Kings @ Suns Friday game thread 12-8-2023

[BirdGangThing]

Booker shot 71% from the field tonight and 2-2 from deep

Fox only shot 46% but shot the ball 10 times more times than Book

Fox 24 shots 34 pts
Book 14 shots 28 pts

 

[Yuma]

Allen and Beal would greatly help. Still, the Suns depend upon Booker to do too much with the ball.

Well, assuming we play Beal, Booker and KD at the same time, I imagine guys like Okogie, and Goodwin get knocked down into the second team. Nurkic will be starting at center. The way we have been having problems with rebounding, KBD or someone else with size needs to be in there to help Nurkic.

 

[Mainstreet]

Well, assuming we play Beal, Booker and KD at the same time, I imagine guys like Okogie, and Goodwin get knocked down into the second team. Nurkic will be starting at center. The way we have been having problems with rebounding, KBD or someone else with size needs to be in there to help Nurkic.

The Suns do have size and defensive issues inside.

 

[nashman]

The Kings are a very good team and had their starters. This was a big ask to even be in this game with 50-60 points sitting on the bench. It’s not like Denver tonight who lost by exact same score to a poor Rockets team fielding their whole roster lol. Bad nights happen, the only way we were winning this game is if Book had 40+ and someone else showing up for 20+. We kept it competitive running a skeleton squad not much more you can ask for. Okogie is absolutely killing us not being able hit the broad side of a barn! He’s so open has time to adjust his feet like a practice shot and he still laying bricks all over the gym…

 

[Vacard]

Nobody can make a shot right now.

I mean Ogie is still on the team. He’s worse then Crowder.

 

[Vacard]

This team really doesn’t have any cohesion like that. It’s just ISO Book/Durant making a play while everyone just stand and watches. If one of them goes down then it’ll be a long game. No one else except for maybe Gordon and Allen can create

 

[Hoop Head]

This team really doesn’t have any cohesion like that. It’s just ISO Book/Durant making a play while everyone just stand and watches. If one of them goes down then it’ll be a long game. No one else except for maybe Gordon and Allen can create

Kevin Young's offense sucks. This is the same thing we saw last year. Damn shame we don't have a G League affiliate to send him too. I'd be surprised if he isn't a casualty if this keeps up and I'm fine with that. I'm starting to hope he is cut loose.

 

[mjb21aztd]

Cant zzz thanks suns 1 team i thought in az
could w just az sports sooooooo frustruating

praying wishing if beal ever plays multiple gms with kd book get on nice streak and can gel bef poffs.... im not to confident as a fan

We will see always a fan goo suns
.

 

[1982baskets]

Again, I feel this a roster building issue. We don't have two-way guys. We have players that can be good on offense (Gordon, Allen) who don't really help enough on defense or are just too small lacking the length to play defense. Or we have players that can defend a bit but have zero impact on offense.

James Jones has not built a good enough roster, it's a roster that is built to survive the regular season and pray that the big 3 peaks at the right time in the playoffs. Problem? With the health of Durant, Beal, Booker so far, we may not even make the playoffs. We're a play in team, and may remain one all season. Anything can happen in the play ins, it's a one off.

 

[1982baskets]

It's just crazy that we're past the quarter part of the season and Beal/Book/Durant have played 0 games together, Book/Durant have played less than half together and there's been so many missed games. We knew there were injury concerns, but when you have so much star power, your stars are supposed to carry a lighter load. Beal coming into the season unhealthy was unacceptable, really. What is the offseason about? One of the main reasons why going all in for the wrong stars hurts you. We've gone in for Durant and Beal, and both don't look like players that can help you win enough regular season games. Which means Book has to play like a MVP level player, which he is not. Booker is close to the top, but I don't think he's the MVP level player that can alone carry your teams to win night in and night out.

Looking back, if you don't do the Durant trade, you likely have a lot more depth. Depth that buys you regular season wins.

 

[wagon mound 464]

Start of 3rd Q,,,Suns get bucket and up by 11 pts. Kings Death Star arrives.... Suns only hit 5 shots (10 pts} and 2 free throws (2 pts) = 12 pts for the quarter.
Kings score over 30 in that quarter.

