ktar620

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

And you are able to show me that the Suns didnt do this?

Look all the reaseach and statistics playing in the world still only nets you odds of being able to pull something off. If I felt the SUns were idiots, I wouldnt invest one iota of time in them. So I can only assume theat they are doing the best job possible. Im not a kool-aider, by any means, but I am a realist.

And reality is that we will never know the facts surrounding why the SUns make the decisions they do. if you choose to speculate and end up frustrated everytime it doesnt play out the way all you armchair Point Guards seem to hope for, thats cool, its not worth the energy to me. Id rather let the organization take care of all the business, and Ill just root for the team they field. Being a fan is MUCH easier that way, trust me.

i can agree with you on that, but then what fun is the offseason? speculation is fun, even when it results in hand-wringing.

also, bc's latest quote is one to behold:

""We have experienced some pain to get here, but we've got the opportunity to add something significant to this team," Suns President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo said."

so even bc's saying "add something significant" . . . maybe he defines "significant" a lot differently than does the rest of the world. tmac and kobe are significant, no one else on the free agent horizon is significant in comparison.

 

[Chaz]

but the problem is that if we get nothing in the way of significant free agents then we didn't get any value for him at all.

What level of free agent is significant and what is the expiration date on getting value?

I consider it addition by subtraction. We have already seen a net gain IMO.

The team was better without Marbury and we unloaded Penny's contract. If nothing else I don't have to listen to people bitch about that any more.

The Googs deal was painful but it probably helped sell the team and that should please the Colangelo bashers.

 

[Joe Mama]

OK, do any others you remember Bryan Colangelo ever saying that the Marbury trade and other deals were done so the Phoenix Suns would sign a superstar? I know I don't. They have always said that it gives them the flexibility and some pieces to make moves & players who will help the team. Even in that quote above he doesn't say that they are definitely going to go and get one significant player. He says it puts them in position to significantly help the team.

How many a few really thought the Phoenix Suns were going to land Kobe Bryant or Tracy McGrady? Realistically they still are not out of the race for either player, but I know I didn't think the odds of getting either one of them were great.

Please don't forget all so that there are other ways to get good players. There will undoubtedly be several big trades this summer. Who's to say that the Phoenix Suns don't play a part in one or more of those trades?

I'm not saying everything is fantastic, and I don't worry about the moves this team will make. I just don't believe it's the end of the world if they don't get Kobe Bryant or Tracy McGrady.

Joe Mama

 

[Cheesebeef]

for me the thing that want to see this team do the most. is the thing that they have had the hardest time doing, that is sit on their roster for a while build a core and let it develop. they did it with kj, chambers, west and horny. they have some very good pieces in amare, jj and marion, i also think that barbosa, zarko and lampe may develop in to very good players. if we can find a good rebounding, shot blocking player to fill out this roster then you will have a great team in time but it will take time.

I'm sorry - I've tried to be civl here lately but this is the last straw - to compare last season's train wreck of a season and core of player to a team that EXPLODED for 55 wins in their first year together and a WC Final appearance their first year - and then a follow up WC Final appearance the next year is just flat out freaking stupid. And scotsman - do you remember what happened 3 years later when it was apparent that that group - which was regularly making the playoffs - was busted up for - oh what was it - A SUPERSTAR WITH ATTITUDE PROBLEMS? Yeah - they were finally contenders again. To compare JJ and Marion and Amare to the 88 team is just freaking ********.

 

[Chaz]

I'm sorry - I've tried to be civl here lately but this is the last straw - to compare last season's train wreck of a season and core of player to a team that EXPLODED for 55 wins in their first year together and a WC Final appearance their first year - and then a follow up WC Final appearance the next year is just flat out freaking stupid. And scotsman - do you remember what happened 3 years later when it was apparent that that group - which was regularly making the playoffs - was busted up for - oh what was it - A SUPERSTAR WITH ATTITUDE PROBLEMS? Yeah - they were finally contenders again. To compare JJ and Marion and Amare to the 88 team is just freaking ********.

The team we finished with cannot be blamed for the train wreck of a season. The team was competetive to end the season while they were worse than a train wreck to start.

The Suns finished the '87-88 season (they traded for KJ in Feb) with a 28-54 record, then they signed Chambers and won 55 games the next year. And it would be 5 years before they traded for Barkley. Would you agree that in trading Marbury the Suns got a whole new Joe Johnson?

