Bryan Colangelo on radio soon

[Joe Mama]

Bryan Colangelo is supposed to be on the radio here in the Phoenix area in the next few minutes. It is currently 2:05 p.m. here. He will be on 1060 AM.

I actually called in about a half hour ago. They talked to me for about five minutes, but I didn't get a chance to say everything I wanted to say. The first thing I pointed out was that they desperately need someone who can actually shoot the ball from outside consistently at either small forward or shooting guard. Shawn Marion has struggled to start this season, and JJ has always struggled with his shooting consistency.

I also said that I don't like what they're doing with Amare Stoudemire. Too often the guards are missing him when he is wide open. Then they get him the ball and he forces things when he has double teams and bad matchups.

I didn't get a chance to talk about this damn double teaming defense that drives me crazy.

Joe Mama

 

[Joe Mama]

1. He thinks that the biggest problem is that the team just isn't playing as a cohesive unit.

2. He thinks Marbury is trying to be too unselfish at times. He said he needs to learn when to get his teammates involved in when to take the game over himself.

3. He didn't exactly say that Frank Johnson's job security was strong, but he did say they wanted to make things work with this group.

4. He said a lot of the problems have been just injuries and bad luck. I do agree, but almost every team in the league has these kind of problems.

5. He said a lot of the changes they have discussed is that with Zarko out it seems like they need better energy off the bench.

6. He said that while everybody in the media is nervous about the upcoming road trip the players may be anxious for it. He said this team since last season has just seemed to play looser on the road. I wonder if he was speaking specifically of Joe Johnson.

7. He will be accompanying the team on this upcoming road trip. He joked around that last year he thought he brought them luck because he joined them in Boston. If you remember that was kind of the turning point in the season when they won the last three games of the road trip and turned the season around.

Joe Mama

 

[scotsman13]

thanks joe for posting this.

 

[Chaplin]

The real question is if all that makes anyone feel better about the team. And I have to say no.

 

[George O'Brien]

Hey, I feel great...

But seriously folks, I think the point about energy off the bench is pretty important. All the Penny Hardaway fans might see this as an endorsement of Penny because they need his energy off the bench.

:wink:

 

[Cheesebeef]

Originally posted by George O'Brien
Hey, I feel great...

But seriously folks, I think the point about energy off the bench is pretty important. All the Penny Hardaway fans might see this as an endorsement of Penny because they need his energy off the bench.

:wink:

isn't Joe Johnson a young and athletic playmaker who gets his hands in passing lanes and goes to the hole - funny doesn't that sound like someone who could bring energy off the bench?

 

[carey]

Isn't Joe Johnson a young and athletic playmaker who gets his hands in passing lanes and goes to the hole - funny doesn't that sound like someone who could bring energy off the bench?

It does, but you can stick a fork in Joe Johnson in regards to ever being a starter if they remove him from the starting line up again.

Joe, I listened to your call, nice take. Those guys are better than Gambo and Ash, imho. I'm in agreement. I think we need a consistant starting guard who can knock down open jump shots. I'm even willing to give Casey a shot at it. His defense hasn't been terrible and he seems to be shooting a high percentage behind the arc (though with fewer attempts).

Also on that program they seemed to toss Doc Rivers' name around a lot. Do you think he could be our next head coach?

 

[dyle_ph1]

I haven't been able to watch the past few games but have read that the bench players are actually playing better than the starters lately (not saying that they're outscoring them but they are playing the way that they'r supposed to be). Actually, Penny, Scott Williams, Voskhul and Googs are playing well in the past few games so I don't know how much more energy off the bench do you need. The problem lies with the starters. They should establish good offense and defense after the first tip. So far, they have been inconsistent in doing that, IMO.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Originally posted by carey
It does, but you can stick a fork in Joe Johnson in regards to ever being a starter if they remove him from the starting line up again.

if true than the kid doesn't have the confidence to be an integral member of a championship team - and isn't that ultiamtely the point. Honestly if his confidence is that shaky - in his third season - then he should be written off and be used as an energy bench guy - maybe used like the Microwave was back in the day - bring him in - see if he';s hot - if so - you keep him in the game - if not bench his ass - because otherwise he;s too much of a liability out there - it's not like his defense is all-nba - the good doesn't outweigh the bad.