Okogie last few games...playing great defense but horrible shooting. In the Kings game he was 0-5 and 0-3 on 3 pointers = 0 pts in 30 minutes!! Unacceptable for the minutes played, IMO.

 

[JosiahLee]

The truth is, we will never exactly know what we have untill we see the full team play together for several games. We are going to have an abundance of frustrating games to watch until then.

Still 0 games played together from the big 3. Heck I bet Book & KD haven’t even played half the games together. These injuries are extremely concerning. Seems like if Book plays back to back games he needs a game off and same for KD. They are never at full strength.

I don’t know that we should all assume they will all be available come playoff time and actually able to sustain the physicality of the playoffs for several weeks.

This team may very well already be toast. And I never thought I’d be missing Monti after only a quarter of the season.

 

[JosiahLee]

It's just crazy that we're past the quarter part of the season and Beal/Book/Durant have played 0 games together, Book/Durant have played less than half together and there's been so many missed games. We knew there were injury concerns, but when you have so much star power, your stars are supposed to carry a lighter load. Beal coming into the season unhealthy was unacceptable, really. What is the offseason about? One of the main reasons why going all in for the wrong stars hurts you. We've gone in for Durant and Beal, and both don't look like players that can help you win enough regular season games. Which means Book has to play like a MVP level player, which he is not. Booker is close to the top, but I don't think he's the MVP level player that can alone carry your teams to win night in and night out.

Looking back, if you don't do the Durant trade, you likely have a lot more depth. Depth that buys you regular season wins.

Was just thinking about a lineup that still had the twins, a young DA, even an efficient CP3. So far we are on the wrong end of these trades.

 

[JosiahLee]

Booker shot 71% from the field tonight and 2-2 from deep

Fox only shot 46% but shot the ball 10 times more times than Book

Fox 24 shots 34 pts
Book 14 shots 28 pts

I think Booker is now in the top 3 players who sees the most double teams. They’ve got to figure it out. I think they’re lazy answer is it will be different when KD and Beal are on the court.

 

[JosiahLee]

You say it’s a skeleton squad, but isn’t this the same squad we basically roll out every game?

Most games Beal doesn’t play and we only play one of Book or KD, not both.

This is kinda who we are.

 

[1982baskets]

What hurts is Mikal rarely missed time. What is going on here is this team is very top heavy, and the top is very often injured. You hire a coach who is known for defensive schemes, yet you give him a team without any defensive length and ability at the 3/2/1. It's a weird construction. I hope Jones is active at the trade deadline, because the team needs it. We don't need a big trade, but definitely a few to balance out the roster. The big question is without picks to trade, do the Suns have movable pieces? They will keep Beal, Book, Durant. Nurk/Allen/Gordon/Goodwin/Eubanks are all movable pieces. Could any of them in some combination, give the Suns a fourth perimeter player that is reliable? (Not that Beal has shown he is a reliable third player yet).

Some may think all they need is a healthy Beal, but that's not the case. We're still short on the perimeter. We still would rely heavily on non-PG's making plays against pressure defense. At the very very least this team needs a guard/wing combo that can slide between the 3 and 2, who has length, defensive ability but wouldn't have games where he would be a non-factor on offense. If I'm the GM, I'm actively looking to find this player via trade.

 

[1982baskets]

That's a more pessimistic take - the optimistic take may be well if Beal is back, he fits in. Just having Book, Beal, Durant - that opens up the floor to the other 2 players. So even players like Goodwin, Okogie, KDB, who aren't contributing a lot on offense, they would have more impact as you need less on offense. Similar, if you play Nurk and Allen, Gordon - you may have a lot of offense. The true judgement for the team comes when Beal and KD/Book all play. Because then you have a full throttle offense. Right now we see these dry spells on offense, would those happen with 3 stars?