If you want to draw parallels then this is 87-88 then it will be 5 more years before we get our Barkley and make a run at the championship. I don't think it will take that long, it may only take 2 years to get the piece that will put us over the top. The point is, it is not the end if we don't get Kobe or T-Mac this summer.

 

[Cheesebeef]

oh and scotsman - why don't we take a little look at how we built that 88 team - let's see - we traded away our best player - to get KJ and a pick and then went out and signed the BIGGEST FA ON THE MARKET - So we made a trade, picked up the biggest FA of all time - and the first I believe and then actually used our draft picks to take Majerle and Perry - as opposed to what you want us to do - which is sit on our hands - not sign any big free agents and tarde away our draft picks - yeah - but I can see where you can make the comparison between the two clubs.

My venom right now is not directed at the organization - there will be plenty of time to do that if they fail this offseason - right now myvenom is directed at those who I don't believe know what it really takes to win in this league and those people that are such homers that they can't see the forrest from the trees. You have an opportunity to go out and get absolute studs - along with having cap room to fill in around them only, like - well, NEVER - this is a huge offseason for us and anyone that believes otherwise I just don't understand for the life of me. Oh well -- went to a great Dead Show last night - nice return to form by the boys even without Jerry - very surprising - hopefully BC can have a return to form as well or maybe Jerry actually pays attention again and realizes it's time for Big Poppa to make one last move before he leaves the club.

 

[playstation]

then you are mistaken. this team we have currently is not a couple pieces away, and its not a few years away. getting a little something here and there will not give us a title, it will give us #8, aka the same mediocrity the suns had 3 years ago. if i remember correctly, the suns blew up that team because they were sick of winning 50 gms a year but never actually competing for the title. If you wanted 1st round exits, then might as well just kept the team we had, that way we could have avoided the last 3 years of less-than-mediocre basketball.

the suns have thrown away jason kidd for marbury for lampe/eisley. why is flexibility so good? i mean, if you have a great player, its better to have that player in comparison to etherial flexibility is it not? the reason you want flexibility is to bring something in as a result of that, which is greater than what was the cause of inflexibility before. well, imo, there is very little you can bring in that would be better than what we had in jkidd, or even marbury. B-level FA's don't cut it for me, not after knowing what we lost. i'm looking for UPGRADES. there were 2 opportunities this summer, and both are in jeopardy. next summer is irrelevant, if we keep the money, it will go to jj (which will probably make management happy since they can stay below the cap)

so many of you keep going back to this hope of a 'master plan', and when that comes to light everything will be cool. in true honesty, if you take all the moves the suns have made since the bo outlaw trade, and lets say that instead of the suns, these moves had been made by the milwaukee bucks, what would you think of the bucks? objectively, this looks like boneheaded cost-cutting moves that help management's bottom line. since i'm not cut in on the profits (even though I and my fellow citizens helped pay for their stadium), that makes me more than a little unhappy.

 

[Chaz]

then you are mistaken. this team we have currently is not a couple pieces away, and its not a few years away. getting a little something here and there will not give us a title, it will give us #8, aka the same mediocrity the suns had 3 years ago. if i remember correctly, the suns blew up that team because they were sick of winning 50 gms a year but never actually competing for the title. If you wanted 1st round exits, then might as well just kept the team we had, that way we could have avoided the last 3 years of less-than-mediocre basketball.

the suns have thrown away jason kidd for marbury for lampe/eisley. why is flexibility so good? i mean, if you have a great player, its better to have that player in comparison to etherial flexibility is it not? the reason you want flexibility is to bring something in as a result of that, which is greater than what was the cause of inflexibility before. well, imo, there is very little you can bring in that would be better than what we had in jkidd, or even marbury. B-level FA's don't cut it for me, not after knowing what we lost. i'm looking for UPGRADES. there were 2 opportunities this summer, and both are in jeopardy. next summer is irrelevant, if we keep the money, it will go to jj (which will probably make management happy since they can stay below the cap)

so many of you keep going back to this hope of a 'master plan', and when that comes to light everything will be cool. in true honesty, if you take all the moves the suns have made since the bo outlaw trade, and lets say that instead of the suns, these moves had been made by the milwaukee bucks, what would you think of the bucks? objectively, this looks like boneheaded cost-cutting moves that help management's bottom line. since i'm not cut in on the profits (even though I and my fellow citizens helped pay for their stadium), that makes me more than a little unhappy.

That is fine but the Suns are not the Bucks.


Personally I would rather have b-level FA added to the current team than the reality of the team that started last season.