 

[George O'Brien]

Actually, Penny, Scott Williams, Voskhul and Googs are playing well in the past few games

I agree. Williams in particular has looked very good except in the Denver game. Voskuhl has been mostly good, although I though pulling Williams for Voskuhl early in the game was mistake. Williams ability to hit that short jumper should be milked until teams start pulling out from the low post to cover him.

I really wish they would make Penny PG when they bring him in. He made a couple of great "alley oop" passes and is much better than Marbury at getting the ball inside. I like switching Marbury to the #2 slot part of the time because it screws up opponents defenses.

 

[dyle_ph1]

Originally posted by cheesebeef
if true than the kid doesn't have the confidence to be an integral member of a championship team - and isn't that ultiamtely the point. Honestly if his confidence is that shaky - in his third season - then he should be written off and be used as an energy bench guy - maybe used like the Microwave was back in the day - bring him in - see if he';s hot - if so - you keep him in the game - if not bench his ass - because otherwise he;s too much of a liability out there - it's not like his defense is all-nba - the good doesn't outweigh the bad.

I was actually thinking a similar thing on how the Suns can use JJ effectively. Use him as an "energy" guy and see if he's feeling it or not. If he has one of those bad nights, bench him and use Barbosa or Cabarkapa more. Penny could just be a distributor in the starting five. I know he's awful at defending but the Suns' players only defend hard when they are playing well offensively. Penny can help the starters get their games going because he just knows how to control the flow of the offense. If Marion/Marbury/Stoudamire start hitting shots, they play more aggressively and affects the rest of the team. I guess that's how Penny makes the team better as a starter.

Or, you can replace Frank with a coach who has balls and convince the starters to play defense from the get go, regardless of their offensive play.

 

[Joe Mama]

Originally posted by dyle_ph1
I haven't been able to watch the past few games but have read that the bench players are actually playing better than the starters lately (not saying that they're outscoring them but they are playing the way that they'r supposed to be). Actually, Penny, Scott Williams, Voskhul and Googs are playing well in the past few games so I don't know how much more energy off the bench do you need. The problem lies with the starters. They should establish good offense and defense after the first tip. So far, they have been inconsistent in doing that, IMO.

You are right. I didn't even think about that earlier. Over the last few games the bench has been great. It's the starters who have struggled... particularly the starting backcourt.

Joe Mama

 

[matt_whitlock]

Let's examine JC's comments:

1. He thinks that the biggest problem is that the team just isn't playing as a cohesive unit.

Solution: Penny. The guy is as unselfish as anybody in the league, and is effective at this. Four years ago, everybody was saying Penny was actually too unselfish. With Penny willing to pass the ball and with his ability to see the other four guys on the court at all times, it really helps our offense. I'm not saying JJ as a slashing threat isn't positive, it's just that a 1 on 1 guy isn't exactly what we need to make this team "more cohesive."

2. He thinks Marbury is trying to be too unselfish at times. He said he needs to learn when to get his teammates involved in when to take the game over himself.

Solution: Penny. With Penny running more of the point, Marbury doesn't have to worry about setting up everybody else. Marbury is an excellent passer when he's not scoring, but the thing some people don't realize is that, he's actually an even better passer when he's scoring the basketball. With Penny out there, he can get his own shots, he can set up everybody else, but he can also take pressure off Steph in a lot of ways. Penny will give you 5 - 7 assists per game if he's playing a lot of time at the one-guard, so Marbury doesn't have to go out and think pass, pass, pass to seem effective. Not only that, but it allows the offense as a unit to seem more fluid - if Steph comes down the court and launches a shot, or simply attacks the basket without even giving the ball up once, it just leads to the other 4 guys standing around and watching. With Penny at the point at least some of the time, Marbury can just be another perimeter threat, with more skills than Marion and certainly much more skilled than JJ.

3. He didn't exactly say that Frank Johnson's job security was strong, but he did say they wanted to make things work with this group.

Solution: Beats the hell outa me!