Still, even with the optimistic view, I don't think we're good enough to win a title with this group, without at the very least 1 more defensive wing that can slide between 3 and 2 who is playable. Some of the players we have are either zero defense, or zero offense players. It's easy to double on KD/Book/Beal, this way. Or, on defense, it's easy to know where to attack.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Again, I feel this a roster building issue. We don't have two-way guys. We have players that can be good on offense (Gordon, Allen) who don't really help enough on defense or are just too small lacking the length to play defense. Or we have players that can defend a bit but have zero impact on offense.

James Jones has not built a good enough roster, it's a roster that is built to survive the regular season and pray that the big 3 peaks at the right time in the playoffs. Problem? With the health of Durant, Beal, Booker so far, we may not even make the playoffs. We're a play in team, and may remain one all season. Anything can happen in the play ins, it's a one off.

It is a roster building issue but you act like we had much better options. We didn't. What we're seeing now is the result of wasting so many high draft picks over the past dozen years. We got virtually no value out of Kendall Marshall, Alex Len, TJ Warren, Dragan Bender, Marquese Chriss, Josh Jackson and Jalen Smith. We got some use out of Ayton but ultimately, for a number 1 pick we didn't get much. Anyway, make league average value out of those picks and we wouldn't be in this mess, having to swing blindly for the fence or trying to find diamonds in trash bins.

 

[Yuma]

It is a roster building issue but you act like we had much better options. We didn't. What we're seeing now is the result of wasting so many high draft picks over the past dozen years. We got virtually no value out of Kendall Marshall, Alex Len, TJ Warren, Dragan Bender, Marquese Chriss, Josh Jackson and Jalen Smith. We got some use out of Ayton but ultimately, for a number 1 pick we didn't get much. Anyway, make league average value out of those picks and we wouldn't be in this mess, having to swing blindly for the fence or trying to find diamonds in trash bins.

JJ is much better attracting free agents than he is drafting guys. That is true!

 

[BirdGangThing]

we can knock it all we want but our bench is a big reason we're above .500 right now - i doubt there are any changes/trades in our immediate future - what i would like to see is us work on a larger line up (with what we have already)

 

[AzStevenCal]

JJ is much better attracting free agents than he is drafting guys. That is true!

I really don't know how much blame (or credit) JJ should get for anything we've done. Most of those horrible picks came while McD was GM, same with the few good picks we've had. And when McD was fired, there was always Sarver in the room so nobody knows how much control JJ actually had. And now, with Sarver gone and a new boss in town, it "appears" to many of us that JJ is just the figurehead with IT and Ish driving the key decisions. If someday we find out that JJ is a true GM genius or absolutely the worst ever at his job, neither would surprise me.

 

[wagon mound 464]

I think Booker is now in the top 3 players who sees the most double teams.

They’ve got to figure it out. I think they’re lazy answer is it will be different when KD and Beal are on the court.

 

[wagon mound 464]

This brings up the question about Beal. I either read or heard that Beal has had back pain issues during the two previous seasons.
What are the Suns therapy team or doctors doing to relieve his pain and get Beal back on the court for the past 2 months?

Is there an answer to relieve the back pain for enough hours to play?

For a 8 hour back pain relief, a Psychic suggested,

 

[Mainstreet]

I really don't know how much blame (or credit) JJ should get for anything we've done. Most of those horrible picks came while McD was GM, same with the few good picks we've had. And when McD was fired, there was always Sarver in the room so nobody knows how much control JJ actually had. And now, with Sarver gone and a new boss in town, it "appears" to many of us that JJ is just the figurehead with IT and Ish driving the key decisions. If someday we find out that JJ is a true GM genius or absolutely the worst ever at his job, neither would surprise me.

If the Suns hadn't traded for Chris Paul and added some key veterans, they will still be struggling to get out of mediocrity.

The Chris Paul trade was huge. Too bad the Suns didn't get him when he was younger.

 

[AzStevenCal]

If the Suns hadn't traded for Chris Paul and added some key veterans, they will still be struggling to get out of mediocrity.

The Chris Paul trade was huge. Too bad the Suns didn't get him when he was younger.

We would not have had the success of the past 3 seasons but I believe we'd be in much better shape today if we'd kept building with what we had. Of course, that presumes we'd have used our picks wisely and made value trades - unfortunately our Sarver history indicates otherwise.