You sure are placing pretty high value on two players that only got us to the mediocrity you seem to dispise so much.

 

[Dylan]

OK, do any others you remember Bryan Colangelo ever saying that the Marbury trade and other deals were done so the Phoenix Suns would sign a superstar? I know I don't. They have always said that it gives them the flexibility and some pieces to make moves & players who will help the team. Even in that quote above he doesn't say that they are definitely going to go and get one significant player. He says it puts them in position to significantly help the team.

How many a few really thought the Phoenix Suns were going to land Kobe Bryant or Tracy McGrady? Realistically they still are not out of the race for either player, but I know I didn't think the odds of getting either one of them were great.

Please don't forget all so that there are other ways to get good players. There will undoubtedly be several big trades this summer. Who's to say that the Phoenix Suns don't play a part in one or more of those trades?

I'm not saying everything is fantastic, and I don't worry about the moves this team will make. I just don't believe it's the end of the world if they don't get Kobe Bryant or Tracy McGrady.

Joe Mama

I'm not worried either, unless we blow up what we have. We have a core. We are not needing to go start from scratch and get a core. That is what we have spent the last couple years doing. Now we have a good, young core of JJ, Amare and Shawn. We have that.

Now, we have Lampe, Zarko, Barbosa, Jake and Vroman that add to that core.

We probably will have two #1's next year, one probably will be very high.

We have rights to Vujanic, who if he doesn't come here is good trade bait.

We have 16M in cap space.

We have aggressive ownership. I saw in an article that BC said he is excited about the FA period, and that they have some tricks up their sleeve.

He said they were certainly going to look the center position in FA

It is important to be ready if any opportuinity comes up, and they are.

I am not worried, unless they panic and make a mistake.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Well, with the performance of ownership of late, I think almost anyone to a man would be a bit skeptical here. This sort of logic leaves quite a few promises, but not a whole hell of a lot else. We are in a position where many good things are possible, but there are certainly no guarantees. We have a bunch of young guys who are fully capable of amounting to nothing, we have two future ones, which means very little in this league these days, considering you may have production in 3-4 years from that player. I'll believe the "agressive" ownership when I see it, and while the capspace is an opportunity, it also has potential for disaster.

I want to be positive here, but for people to keep saying that everything is alright, this is certainly a situation where the chances of bad seem as likely as the chances of good. At this point, I am hoping for the best, and expecting the possibility of disaster.

 

[Dylan]

I am certainly not saying everything is all right, but there are some things out of our control.

McGrady is not something that we can control. If he doesn't want to come here, we can only do so much about that. If it is a matter of giving up too much, I would not like to do that. We cannot control what Orlando wants.We can only control what Orlando would get from us, and we have to be smart here.

If Kobe is given all the stuff that Buss is talking about, and if he likes LA, and wants to cash in on all that extra money they can give him over what we can give him, then we cannot really do much about that. That is the way the rules are structured.

But all I am saying is that we have gotten ourselves in position, and a decent position, to take advantage of these or other opportunities. And in the meantime, they have put together some good talent for the future, regardless of what happens. But you cannot get all the free agents you want.

San Antonio just won a championship last year, and had lots of cap room, and they had Jermaine O'Neal out there, Jason Kidd.. and they end up with Nesterovic and Horry. They missed out as well on the big stars.

And if this Kobe and Tracy don't work out, we should be in good shape if something else comes along.

I think they are trying. They took a direction to get money and go for free agents, and they are sticking to that plan. FA's are nice cause you don't give up players to get them.

I guess I'm just a positive guy.. what can I say.

 

[Joe Mama]

I'm sorry - I've tried to be civl here lately but this is the last straw - to compare last season's train wreck of a season and core of player to a team that EXPLODED for 55 wins in their first year together and a WC Final appearance their first year - and then a follow up WC Final appearance the next year is just flat out freaking stupid. And scotsman - do you remember what happened 3 years later when it was apparent that that group - which was regularly making the playoffs - was busted up for - oh what was it - A SUPERSTAR WITH ATTITUDE PROBLEMS? Yeah - they were finally contenders again. To compare JJ and Marion and Amare to the 88 team is just freaking ********.

OK. I'm not sure why we always have to compare the current situation to situations in the past, especially for this collective bargaining agreement. Things are just different now. Trades aren't as easy. Signing free-agent isn't as easy.

The team that was regularly making the playoffs in the late eighties and early nineties was not busted up for a superstar with attitude problems. They only traded away one of their main players, and he was probably a fourth best player on the team... Jeff Hornaceck.