5. He said a lot of the changes they have discussed is that with Zarko out it seems like they need better energy off the bench.

Solution: Have JJ coming off the bench. If you think I think that Penny was the only reason this team played well with him in the starting lineup last year, you're wrong. The great thing last year was that FJ seemed to have a little bit better feel for that shooting guard position. If Penny was playing well, he'd leave Penny in most of the 1st quarter. If not, he'd pull Penny at about the 6 minute mark and we'd be able to see if JJ had it going that night. The key to last season that is different from this one, however, is that if JJ had it going, he wouldn't play Penny the 40 minutes that JJ is getting this year. There were games when Penny played 17, 18 minutes last year even as a starter because either he wasn't playing well, or JJ was playing better than usual. Either way, we had twice the shot of having our shooting guard play well than we do this year.

Moreover, Penny is 32 years old. One of his main attributes is the fact that he can steady the offense. Therefore, him as a high energy guy is somewhat unrealistic. I'm not saying that he can't bring defensive intensity and still be a steadying factor, but the reality of it is, he doesn't have the young legs that JJ has. If you bring JJ off the bench, with his long arms and young legs, maybe some of that will translate into something that can be mistaken for energy. Obviously, JJ's stoic, boring facial expressions don't exhibit sheer energy and determination, but his defense off the bench could be just what we need.

6. He said that while everybody in the media is nervous about the upcoming road trip the players may be anxious for it. He said this team since last season has just seemed to play looser on the road. I wonder if he was speaking specifically of Joe Johnson.

Solution: Tell JJ to grow a pair and suck it up no matter where we're playing. The sheer fact of the matter is, regardless of whether we played looser or not on the road last year, we weren't a good road team. In fact, our road record was what separated us from the elite teams in the West. Our play at home was damn close to dominant at times, even if JJ played timid. So this team just has to play like professionals and suck it up wherever they play.

 

[scotsman13]

matt how about telling penny to grow a pair and play defense. how about telling penny that there is more then one side to the court and most importantly tell penny to pull his head out of his a$$ and help this team by dropping the last 2 years of his contact.

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.

 

[PhiLLmattiC]

Originally posted by scotsman13
matt how about telling penny to grow a pair and play defense. how about telling penny that there is more then one side to the court and most importantly tell penny to pull his head out of his a$$ and help this team by dropping the last 2 years of his contact.

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.

Thats not true!

 

[PhiLLmattiC]

Feel free to ignore my last post. I just wanted to bring up my post count a little. I really have no reason for doing taht either. Good show, carry on.

 

[scotsman13]

hehe ok phil.

btw everyone remember this site? http://www.82games.com/0304PHO.HTM
this site says the same thing that espn did on the insider yesterday. so i guess i am not the only one that thinks that jj is better then penny.

when you strip away all the other possabilities whatever is left no matter how unprobable must be the true. in this case the facts show that jj is a better player then the people on this broad are giving him credit for. and penny is worst then most people are giving him credit for. if this changes i will be happy to say it has but until then, this is the truth.

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by scotsman13
hehe ok phil.

btw everyone remember this site? http://www.82games.com/0304PHO.HTM
this site says the same thing that espn did on the insider yesterday. so i guess i am not the only one that thinks that jj is better then penny.

when you strip away all the other possabilities whatever is left no matter how unprobable must be the true. in this case the facts show that jj is a better player then the people on this broad are giving him credit for. and penny is worst then most people are giving him credit for. if this changes i will be happy to say it has but until then, this is the truth.

A difference of less than a single point in +/- means absolutely nothing. Again, and we've said this several times, it's not about some of us giving too much credit or not enough--it's about your flawed logic in this entire thread. You have shown nothing that can convince me that there is substantial difference between them--and that's with JJ playing a lot more minutes.

 

[scotsman13]

chapin, it comes down to defense, jj plays it and penny doesnt. that alone give jj a big edge over penny.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Originally posted by scotsman13
chapin, it comes down to defense, jj plays it and penny doesnt. that alone give jj a big edge over penny.

when the team struggles on offense in the fourth quarter and get can't stops on defense - WHO IS PLAYING SHOOTING GUARD FOR US? Take that and put it in your stat pipe and smoke it - JJ's defense isn't all that - but you can keep saying it is - he brings ZERO to the table offensively - shooting - passing - b-ball IQ. He would be great off the bench - your logic is a joke.

