http://www.sportsline.com/nba/story/7806456
Suns set to give scoreboards a workout
Oct. 18, 2004
By Mike Kahn
SportsLine.com Executive Editor
There are any number of reasons why it is accurate to refer to the young Phoenix Suns as Team Transition.
Sure, they are the prototype Fun 'n' Gun team of the West, running Shawn Marion, Joe Johnson, Quentin Richardson and Leandro Barbosa on the wings with Steve Nash at the helm and Amare Stoudemire grabbing rebounds and blocking shots to initiate the track meet.
Or, as new assistant coach Alvin Gentry says: "You can win a lot of games scoring 115-120 points, but you can't win any games scoring zero. We'll see how many teams we can outscore."
Although coach Mike D'Antoni agrees victories can come by simply outrunning whichever the team du jour might be, that approach won't work consistently.
"We hope to average 100 points a game, but defense is a big part of it," D'Antoni said. "The ethic is there, but will it be there all the time? That's what is going to win or lose games for us."
It was not only youth that created the transition offense, but the changing face of the team. D'Antoni replaced fired coach Frank Johnson 21 games into last season, and the trading of Bo Outlaw, Jack Tsakalidis, Stephon Marbury, Penny Hardaway and Tom Gugliotta out of the roster screamed of total makeover by the time midseason arrived.
It was done for good reason. After 35 years of running the team in various capacities, managing partner Jerry Colangelo put the Suns up for sale because of declining attendance and the consequential mounting revenue losses. Then on June 30, he completed an NBA-record sale of the Suns for $401 million to Robert Sarver. Now the three-year process toward new management seizing control has begun, with Colangelo supervising and his son, Bryan, remaining president for the next three seasons as part of the agreement.
D'Antoni and the players insist the off-court conversion has had virtually no effect on them, other than bottoming out with just 29 victories after the trades and coaching moves were completed in February. Not coincidentally, it's their worst record since 1988, the season the elder Colangelo became the managing partner for the purchase of the team.
But everyone agrees last season is ancient history. And just like the last sale of the club, when they went out and signed a big free agent in Tom Chambers to help turn the team into Western Conference contenders, this group came in swinging. The influx of fresh cash from new ownership enabled the front office to shell out major money in the free-agent market to snare Nash from Dallas and Richardson from the Los Angeles Clippers.
Now it's just a matter of this group meshing, with the hope that the style of play in the West will become faster now that the Lakers have traded Shaquille O'Neal.
"We got more talent, some veteran leadership in Steve and we got a little older together," said Marion, the All-Star forward. "The West is almost evened out. There isn't any one team that's going to dominate. It opens it up for other teams to make a move. Shaq was a dominant factor all by himself, but the Lakers Era has come to an end right now. They've still got a good team, but everybody else got better ... including us.
"I don't know who's going to win what. I'm not going to focus on anybody else. We've got a good chance to shake up some teams, and that's what we're going to do."
It won't be easy. All the contending teams have much more size and talent in the power positions. And Stoudemire, the 2003 rookie of the year, is supremely gifted, but to put it into perspective, this would be his junior year in college had he not jumped directly from high school.
Undoubtedly, Stoudemire, 6-10 and 245 pounds, will play some center when D'Antoni wants to crank up the engine ... a prospect he's not particularly thrilled about. For him to be successful, there must be plenty of help from the no-name group of Jake Voskuhl, Steven Hunter, Maciej Lampe, Zarko Cabarkapa and Jackson Vroman.
"We have good big men. Jake Voskuhl is going to bang a little bit, bruise a little bit, bang the boards and score a few baskets," Stoudemire said. "Whatever helps the team the team win is what we're going to do. If that means I'll be playing center sometimes, then that's where I'll play.
"The whole thing is how we are going to win. We learned about losing last year. This year is about winning. We don't have a superstar center like Shaquille O'Neal, but there are (29) other teams that don't have him either."
Therein lies the key. This team really does believe it can run teams off the court, with the understanding that it will require defensive stops to beat good ones. But because of their style of play and the relative youth, it's attractive and exciting. Nash wasn't with the team over the weekend because of personal issues, but the Suns had moments of brilliance in a preseason victory in Seattle.