Charles Barkley was also a superstar who was leading his team to the Eastern conference finals. Tracy McGrady hasn't led his team out of the first round of the playoffs, and he led last year's team to exactly 21 victories in the worst record in the NBA in a weakass conference. On top of that he has backed problems and will tie up at least one third of the team's salary cap for the next 7 seasons if he is signed to an extension. Oh yeah, he also has to agree that he wants to actually play here.

Joe Mama

 

[yotes1921]

I agree with Dylan, Kobe and T-Mac are nice players, would most likely put butts in the seats. However will they win a championship? Who knows, if Amare and T-Mac don’t get along = No championship, if Amera and Kobe don’t get along ala the situation in LA = No championship. We know JJ and Amare get along and are young and still improving. Find some nice role players to play defense and do the dirty work and you may be building a championship

 

[playstation]

people get along all the time, few win titles. talent wins titles. shaq and kobe can't get along, and have 4 finals appearances and 3 titles, while darius miles and quinton richardson... well, you know

STARS WIN TITLES, WE DON'T HAVE STARS

its actually quite like baseball. having a deep team with good players is nice, it may even get you to the playoffs. once you're in, success comes with randy, curt, josh beckett, etc

i'm willing to bet that we've got our randy... where's our curt? marion is a miguel batista, and so far jj is a brian anderson (hi potential, occasionally lights out, can't ever count on him), but i don't see a curt.

 

[Joe Mama]

people get along all the time, few win titles. talent wins titles. shaq and kobe can't get along, and have 4 finals appearances and 3 titles, while darius miles and quinton richardson... well, you know

STARS WIN TITLES, WE DON'T HAVE STARS

its actually quite like baseball. having a deep team with good players is nice, it may even get you to the playoffs. once you're in, success comes with randy, curt, josh beckett, etc

i'm willing to bet that we've got our randy... where's our curt? marion is a miguel batista, and so far jj is a brian anderson (hi potential, occasionally lights out, can't ever count on him), but i don't see a curt.

I really don't like all of these comparisons to teams in the past and now baseball teams, but I'll indulge. Who was the curt shilling for last year's San Antonio Spurs? Who was the curt shilling for the Detroit Pistons? Who was the curt for the first Houston Rockets team? Everybody is basing this idea of the multiple superstars on two teams... the LA Lakers and the Chicago Bulls.

BTW, Kobe Bryant and Scottie Pippen are/were better than Tracy McGrady.

Joe Mama

 

[yotes1921]

I’m banking on JJ being our Beckett, A young player that busted out in time to win a championship. And if you use baseball the Yankees don’t help your argument and in basketball the Detroit Pistons don’t help you.. I understand you need stars, I believe Amare is one and JJ is one coming. Kobe took a back seat to Shaq in order to win those championships, if comes here the back seat is not were he wants to be.

 

[Dylan]

people get along all the time, few win titles. talent wins titles. shaq and kobe can't get along, and have 4 finals appearances and 3 titles, while darius miles and quinton richardson... well, you know

STARS WIN TITLES, WE DON'T HAVE STARS

its actually quite like baseball. having a deep team with good players is nice, it may even get you to the playoffs. once you're in, success comes with randy, curt, josh beckett, etc

i'm willing to bet that we've got our randy... where's our curt? marion is a miguel batista, and so far jj is a brian anderson (hi potential, occasionally lights out, can't ever count on him), but i don't see a curt.

Getting along matters. Basketball is a chemistry game. Sure, Shaq and Kobe won because they had Shaq. Shaq takes a lot of problems away. I wonder if Kobe was on a team without Shaq, and if he had bad chemistry with those guys, if he would have won all those titles. Shaq is Shaq, and he was the main reason they won.

Some teams win with bad chemistry. But certainly there are those that win with good chemistry. More of them, I would say. And chemistry is a reason, to a degree why some of those teams were successful.

I've seen teams with good chemistry, that played better than those that don't who were the more talented team.

 

[scotsman13]

cheese, i guess it comes down to how you view amare. you seem to feel that he is a nice player and may become a star some day, but not a superstar. i feel that he is a star now and will be a superstar in a year or two. you feel that marion is an ancher around this teams neck while i feel that he is a star who does all the little things that help team be successful. i think that joe johnson is a star in the make who might become a second teir superstar with his all round game and the ability to score at the end of the game.


you dont think that this team is anything like the 88 team, to me it they are all to close with one change. amare is chambers (but as a rookie and with barkley mean streak), marion is thunder dan (with out the bad back and rebounding that dan couldnt ever do), jj is kj young rookie we got his first season in the nba and grow to be one of the best guards in the nba in time (kj had his injuries, jj has his willingness to drop his game to help others).
this group we dont need to worry about trading for barkley we already have him in amare. now we just need to find our ainge, ced and west and wait for a little while.