 

[carey]

Originally posted by cheesebeef
When the team struggles on offense in the fourth quarter and get can't stops on defense - WHO IS PLAYING SHOOTING GUARD FOR US?

Casey Jacobsen?

 

[Errntknght]

I think Matt_W made a good case for giving Penny a shot at starting, regardless of whatever personas he may or may not have had in the past. The team does need to be shaken up in some way I think most people will agree and this looks like a good one to me. The part about Marbs being able to ease away from his role of pure PG, is the best of it. I rather suspect FJ will give it a try out of desperation before too long but if he doesn't there's an upside to that, too! Wave bye-bye to Frankie, folks...


Scotsman continued ranting, "btw everyone remember this site? http://www.82games.com/0304PHO.HTM
this site says the same thing that espn did on the insider yesterday. so i guess i am not the only one that thinks that jj is better then penny.

when you strip away all the other possabilities whatever is left no matter how unprobable must be the true. in this case the facts show that jj is a better player then the people on this broad are giving him credit for. and penny is worst then most people are giving him credit for. if this changes i will be happy to say it has but until then, this is the truth."


According to your 'gospel' site, we should start Trybanski, White, Stoudemire, Knight and Barbosa... they're the five with the highest plus/minus scores, in case you hadn't noticed. Those are also plain, unvarnished 'facts' but it seems you of all people stripped them right away. You are just quoting the part of your 'bible' that suits your purposes, if you wonder why the rest of us aren't converting in droves.

And the Hercule Poirot quote is "When you eliminate all the other possibilities what is left, however improbable, must be true." Not that this form is applicable to what you're saying since you've eliminated nothing.

 

[frdbtr]

Originally posted by scotsman13
matt how about telling penny to grow a pair and play defense. how about telling penny that there is more then one side to the court and most importantly tell penny to pull his head out of his a$$ and help this team by dropping the last 2 years of his contact.

Scotsman, would you give up $30 million dollars just to "help" your team? I didn't think so. Don't make ridiculous comments that you don't know anything about. One thing that bugs me about fans is they always act so noble. If I were Penny I wouln't just say "no prob. I will wave the last $30 million dollars of my contract and go on the unemployment list for the nba. Sure hope that some team wants to pay me $1.5 million because I can still contribute" Sounds ridiculous to me as well.

Penny is working to help the team in the way that he thinks is best. By trying to contribute when he is on the floor. I guess if Frankie wants to only play him for 20 minutes per game then that is not his problem. And once again the Broken record stat for the day is: when Penny started for the Suns last year they had a winning record, when he didn't start or was hurt, the suns have a losing record. So far this year with Penny out of the starting lineup, the Suns are once again below .500.

 

[elindholm]

I'm keeping my posts to a minimum these days, since I seem to be intrinsically offensive to so many people here, but I'll go ahead and throw my thoughts out on this topic.

1. Hardaway is a poor defender. It isn't so much his weakside defense or any other subset of what a basketball player is responsible for on that half of the floor. It's that he tunes out when his man doesn't have the ball. Sometimes he'll attempt to double-team, but he's slow, so he neither arrives in time nor can recover when the ball moves again. The result is that Hardaway is often guarding thin air and nothing else. When he is on the floor, the other team always gets better shots. Always. Even if it's not "his man" who is getting the wide-open looks, the fact that the Suns are defending four against five means that someone is open. Any decent passing team takes advantage of this easily. Joe Johnson is not a stellar defender, but at least he does not have the organic weaknesses of indifference and immobility.

2. Hardaway is a better shooter than Joe Johnson and sees the floor better than anyone on the team, with the debatable exception of Marbury. My big complaint with him on offense is that he throws the ball away with lazy, telegraphed passes that your average junior-high-schooler could pick off. However, in the Indiana game, which is the only one I've been able to watch carefully in a while, I remember only one instance of this. Since Johnson creates his own share of turnovers by trying to do too much, the turnover issue is probably a wash. This makes Hardaway the preferable choice on offense.