It's why Richardson bolted the Clippers and is excited about new ownership. He had this same excitement as a rookie on a Clippers team that was filled with the promise of Lamar Odom, Darius Miles and Corey Maggette. Elton Brand was acquired a year later. Coincidentally, Gentry was the coach of that team, which ultimately refused to retain its core -- only Maggette and Brand are still there.
"It made for a tough situation for all of us because we felt we had a chance to win over the long haul," Richardson said. "If we had stayed with that group, who knows how we could have grown together and what could have happened. The same old story there ... they broke it up, and that's why I'm here. This is a place I can grow, and I know we have a chance to win as we improve."
The question is how long it will take. D'Antoni has been around the block as a player and coach in the NBA enough times to not be delusional. This team isn't going to compete for home-court advantage in the stacked Western Conference and is going to have a tough time sneaking into the eighth spot.
Keep in mind teams in San Antonio, Minnesota, Sacramento, Dallas and Memphis all believe they are improved from last season's 50-victory clubs. Houston added Tracy McGrady, Juwan Howard, Kelvin Cato and Tyronn Lue; Denver added Kenyon Martin to its already impressive front court; and, well, the Lakers might not be as good without Shaq, but with Odom and Kobe Bryant on hand, they'll hardly be pushovers. And then there's the improvement expected out of the sleeper Portland Trail Blazers and the additions of Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur in Utah.
No doubt, D'Antoni can count to 10, with only eight teams qualifying for the playoffs.
"We're young, and we still make some crazy mistakes," D'Antoni said. "But that's why we brought in Steve Nash, to help eliminate some of those mistakes. Hey, we know who we are. We're not going to go toe-to-toe in a power game with San Antonio. We've got a lot of talented perimeter players who can run and shoot, and hopefully they'll understand that playing defense on the other end will make it all come together.
"We all feel real good about it right now. Whether we're going to still feel that way in February, I guess we'll find out."
Running all the way.
Suns set to give scoreboards a workout
Oct. 18, 2004
By Mike Kahn
SportsLine.com Executive Editor
There are any number of reasons why it is accurate to refer to the young Phoenix Suns as Team Transition.
Sure, they are the prototype Fun 'n' Gun team of the West, running Shawn Marion, Joe Johnson, Quentin Richardson and Leandro Barbosa on the wings with Steve Nash at the helm and Amare Stoudemire grabbing rebounds and blocking shots to initiate the track meet.
Or, as new assistant coach Alvin Gentry says: "You can win a lot of games scoring 115-120 points, but you can't win any games scoring zero. We'll see how many teams we can outscore."
Although coach Mike D'Antoni agrees victories can come by simply outrunning whichever the team du jour might be, that approach won't work consistently.
"We hope to average 100 points a game, but defense is a big part of it," D'Antoni said. "The ethic is there, but will it be there all the time? That's what is going to win or lose games for us."
It was not only youth that created the transition offense, but the changing face of the team. D'Antoni replaced fired coach Frank Johnson 21 games into last season, and the trading of Bo Outlaw, Jack Tsakalidis, Stephon Marbury, Penny Hardaway and Tom Gugliotta out of the roster screamed of total makeover by the time midseason arrived.
It was done for good reason. After 35 years of running the team in various capacities, managing partner Jerry Colangelo put the Suns up for sale because of declining attendance and the consequential mounting revenue losses. Then on June 30, he completed an NBA-record sale of the Suns for $401 million to Robert Sarver. Now the three-year process toward new management seizing control has begun, with Colangelo supervising and his son, Bryan, remaining president for the next three seasons as part of the agreement.
D'Antoni and the players insist the off-court conversion has had virtually no effect on them, other than bottoming out with just 29 victories after the trades and coaching moves were completed in February. Not coincidentally, it's their worst record since 1988, the season the elder Colangelo became the managing partner for the purchase of the team.
