it was just painful to watch. This team is so mercurial, it's sickening.

 

[matt_whitlock]

I totally agree. As much as I want Joe Johnson to succeed, Penny has been vastly outplaying him recently. Games like last night remind me why he will never be a great player, despite all his talent. He just doesn't appear to have the mental makeup to be a top NBA player. Penny appears to be making things happen, and I think he will start seeing more time. Also, Joe Johnson's shooting is just horrendous, last night it was just painful to watch. This team is so mercurial, it's sickening.

Joe Johnson's shooting isn't really that bad anymore. In the beginning of the season, it was horrible, but lately it's been decent. Personally, I think he's a better shooter than he is defender. Everybody likes to give this guy so much credit for his defense, but Jason Richardson absolutely ate JJ up last night in the first half. When Joe is relying solely on his outside shot, things can get very ugly very fast, but he's shown some very good things each game as far as getting to the basket and finishing in the lane. Penny Hardaway is ten times the player that JJ is, but you can't simply say Joe's shooting was bad last night because you've heard it before and so you think that it must be true. Joe doesn't have the offensive vision that the great players have. He's a good passer, but even so he's still very one dimensional. For instance, when JJ comes off a pick-and-roll, he's thinking shoot, shoot, shoot, whereas when Penny comes off, it doesn't seem like he's really thinking anything - that is, he has the ability to see the situation as it transpires, and then either get it to the picker as he rolls to the basket, take the ball himself and either drive or shoot, or draw the weakside defender and kick the ball out to the man on the wing or in the corner for a perimeter jumper.

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by scotsman13
yea chaplin, i do place the blame for this lose right on pennys head. i can tell you of at least a couple times in this game where penny was the weakside defender and was right there to help and did nothing. i will tell you that for every point that penny scored that he gave at least .5 points on the defense end. let me ask you why isnt cedrick ceballos in the nba any more? because he doesnt play defense. if penny were out looking for a contract today he would be hard put to find one because defense is so god dang bad. he doesnt even try.

I'm not sure what your goal is. To me, it seems like you don't care if the team wins. Penny Hardaway has been our best player the last 2 games. Period. How can you even dispute that? If we had Barbosa in, like you want, we would have lost last night be even more, and we would not have beaten Dallas. I like Leandro, but he isn't going to duplicate Penny's lines the past two games this early in his career.

You're looking for something bad because we lost--there was a lot bad, no question, but Penny Hardaway was NOT it. On the list of bad things from the GS game, Penny's defense is like #10.

 

[jbeecham]

Originally posted by ASUCHRIS
I totally agree. As much as I want Joe Johnson to succeed, Penny has been vastly outplaying him recently. Games like last night remind me why he will never be a great player, despite all his talent. He just doesn't appear to have the mental makeup to be a top NBA player. Penny appears to be making things happen, and I think he will start seeing more time. Also, Joe Johnson's shooting is just horrendous, last night it was just painful to watch. This team is so mercurial, it's sickening.

I wouldn't call 2 good games from Penny vastly outplaying JJ. Also, JJ had a better stat line than Penny in the Dallas game so Penny did not vastly outplay him then either. Last night Penny was playing much better offensively than JJ (not defensively).

Dallas Game:
JJ: 41 min, 9-13 fgs, 2-3 3pt, 1-2 ft, 2 rebs, 4 ast, 2 stl, 1 to
Penny: 26 min, 7-13 fgs, 4-5 3pt, 2-2 ft, 5 rebs, 4 ast, 1 stl, 2 to

Penny played well in less minutes than JJ, but JJ played very well in this game also.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Originally posted by jbeecham
I wouldn't call 2 good games from Penny vastly outplaying JJ. Also, JJ had a better stat line than Penny in the Dallas game so Penny did not vastly outplay him then either. Last night Penny was playing much better offensively than JJ (not defensively).

Dallas Game:
JJ: 41 min, 9-13 fgs, 2-3 3pt, 1-2 ft, 2 rebs, 4 ast, 2 stl, 1 to
Penny: 26 min, 7-13 fgs, 4-5 3pt, 2-2 ft, 5 rebs, 4 ast, 1 stl, 2 to

Penny played well in less minutes than JJ, but JJ played very well in this game also.

I would agree, if you looked at it statistically, the difference isn't great, and that statistics are the best way of qualifying an opinion. Statistics don't always tell a complete story however. When Penny was in the game, and getting the ball, he was making his shots and distributing the ball well. When the starters, especially JJ came back in the game, it seemed like the air was taken out of the arena, and they played like crap. Googs had a suprisingly effective game. Wonder if the Warriors would trade Richardson for Marion? He looked damn good last night.