3. Some Hardaway detractors are pointing to +/- statistics as indicative of Johnson's superiority. The arguments undermining the validity of this metric are compelling. Basically all they mean is that the Suns' bench tends to get outplayed by the opponent's bench more than the starters get outplayed by the opponent's starters.

4. Some Hardaway supporters are pointing to last year's W-L records as indicative of Hardaway's superiority. The arguments undermining the validity of this metric are compelling. When Hardaway was starting, the Suns' roster was basically healthy. When Johnson was starting, it was usually because one or more key players were injured. At the beginning of the season, when Johnson was starting and the team was healthy, the Suns had not yet discovered Stoudemire. It was Stoudemire's emergence and team health that made the Suns a better team when Hardaway started.

5. A couple of weeks ago, Hardaway supporters were advocating returning him to the starting lineup because he was playing poorly off the bench. I thought this argument was a load of crap, and that it was Hardaway's responsibility to play well regardless of whether he wore the honor badge of Starter, which seems to be so crucial to his fans. Over the last few games, however, Hardaway has indeed been playing fairly well off the bench, so this particular objection of mine is no longer relevant.

6a. Johnson's window of opportunity to establish himself as the long-term answer at shooting guard on this team is just about closed. I'd give him about one more road/home cycle and then call it quits.

6b. Unless his consistency improves significantly, I think it is unlikely that Johnson will receive a contract extension from the Suns. They are just too financially hamstrung to take another chance on a highly questionable player. The Suns have picked up his option for next year, but it's looking like that will be it. That means that Hardaway -- who isn't going anywhere -- will, in all likelihood, be with the team longer than Johnson will be.

7. Given all that, I say leave things the way they are for one more road/home cycle, and then, barring an inexplicable personality change in Johnson, make the change. Anoint Hardaway the long-term starter at shooting guard (until his next injury, that is, probably due in late January), explain very carefully that he will be expected to pay attention on defense, and be done with it. Next preseason, take all the reports of Johnson's newfound magnificence, lump them together with those from Hardaway about how he's "finally healthy" after having played in pain for the last 283 consecutive months, and flush them down the toilet with the rest of the excrement.

 

[scotsman13]

frdbtr, why not? kemp did it with portland. are you telling me that kemp with all of his drug problem and achool problems is a better team player then penny? doesnt that say that penny isnt the team player that everyone says that he is? penny wants a major role on a team he wants to be the old penny again. well guess what the only way that is going to happen is with another team.

Errntknght, i am sorry i couldnt remember the quote word for word. i should have spent the time looking it up. as for starting trybanski and knight well there are some problems with that. trybanski has a total of 2 minutes of playing time and is on the ir along with zarko. 2 minute isnt enough time to base the judgement on him i would like to see if he could develop into more then a shot blocker. and knight is no longer on the team. as far as barbosa starting i would be more understanding to start him then penny. if you had to replace jj in the starting line up.

all of the anti-jj people out there seem to think that starting penny is the answer to making this team better. i personally have not seen enough out of penny to give him the starting time in the line up. i believe the jj is a better all round player at this point. the +/- shows that penny isnt as productive as most people believe he is. the +/- numbers discount the idea that penny is better for the all round team. this would seem to be some evidence that jj is more productive then penny. everyone bitchs about jj shooting. right now after the last game jj is shooting .392 while penny is only shooting .420 that isnt much diffence between them on the offensive end up to the last game it was .397 vs. .404 even less differance between there game. on the defensive end penny's defense has always been a poor area of proformance even back in his orlando days. since his knee problems he has gotten even worst. jj does play defense and while he isnt an all nba defender he does try. which is more then anyone not named matt can say about him.

if i think that someone cost the team a win i will name that player no matter what anyone else thinks. i thought that penny's defense cost us in the game against the warriors. i didnt blame the lost against the pacers on penny i thought he did an average job in the game.

one last thing why is it ok for amare to have poor shooting game and no one is blaming him while jj getting blasted for doing the samething? jj is a little over a year older then amare and the 4th opion on the team.