But everyone agrees last season is ancient history. And just like the last sale of the club, when they went out and signed a big free agent in Tom Chambers to help turn the team into Western Conference contenders, this group came in swinging. The influx of fresh cash from new ownership enabled the front office to shell out major money in the free-agent market to snare Nash from Dallas and Richardson from the Los Angeles Clippers.
Now it's just a matter of this group meshing, with the hope that the style of play in the West will become faster now that the Lakers have traded Shaquille O'Neal.
"We got more talent, some veteran leadership in Steve and we got a little older together," said Marion, the All-Star forward. "The West is almost evened out. There isn't any one team that's going to dominate. It opens it up for other teams to make a move. Shaq was a dominant factor all by himself, but the Lakers Era has come to an end right now. They've still got a good team, but everybody else got better ... including us.
"I don't know who's going to win what. I'm not going to focus on anybody else. We've got a good chance to shake up some teams, and that's what we're going to do."
It won't be easy. All the contending teams have much more size and talent in the power positions. And Stoudemire, the 2003 rookie of the year, is supremely gifted, but to put it into perspective, this would be his junior year in college had he not jumped directly from high school.
Undoubtedly, Stoudemire, 6-10 and 245 pounds, will play some center when D'Antoni wants to crank up the engine ... a prospect he's not particularly thrilled about. For him to be successful, there must be plenty of help from the no-name group of Jake Voskuhl, Steven Hunter, Maciej Lampe, Zarko Cabarkapa and Jackson Vroman.
"We have good big men. Jake Voskuhl is going to bang a little bit, bruise a little bit, bang the boards and score a few baskets," Stoudemire said. "Whatever helps the team the team win is what we're going to do. If that means I'll be playing center sometimes, then that's where I'll play.
"The whole thing is how we are going to win. We learned about losing last year. This year is about winning. We don't have a superstar center like Shaquille O'Neal, but there are (29) other teams that don't have him either."
Therein lies the key. This team really does believe it can run teams off the court, with the understanding that it will require defensive stops to beat good ones. But because of their style of play and the relative youth, it's attractive and exciting. Nash wasn't with the team over the weekend because of personal issues, but the Suns had moments of brilliance in a preseason victory in Seattle.
It's why Richardson bolted the Clippers and is excited about new ownership. He had this same excitement as a rookie on a Clippers team that was filled with the promise of Lamar Odom, Darius Miles and Corey Maggette. Elton Brand was acquired a year later. Coincidentally, Gentry was the coach of that team, which ultimately refused to retain its core -- only Maggette and Brand are still there.
"It made for a tough situation for all of us because we felt we had a chance to win over the long haul," Richardson said. "If we had stayed with that group, who knows how we could have grown together and what could have happened. The same old story there ... they broke it up, and that's why I'm here. This is a place I can grow, and I know we have a chance to win as we improve."
The question is how long it will take. D'Antoni has been around the block as a player and coach in the NBA enough times to not be delusional. This team isn't going to compete for home-court advantage in the stacked Western Conference and is going to have a tough time sneaking into the eighth spot.
Keep in mind teams in San Antonio, Minnesota, Sacramento, Dallas and Memphis all believe they are improved from last season's 50-victory clubs. Houston added Tracy McGrady, Juwan Howard, Kelvin Cato and Tyronn Lue; Denver added Kenyon Martin to its already impressive front court; and, well, the Lakers might not be as good without Shaq, but with Odom and Kobe Bryant on hand, they'll hardly be pushovers. And then there's the improvement expected out of the sleeper Portland Trail Blazers and the additions of Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur in Utah.
No doubt, D'Antoni can count to 10, with only eight teams qualifying for the playoffs.
"We're young, and we still make some crazy mistakes," D'Antoni said. "But that's why we brought in Steve Nash, to help eliminate some of those mistakes. Hey, we know who we are. We're not going to go toe-to-toe in a power game with San Antonio. We've got a lot of talented perimeter players who can run and shoot, and hopefully they'll understand that playing defense on the other end will make it all come together.
"We all feel real good about it right now. Whether we're going to still feel that way in February, I guess we'll find out."
Running all the way.