 

[matt_whitlock]

Originally posted by jbeecham
I wouldn't call 2 good games from Penny vastly outplaying JJ. Also, JJ had a better stat line than Penny in the Dallas game so Penny did not vastly outplay him then either. Last night Penny was playing much better offensively than JJ (not defensively).

Dallas Game:
JJ: 41 min, 9-13 fgs, 2-3 3pt, 1-2 ft, 2 rebs, 4 ast, 2 stl, 1 to
Penny: 26 min, 7-13 fgs, 4-5 3pt, 2-2 ft, 5 rebs, 4 ast, 1 stl, 2 to

Penny played well in less minutes than JJ, but JJ played very well in this game also.

Most of JJ's points were in garbage time in the Dallas game. The Suns and Mavs were playing pretty even basketball before Penny came into the game, and then they blew them out. It was no coincedence that that blow-up happened with Penny came into the game. JJ scored most of his points when the team was already up 20 points. Plus, he played 1 1/2 times as many minutes as Penny did.

As far as last night, obviously it's not even close. With Marion out, and Marbury not playing well, Joe Johnson needed to step up. Period. Penny did somewhat, but he still only scored 16 points and that's not enough to beat an NBA team. Maybe it's an unfair burden to put on JJ's shoulders. I mean, without Marbury, Marion, and Zarko, there's 9 other guys on the active roster to step up, so I'm not saying the blame should be put on Joe's shoulders because he didn't have the hot hand when Stephon did not either. That being said, Casey Jacobsen is not going to go out and score 30 points. Either is Jahidi White, or Tom Gugliota or Leandro Barbosa. So considering this guy is the self-acclaimed starting shooting guard for this team, it's times like those when he's gotta put his money where his mouth is and do something positive for a struggling team.

In any event, of our 3 shooting guards, JJ looked like the worse one. And last night certainly wasn't the first time.

 

[BC867]

If not for the cheap shot against Zarco, I would be pulling for him to work his way into starting Small Forward, moving Marion to the '2'.

JJ as backup '3' and sometimes '2'. Penny as backup Point Guard and sometimes '2'.

I believe that a starting-and-finishing lineup of

JAHIDI - Center
AMARE - Power Forward
ZARCO - Small Forward
MARION - '2' Guard
MARBURY - Point Guard

could develop into a powerful and exciting lineup.

For backup, add Jake at Center, Williams at PF, JJ at Small Forward/Guard, and Penny at either Guard position. It's not perfect, but it's potentially alot stronger 9-man rotation than we've been seeing.

But until Zarco returns and works himself into game shape, it's just a dream.

 

[SirStefan32]

We might have a good lottery pick to add to that rotation.

 

[scotsman13]

guys everyone talks about how bad the coach is or how much penny brings to the court. he is such a smart player. he can do some much. guys this is bull. penny does have some skills on the offense end but his defense is so bad as to be non-exstance. spend some time watching his defense and watching the score when he is in the game. if he is such a good leader, creater then the score when he is in will show it. as it stands right now on the defensive end the suns are playing 4 on 5. remember this little saying a good offensive player will almost always beat a good defensive player. what counts is what the team defensive is like and how willing they are to come and help when a player gets beat. with penny it is he isnt willing to do anything more then stand around and look at the other teams dunk and do lay ups. the suns wont win games playing 4 on 5 defense and playing 5 on 5 on the offensive end.

 

[Errntknght]

Scotsman, "...and the award for the worst defender in the nba
goes to penny hardaway. i have never seen him play defense in all of the time that he has been with the suns."

We've all seen Penny get burned off the dribble a number of times but that's not all there is to defending. At the rest of it he's pretty good - in particular, he's good at positioning himself so his man cannot go where he'd most like to, and Penny knows the opponents tendencies. I recall the first game against Houston last year when Mobley was killing JJ on possession after possession - Frank sent Penny in and he completely shut Cuttino down. He gets a good number of deflections playing the passing lanes well and he's got quick hands even though his feet are now slowed a bunch. He plays intelligent defense in other ways, too - for example when you see a pointless double team it's rarely Penny that's doing it and he doesn't willy-nilly switch every time his man sets a screen as many of our players do. And he's still above average at defensive rebounding for a guard.

In fact, I disagree with your statement in another post that Penny stood and watched while GS got layups. I recall only one case where he stood back - it was Dampier going to the bucket and Penny trying to stop it would have probably made it a three point play. I also thought he did a better job against Richardson than JJ did - he rubbed Penny off on a couple of screens and hit jumpers but overall Penny denied him the ball better than JJ.

I'm not saying Penny is a better overall defender than JJ because, physically, JJ has it all over him but when it comes to 'smarts', JJ would be a lot better if he had half of Penny's.

