hey guys!

[boisesuns]

how has everyone been here? long time no talk or post for me. i've been pretty busy here with music in memphis. havn't gone to see a grizz game yet, but i'm planning on a few and the suns ones of course.

how has the team looked this year? i've seen a bit on tv, but i feel so out of the loop. i try to read the board every day and check it, but i've been busy. i even missed fantasy ball this year (Go Tsunami) i've enjoyed comming here and seeing whats been going on with the suns. sounds like lot of whinning this year from the looks of things.

i thought i'd chime in with a few suns takes from the outside, long timer
i think we still need some time to develop chemestry. we need to figure out an offensive system. chaos doesn't work. it seems like outside shooting has been horrible this year.

how much would a new coach help this team? i'm not a frank fan, but i wonder who could get this team to play at the level they are capable of. some nights last year they looked amazing and other nights they looked "nuggets." consistency seems to be the problem. which suns team will show up? i think we all want to see the suns play effectivly, but they are young. i've grown impatient with them in some cases. if i was a betting man, i wouldn't put money down on the suns on any night. you never know what will happen.

being young is a good thing, but we need things to happen. it's tough to come to the board and read about how frank sucks, or penny this and penny that, marbury and amare are fighting, marion is inconsistent, we shouldn't have traded bo ect.

what about some suggestion of positive nature, or at least "what would you do if you were suns coach?"

sorry for the rant. not really sure what to add to discussion, but wanted to chime in again. it would be great to hear for you guys again. i'll try to post more.

Go suns!

 

[Errntknght]

Gee, Boise, I try to be positive... but then I think firing FJ would be a positive thing. I suppose the positive thing is installing a competent head coach but we almost have to dump Frank to do that. I wouldn't mind an edict from BC that Frank had to put the offense in the charge of one assistant and the defense in the charge of another... with FJ in charge of press conferences explaining how it was all his own idea. That way we'd be able to evaluate the two most likely candidates for the head coaching job at once instead of sequentially.

 

[George O'Brien]

I'm new to this board, but the complaints are common by Suns fans that the team was not playing as well as it did late last year.

There have been numerous theories about why this was the case. Things got really ugly when the team lost to the Hawks at home and the Hawks had played the previous evening. It was one of their most pathetic performances in very long time.

After losing to Detroit and Houston, the Suns have won three in a row against weak Eastern Conference teams: Bulls, Magic and Heat. The most important development was that the Suns started showing some movement on offense with two 28 assist games and 25 assists against the Heat. They were scoring more and at a higher percentage from the field.

BUT, no one knows if this is because the opponents aren't very good or if the Suns are making progress on developing a good offensive scheme. If they regress, Coach Johnson may lose his job.

The Suns made a couple of major personnel changes this fall. They traded Big Jake and Bo Outlaw to the Grizzlies for Brevin Knight a couple of project players. Then they traded Knight to the Wizzards for J. White. White injured his hand, but has shown some promise in the time he has played.

Scott Williams injured his hand prior to training camp and only returned last week. He has been shooting extremely well and has given the Suns a big boost.

There has been a lot of controvery over the guard position. Joe Johnson has been starting at shooting guard all season, even though his shooting average has been below 40%. Penny was not happy about coming off the bench and said something to an ESPN reporter. This past week has seen Penny's role "clarified" in that he will come in late in the first quarter, usually at point guard with Marbury playing the shooting guard slot.

Early in the seaon, Casey Jacobsen was getting a lot minutes and he was shooting quite well. Casey has not played over the last three games with Hardaway getting all the backup guard minutes.

The Suns first round pick, Zarko Cabarkapa had to a hernia operation before training camp. He recovered enough to be on the roster at the start of the season, but did not get into even minimal shape until the Bulls game where he played very well. Zarko was reputed to ahve great skills and is beginning to show what the scouts saw - great court sense, good shooter, great passer, moves without the ball, etc. He is no where near being ready to play 40 minutes, but he is generating a lot of excitement.

Stoudemire has picked up where he left off last year. He has shown a short jumper and some other moves that make him even more of a low post threat. However, he had only 1 assist in the first 10 games of the season. His assist level has picked up lately, but he still trys to force shots when he shout be passing. Amare has generally done reasonably well rebounding, but he has not had any monster games on the boards yet and may need to work on it some.

Joe Johnson had a great offensive game against Miami, but his shooting has been erratic this year. He takes too many contested jumpers. On the other hand, his defense has been solid and he has begun to get a lot of rebounds for a guard.

Shawn Marion has not been shooting as well as last year. Some think it is because he has been weight lifting on the day of games.

Overall, the Suns have struggled against the zone. The new passing offense of the last three games have helped, but it has not been tested against a strong defense yet.

The Suns are trying to do a better job running the fast break. They are a little better, but they still dont' run it very well yet (too many missed opportunities because of poor passing and bad spacing).

The Suns are now using a three headed center: Voskuhl, Willaims and White. None are getting more than 25 minutes.

 

[minercon]

uh-huh Boise....you may have hit the nail on the head......this team is a YOUNG team. That gives the Colangeli plenty of time to trade them away............

 

[Mike Olbinski]

Good to see you Boise!

Mike