Off-season now over- happy with the moves?

[Amare32]

players added

Kurt Thomas
Raja Bell
Bois Diaw
Brian Grant
Pat Burke
James Jones
Eddie House
Dijon Thompson

Players Lost

Joe Johnson
Steven Hunter
Quentin Richardson
Jake Voskhul


We added plenty of depth this summer but lost a key shooting guard in Joe Johnson who could turn out to be a top quailty player. But added Raja Bell a suitable replacement who should replace JJ's outside shooting. We may not win as many games but we should be better for the post season in matching up with the Spurs.

BTW I may do some game previews for pre-season, to get things started again

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

until amare is actually signed to an extension, no, i'm not happy.

 

[Tank]

We also lost Paul Shirley

 

[Chaplin]

Assuming Amare signs his extension, I'm pretty happy with our offseason. I think a lot of us have been in danger of being too enthusiastic about last season. I hope we can duplicate it. But I seriously have doubts that, had we kept JJ and Q, we'd have the same kind of season, ESPECIALLY over the first few months. To top that off, we would have been permanently hamstrung by huge contracts.

 

[nathan]

The JJ situation was what it was. Ultimately the team is in a better financial position. Kurt Thomas, Raja Bell and James Jones should be quality players, but I would have liked to have a backup center (namely Steven Hunter).

 

[KANIDJA]

Amare said on AZ Sports Report last night that "Suns organization believed in me from the start, and it would only be fair that I return the favor and sign the contract. It shoud be done before the training camp."
Its going to be 5 year 72 mill.

I love the additions. Diaw is going be a huge addition. We should sign him to the long term as soon as possible. He can do everything except shoot - and if I remember correctly, JJ was not a good shooter when he came to the Suns. That is something that can be worked on.

 

[nathan]

I love the additions. Diaw is going be a huge addition. We should sign him to the long term as soon as possible. He can do everything except shoot - and if I remember correctly, JJ was not a good shooter when he came to the Suns. That is something that can be worked on.

You do realize he averaged 4.8 pts for one of the worst teams in the league, right?

 

[Mainstreet]

I believe Lucas Tischer should be on the "players added" list as he is listed on the Suns roster. I'm sure it was just an oversight.

Anyone know if Lonnie Jones is coming to the Suns Camp?

 

[fordronken]

I like 'em. I'd love to have kept Joe Johnson, but not for that money. And I like the draft picks.

 

[sunsfn]

We lost Bo Outlaw and Walter McCarty also.

JJ was always a good shooter, even in college.

I still say that Diaw and Jones are going to need a year to mesh and prove they can play. They are both 2nd round picks that did not get off the bench in their first year, and Jones played part of the season because of the brawl and suspensions. Diaw did not have a good year in Atlanta.

However, they both have ability and I would like one or both of them to prove me wrong and be a contributor this year.

But I am hoping to seeing Barbosa and Bell step up at at guard and with JJackson we should be in good shape there.
I do not expect to see Thompson or Tischer play much at all this year.

Whoops, I forgot about House. He will be a good veteran off the bench that can score.

With the Cards in the toilet and the D-backs winding down, baketball can not start fast enough for me.

-

 

[Arizona's Finest]

I like 'em. I'd love to have kept Joe Johnson, but not for that money. And I like the draft picks.

Reading my mind

 

[Arizona's Finest]

With the Cards in the toilet and the D-backs winding down, basketball can not start fast enough for me.

Amen to that too.....sigh...i had such big hopes for all my teams this year......I will have to be put on suicide watch if the Suns struggle as well

 

[KANIDJA]

You do realize he averaged 4.8 pts for one of the worst teams in the league, right?

You do realize he played for Hawks, not the Suns? Did you watch the European championship? He is going to have a breakout season. Mark my words.

 

[sunsfn]

With the Cards in the toilet and the D-backs winding down, basketball can not start fast enough for me.

Amen to that too.....sigh...i had such big hopes for all my teams this year......I will have to be put on suicide watch if the Suns struggle as well

I moved here from MN and the Vikings are the football team I follow. They started out 0-2 and I wanted to throw up........!

It is so hard to follow the cards!!! I try every year.......but it sure is difficult.
I know all about Denny Green. He was hated in MN because he is so full of himself. He usually had good drafts though.

-

 

[SirStefan32]

Losing JJ sucked, but yes, overall, I am happy.