 

[jbeecham]

Originally posted by Errntknght
We've all seen Penny get burned off the dribble a number of times but that's not all there is to defending. At the rest of it he's pretty good - in particular, he's good at positioning himself so his man cannot go where he'd most like to, and Penny knows the opponents tendencies. I recall the first game against Houston last year when Mobley was killing JJ on possession after possession - Frank sent Penny in and he completely shut Cuttino down.

I disagree with this, Penny got burned numerous times by Jason Richardson and others when the offensive player moves without the basket. It seems like Penny gets fixed on whoever has the ball and forgets to guard his man, who then cuts to the basket for an easy layup. JRich did this many times.

He gets a good number of deflections playing the passing lanes well and he's got quick hands even though his feet are now slowed a bunch. He plays intelligent defense in other ways, too - for example when you see a pointless double team it's rarely Penny that's doing it and he doesn't willy-nilly switch every time his man sets a screen as many of our players do. And he's still above average at defensive rebounding for a guard.

Penny does seem to play the passing lanes well, but if he gets 1 steal or tipped pass for every 6 layups or wide open shots he lets his man get then it doesn't work in our favor. Penny doesn't really double team at all and when he tries he usually doesn't get there quick enough to close out on the guy. I think him not double-teaming has more to do with his lack of speed and effort than his basketball intelligence.

I'll also agree that JJ needs to increase his basketball intelligence and passion on the court. I don't know why people expect a 3rd yr player to have the same BBall IQ as a 12 yr veteran though(well 6-7 years if you only count the healthy ones).

 

[matt_whitlock]

I disagree with this, Penny got burned numerous times by Jason Richardson and others when the offensive player moves without the basket. It seems like Penny gets fixed on whoever has the ball and forgets to guard his man, who then cuts to the basket for an easy layup. JRich did this many times.

What? I have the game taped, and this is simply untrue. Penny didn't get beat backdoor by his man once in the game. It happened to JJ where he got beat backdoor, JRich caught the ball under the basket, jump stopped, and made a reverse layup plus the foul. Richardson was pretty much unstoppable last night, but how did he get hot? Well, Rich ate JJ up completely in the first quarter. He drove every which way, got that one dunk off a miss very early in the game as Johnson just stood there and watched instead of blocking out his man. Bottom line: He got most of his points with JJ on him, and if Penny had a difficult time guarding him cause Joe let him get hot before Penny even stepped on the floor, then the blame is on Joe's shoulders more than anything.

Penny does seem to play the passing lanes well, but if he gets 1 steal or tipped pass for every 6 layups or wide open shots he lets his man get then it doesn't work in our favor. Penny doesn't really double team at all and when he tries he usually doesn't get there quick enough to close out on the guy. I think him not double-teaming has more to do with his lack of speed and effort than his basketball intelligence.

That's simply a hyperbole with no basis in reality. I have some advice for you and people like you who have been posting this kind of stuff: Watch the basketball game. Don't use the first 3 games of the season where Penny's defense sucked to form your opinions. Don't use what Frank Johnson said a month ago about JJ's defense, and don't simply listen to what everybody thinks on this board. Penny was one of the only active players on both ends of the court last night, getting rebounds, steals, tip-ins, and assists.

And, I missed Penny's stupid turnover last night. Can somebody tell me when it happened, because looking at the box score, I can't tell where he might have squeezed it in. Then again, maybe they displaced one of Penny's 0 turnovers and put it into Joe's stat line, cause he had 2.

 

[Joe Mama]

Come on now guys. I do think Scotsman has gotten carried away with his criticism of Penny Hardaway, but to claim Hardaway is a better defender than Joe Johnson is borderline ludicrous. They both have their lapses, but overall JJ is much better. As Scotsman already pointed out Hardaway's weak side defense is pathetic. He's consistently standing there with his thumb up his butt.

That said, the Phoenix Suns definitely were better Friday night when Hardaway was in the lineup.

Joe Mama

 

[capologist]

Originally posted by matt_whitlock
The Suns and Mavs were playing pretty even basketball before Penny came into the game, and then they blew them out. It was no coincedence that that blow-up happened with Penny came into the game.

It probably bears mentioning that Penny came into the game exactly when Dirk Nowitzki sprained his ankle.

 

[George O'Brien]

Backups and Starters

Early in the season I was arguing that Penny would be much more effective coming in off the bench because he would not have to guard (and be guarded by) an opponent's first stringer. At first he seemed to resist it, but has been filling the role of "sixth man" much better.

As for JJ, he needs to stop trying so hard offensively and only take open shots. He is a terrible shot when someone has a hand in his face and should simply accept it and pass the ball. Equally important, JJ needs to focus more on moving without the ball because he could be a great cutter if he would just move.