 

[playstation]

i understand that nothing is in stone, and if you wished to argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer, you could point to my uncle who has smoked 2 packs a day for 22 years and is fine. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean smoking is fine

michael and scottie
shaq and kobe
magic and kareem
bird and mchale
duncan and robinson (in 99)

it works

 

[yotes1921]

The original discussion was chemistry, In all those scenarios the tandems had good chemistry. Except for Shaq and Kobe. As I pointed out Kobe took the back seat to Shaq, if he is traded it will be so he can be the man. I would much rather have a bid man as the go to guy then a guard.

 

[Skkorpion]

Guards and/or centers dominate championship winning teams. A power forward is unlikely to be the centerpiece of a championship team.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

then you are mistaken. this team we have currently is not a couple pieces away, and its not a few years away. getting a little something here and there will not give us a title, it will give us #8, aka the same mediocrity the suns had 3 years ago. if i remember correctly, the suns blew up that team because they were sick of winning 50 gms a year but never actually competing for the title. If you wanted 1st round exits, then might as well just kept the team we had, that way we could have avoided the last 3 years of less-than-mediocre basketball.

the suns have thrown away jason kidd for marbury for lampe/eisley. why is flexibility so good? i mean, if you have a great player, its better to have that player in comparison to etherial flexibility is it not? the reason you want flexibility is to bring something in as a result of that, which is greater than what was the cause of inflexibility before. well, imo, there is very little you can bring in that would be better than what we had in jkidd, or even marbury. B-level FA's don't cut it for me, not after knowing what we lost. i'm looking for UPGRADES. there were 2 opportunities this summer, and both are in jeopardy. next summer is irrelevant, if we keep the money, it will go to jj (which will probably make management happy since they can stay below the cap)

so many of you keep going back to this hope of a 'master plan', and when that comes to light everything will be cool. in true honesty, if you take all the moves the suns have made since the bo outlaw trade, and lets say that instead of the suns, these moves had been made by the milwaukee bucks, what would you think of the bucks? objectively, this looks like boneheaded cost-cutting moves that help management's bottom line. since i'm not cut in on the profits (even though I and my fellow citizens helped pay for their stadium), that makes me more than a little unhappy.

other than the anger re: the stadium, which i was for, i agree with this. very well-thought out, rational description of my thoughts too.

 

[slinslin]

Guards and/or centers dominate championship winning teams. A power forward is unlikely to be the centerpiece of a championship team.

So we just call Amare a center now and our championship chances go up 2 notches.

Hakeem = No bigger than Amare

Half of the final MVPs "centers" were as big or smaller than Amare.

Bird and McHale were both forwards....

...

I

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I'm not worried either, unless we blow up what we have. We have a core. We are not needing to go start from scratch and get a core. That is what we have spent the last couple years doing. Now we have a good, young core of JJ, Amare and Shawn. We have that.

Now, we have Lampe, Zarko, Barbosa, Jake and Vroman that add to that core.

We probably will have two #1's next year, one probably will be very high.

We have rights to Vujanic, who if he doesn't come here is good trade bait.

We have 16M in cap space.

We have aggressive ownership. I saw in an article that BC said he is excited about the FA period, and that they have some tricks up their sleeve.

He said they were certainly going to look the center position in FA

It is important to be ready if any opportuinity comes up, and they are.

I am not worried, unless they panic and make a mistake.

dude, the sausage king was a second round pick for a reason. to include him as part of our "core" is silly at this point.

and if vujanic doesn't come now his "trade value" is minimal at best. who's gonna trade for a dude that shows little interest in coming to the league and continues to age?

as for the two #1s next year . . . i'll bet we only have one. in the past year we have shown very little affinity for our first round selections.

and, at this point, given the googs/longley summer, i am very worried that they will, indeed, panic.

 

[Skkorpion]

slin, I don't know what to make of Amare. Maybe he's unique. He sure is exciting.

Bird and McHale also had Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson and Ainge for help.

I'd still trade Amare for Shaq, even if it cost me Marion or JJ as well. Good forwards are the most common commodity in the NBA. Great centers are rare.