 

[George O'Brien]

Overall I'd give the Suns a B grade. It may get upgraded if Diaw turns into a star and/or Grant returns to health; but for a team with only an MLE to work with it was a solid summer.

Obviously what looks good on paper is not necessarily something that will prove out on the court.

Losing JJ is going to hurt although the deal is beginning to look like a solid trade and avoided some obvious salary cap problems. Bell, Jones and Diaw all look like they can help, but there is still likely to be at least some drop off.

Hunter got seriously overpaid by the Sixers and getting Grant could easily prove to be a big improvement.

Kurt Thomas replaceds Richardson in the starting lineup (Marion moves back to SF) and should be a huge improvement defensively and probably a major help offensively as well (less range but a much higher percentage shooter).

Burke and House seem likely to end up deep on the bench, but they look to be a lot more productive than Voskuhl, Outlaw, and Shirley.

IMHO, it was a productive summer.

 

[nathan]

Hunter got seriously overpaid by the Sixers and getting Grant could easily prove to be a big improvement.

I am not so sure that 17 million over 5 years equates to being grossly overpaid. I would take Hunter at that price. Now Jerome James is someone who is really overpaid.

 

[George O'Brien]

I am not so sure that 17 million over 5 years equates to being grossly overpaid. I would take Hunter at that price. Now Jerome James is someone who is really overpaid.

For the Suns, anything over the $1.7 LLE was simply out of their price range. The Suns used their money on Bell, a possible starter rather than Hunter.

Since I was down on Hunter before he signed with the Sixers, my case was this:

1. Hunter has no offensive skills. He scores if he is wide open under the basket, but that's it.

2. Hunter is a below average rebounder. Voskuhl had more rebounds per minute played.

3. Hunter is not strong enough to defend the post. He did OK against thin big men like Gasol, but stronger guys just shoved him out of the way.

4. Hunter was very slow in learning to play defense. Interior defense is mostly about rotations, but he was constantly trying to block shots rather than rotate properly. It was what got him relegated to the bench on the Magic and he seems to be slow learner.

From all evidence he's a wonderful human being and did some nice things, but his weak overall game meant D'Antoni was no willing to leave in the lineup very much.

If even close to healthy, Grant is a vastly superior player in all areas except blocked shots.

 

[sunsfn]

Hunters main contribution is shot blocking. And that is a contribution that is important to every team. That was what I liked about big Jake. Even though big Jake was slow, he could block shots and would stop the other team from driving the lane while he was in.

Hunter will get better in the next couple years, he is still only 23 year old.

I was hoping the suns would find a shot blocker, but it does not appear they will now.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

I agree that shot blocking is important, but if I remember right - Jake was a horrible shot blocker.

Another thing to notice is that with KT bodying men up, Amare will be able to go back to weakside blocking. He has a knack for it as long as he isn't the only big man on the floor. I mean he did block 10 in a game before.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Hunter will get better in the next couple years, he is still only 23 year old.

He hasn't gotten any better since getting into the league. I would say that it is about 50-50 that he will improve a lot more than we saw this past season.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

You do realize he played for Hawks, not the Suns? Did you watch the European championship? He is going to have a breakout season. Mark my words.

You do realize that he did that in the summer league last year right? Just like Barbosa.

Chad Ford said it best:

"A good summer league performance means nothing when translating into the NBA. A bad one means you are in trouble".


Was I happy about Diaw's performance? Of course, but I am going to remain cautious. At this point I am not penciling him in for any meaningful minutes.

 

[Treesquid PhD]

You do realize he played for Hawks, not the Suns? Did you watch the European championship? He is going to have a breakout season. Mark my words.

Words marked! I think making the all European Championships team definately translates into gauranteed NBA success. Good call dude!

In related news I dominated a pick up game against 3 midgets on a 12 foot hoop, I think I am also ready to be signed.

kthxbye

 

[Treesquid PhD]

Overall I'd give the Suns a B grade. It may get upgraded if Diaw turns into a star and/or Grant returns to health; but for a team with only an MLE to work with it was a solid summer.

Obviously what looks good on paper is not necessarily something that will prove out on the court.

Losing JJ is going to hurt although the deal is beginning to look like a solid trade and avoided some obvious salary cap problems. Bell, Jones and Diaw all look like they can help, but there is still likely to be at least some drop off.