 

[Errntknght]

Joe, "Come on now guys. I do think Scotsman has gotten carried away with his criticism of Penny Hardaway, but to claim Hardaway is a better defender than Joe Johnson is borderline ludicrous. They both have their lapses, but overall JJ is much better."

I didn't say that Penny was better overall, but to counter Scotsman's claim that he'd never seen Penny play defense, I pointed out some games where Penny did better than JJ, and that there were aspects of his defense that were good.

JJ should be a better defender than Penny - he has the quickness, speed, hops and strength. And he works hard at it, I'll give him that. What irks me after a while is that Penny gets denigrated constantly for his defense and that was the case all last year, as well. Like everyone else, I can see that he's physically limited but beyond that I don't see him falling down on the job - except a few games this year where his whole game showed little effort. I've never been a fan of Penny's and didn't want the team to get him because he's a whiner but I won't knock him for faults he doesn't have... he has plenty. Lack of bball IQ isn't one of them and he makes up for his physical shortcomings to a considerable extent with that.

JJ, on the other hand gets nothing but kudos for his defense. Yeah, he'll work his butt off to guard a PG or a PF if FJ asks for it so I see the effort and the tools. What I haven't seen so far is great results - if anything our opponents SGs are having good games against him despite his efforts. Maybe FJ's defensive scheme is at fault and maybe's JJ's just had a run of bad luck, but I'm still waiting to see him really frustrate his man by his defense.


"As Scotsman already pointed out Hardaway's weak side defense is pathetic. He's consistently standing there with his thumb up his butt."

Scotsman claimed that and you agree with him apparently. I can't claim to have paid a lot of attention to Penny's 'weakside' defense but by chance I watched the game against GS after reading Scotsman's claim about that game so I watched quite carefully. What he said just didn't happen in that game. The team as a whole played a lot of poor defense but Penny was not a primary culprit.
Come to think of it, guards don't usually have that much weakside responsibility - they're supposed to fall back into or near the paint at about the FT line unless their man breaks to the hoop. A team running a layup drill from the strong wing indicates a faiure of our three frontcourt defenders more than a weakside guard - just on the basis of theory. But I'll start keeping an eye on Penny's weakside D... maybe I'll learn something.

 

[George O'Brien]

Defense

One of the problems with the Suns defense is that it is hard to tell who is supposed to be covering someone. If the Suns ran a straight man to man it would be easy, but on a team that does a lot of double teams and switches off picks -- it is much harder.

One of the things I see all the time is where the Suns will double team a poor shooter and leave a strong shooter open. I am sure opponents see this as well and try to sucker the Suns players out of position.

One of the most obvious problems the Suns have is the lack of a really big shot blcoker (Amare and Shawn are leapers which is not the same). Teams with a big shot blocker can afford to play the outside tight, because they have a backup if the man gets by them. The Suns cannot do that and are forced to double team the low post, leading to all kinds of defensive switches.

Bottom line -- I don't know if JJ or Penny are playing good defense or not. Clearly someone is not playing good defense because opponents are shootin too well, but it is hard to place it all on one player's head.

On the flip isde - the Suns do not seem to be able to find the opponent's weakest offensive player and exploit him. Watch the Mavs, even though they are not hitting their shots they are always finding the mismatch.

 

[scotsman13]

well folks todays insider ended any question about how good or bad jj and penny are.

Through their first 14 games, the Suns have outscored their opponents by 1.3 ppg when Johnson is in the game and have been outscored by 7.8 ppg when he's off the floor. The opposite holds true for Penny. The Suns are actually getting outscored by 2.2 ppg when Hardaway is on the floor and are outscoring their opponents by 1.3 ppg when he's on the bench.


with this i will let this topic go.

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by scotsman13
well folks todays insider ended any question about how good or bad jj and penny are.

Through their first 14 games, the Suns have outscored their opponents by 1.3 ppg when Johnson is in the game and have been outscored by 7.8 ppg when he's off the floor. The opposite holds true for Penny. The Suns are actually getting outscored by 2.2 ppg when Hardaway is on the floor and are outscoring their opponents by 1.3 ppg when he's on the bench.


with this i will let this topic go.

And when it's raining, you have a better chance of getting wet. Meaningless.

 

[Joe Mama]

Originally posted by Chaplin
And when it's raining, you have a better chance of getting wet. Meaningless.

I wouldn't say this is completely meaningless, but I do agree that it isn't as cut and dry as this. I mean first of all you have to look at who else is playing when these guys are in the game. Hardaway has been backing up Marbury quite a lot, and for the most part the team struggles one Marbury is out of the game. I'd be willing to bet that if Hardaway and Joe Johnson simply switched their playing time those numbers would be quite different.

Joe Mama