Hunter got seriously overpaid by the Sixers and getting Grant could easily prove to be a big improvement.

Kurt Thomas replaceds Richardson in the starting lineup (Marion moves back to SF) and should be a huge improvement defensively and probably a major help offensively as well (less range but a much higher percentage shooter).

Burke and House seem likely to end up deep on the bench, but they look to be a lot more productive than Voskuhl, Outlaw, and Shirley.

IMHO, it was a productive summer.

I agree on paper I give it a B-



Positives

Gained better depth

Reduced a bad contract situation in Q

Improved perimeter D



Negatives

Lost JJ (#1 priority)

Have not signed Amare (#2 priority)





I think a lot really of the Suns off-season grades come down to how good of a player Bell really is and can be in this system. Some might think he is pure defense but most know the guy has shooting abilities but Utah is not the system to just run down the court and launch 3's, unless you like being on the bench.

If Bell can stroke it and say hit 42% from 3 then I think your drop off from JJ is relatively low from a points perspective. I certainly can see a player like Bell averaging 15 in a starting role with the Suns.

I honestly will admit I know very little about Jones so total Wild card here.

Daiw some think he is the greatest ever for some reason but again I don't know much other than what little video I have seen him in and vague images of him playing in garbage time against the Suns during 35 point blow out.

Now my main concerns are more around the starters and their new team roles.

Nash: minuets, minuets, minuets, I hope one of these guys can spell him I don't think we can run this guy down every game like we did last season. As conditioned as he is it still concerns me that too much time will eventually burn the Suns.

Amare I have a lot of confidence in this guy and I think will fully be able to be the man on this team this season. Not too much concern other than has he improved his overall game to the next level, which is really the very top.

Marion arguable had his best season as a Suns playing out of position, where he was able to pretty much out run other 4's and racking up insane rebounds and garbage points. I think he is capable of doing all of this at the 3, but....I just hope he does not fall back to his three point obsession that I was seeing the previous 2 seasons. Marion is not a good three point shooter, at times when open he is capable of draining them but it definitely is not something I would list as strength.

eh im tired of typing.

 

[George O'Brien]

Tree, you really don't pay much attention to the qualifiers that all of us put when it comes to Boris. We just don't know if what he did with France will translate into success on the Suns.

On the plus side, some pretty good players fell flat on their faces in Europe this summer and many other were wildly inconsistent. Boris certainly proved he has the ABILITY to contribute as his two super dunks on Kirilenko showed (people who saw the video were raving about it for weeks). Only Dirk's super human performance for a very weak German team kept Diaw from being the MVP.

On the minus side, Boris was a backup on the worst team in the NBA the last two seasons.

After over a month of reading about Bobo's European adventure, I am at a complete loss to explain the discrepancy. How does a guy who averaged under 5 ppg with the Hawks and under 10 ppg with Tau all of a sudden become a serious offensive threat? How does a guy who shot under 20% for three hit 43% of his Euro threes?

The whole situation is just too weird. I still have no clue as to whether any of this will translate into being an effective NBA player. I can list a series of possible explanations for why he's suddenly become really good, but I'm not sure I believe them.

1. Confidence - Diaw is young, came into a strange environment (the Hawks were more than strange), on a team with no leadership and with his struggles he lost his confidence. Eurobasket will restore that.

2. Lack of Team Play - Boris is not a guy who is focused on making his own shot, so he rarely got the ball when he was open. The French team was a lot more team oriented (eventually) and so he got better looks.

3. Open Court Play - The Hawks were not a running team and so Diaw's effectiveness in the open court was not capitalized on. The French pushed the ball and it helped Diaw's game.

4. Better Team Defense Helped His Defense - Boris was widely regarded as a good defender, but it was hard to tell on a Hawks team that ranked last in opponent's shooting percentage. The French team was generally pretty good on defense (after they got used to playing together) and Boris's defense really stuck out.

But before getting carried away, it should be noted that in the 2002-03 season, JJ after shooting only 39.7% for the year had a great run of games at the end of the season. Everyone was convinced he had turned the corner, only to play very poorly the first two months of 2003-04. At the time Marbury was traded, JJ was shooting around 39% and under 30% for three.

JJ had several "false springs" before finally playing consistently well. Even if Boris is going to become an outstanding player at some point, it seems unlikely that he will be a consistent producer for while.