Pacers @ Suns 11-27-18

[AzStevenCal]

I understand all the points but we are still the worst team in the NBA.... the freaking worst! Now we are saying well the team is competitive cause we don't lose by 20 every game? Is that what it's become? Honestly if I were to poll before the season and said do you believe after 20 games the suns will have the worst record? How many are saying yes..... that is not freaking improvement....that is not a coach who is leading and providing direction. Get out with this competitive nonsense we are dead stinking last. Even after all that this is my team and I stand by them 100% .....but I still believe wrong coach wrong GM and wrong direction.

We are worse so far than most of us expected but not appreciably so. We've had a fairly tough schedule and a lot of growing pains but I still expect us to win close to 30 games this season. Not impressive by any means, but if you try and build Rome in a day you can count on picking through the ruins the day after.

 

[Mainstreet]

We are worse so far than most of us expected but not appreciably so. We've had a fairly tough schedule and a lot of growing pains but I still expect us to win close to 30 games this season. Not impressive by any means, but if you try and build Rome in a day you can count on picking through the ruins the day after.

If the Suns win close to 30 games without a point guard and power forward this season will be a success.

It's hard to see them getting there without improving their roster from the outside.

 

[BC867]

We are worse so far than most of us expected but not appreciably so. We've had a fairly tough schedule and a lot of growing pains but I still expect us to win close to 30 games this season. Not impressive by any means, but if you try and build Rome in a day you can count on picking through the ruins the day after.

If only the Suns futility were just "a day".

There have been a lot of days of starting over (GM, Head Coach), roster turnovers. But we've been picking through the ruins for a lot of days. Right up until now.

 

[AzStevenCal]

If only the Suns futility were just "a day".

There have been a lot of days of starting over (GM, Head Coach), roster turnovers. But we've been picking through the ruins for a lot of days. Right up until now.

You're not wrong but what happened 8 years ago and 5 years ago has little to do with our current direction. I mark this era by the decision to tank which happened about 2 and a half years ago. We turned ourselves into the worst team in the league and now we're a young talented team playing against mature talented teams and guess who has the edge. It's going to take time whether we want it to or not.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

We are worse so far than most of us expected but not appreciably so. We've had a fairly tough schedule and a lot of growing pains but I still expect us to win close to 30 games this season. Not impressive by any means, but if you try and build Rome in a day you can count on picking through the ruins the day after.

I don’t see how they approach 30 wins at this juncture. That would require them winning 26 of 60 games. You think this squad can go 26-34 the rest of the season?

 

[AzStevenCal]

I don’t see how they approach 30 wins at this juncture. That would require them winning 26 of 60 games. You think this squad can go 26-34 the rest of the season?

Yeah, I think we'll get close to 30 wins though I doubt we quite reach it. Booker is finally rounding into form and our remaining schedule isn't quite as tough as what we started with. That, along with growth from Ayton and Bridges should let us start holding onto some of these late game leads we've been losing. But that's assuming we don't decide to tank again.

 

[1Sun]

Well, right now we are on pace to win 16 for the year. Perhaps we should be discussing whether or not we get to 20 wins (as opposed to 30).

 

[1tinsoldier]

I understand all the points but we are still the worst team in the NBA.... the freaking worst! Now we are saying well the team is competitive cause we don't lose by 20 every game? Is that what it's become? Honestly if I were to poll before the season and said do you believe after 20 games the suns will have the worst record? How many are saying yes..... that is not freaking improvement....that is not a coach who is leading and providing direction. Get out with this competitive nonsense we are dead stinking last. Even after all that this is my team and I stand by them 100% .....but I still believe wrong coach wrong GM and wrong direction.

i believe that is a fair assessment of the situation
but i'll confess that i'm content with just "competing" because if we're not ultimately competing for a playoff spot, i want to be rewarded with a good draft pick

actually the worst outcome i can think of is to win 30 and Igor is retained for next season

my prediction, however, is that without Canaan (addition by subtraction), and if everyone stays healthy, we're going to look closer to being what everyone predicted before the season started.

 

[Hoop Head]

actually the worst outcome i can think of is to win 30 and Igor is retained for next season

So you want Igor to get the boot after this season, regardless of record?

I'm not understanding that part of your post. If we can somehow rattle off enough wins to finish with 30+ wins that would be a positive for sure. It would take a 26-36 record for us to reach 30 wins from this point forward. I think that's possible and if we win more than 26 games in our next 62 then why shouldn't Igor be retained? I believe that would show he got off to a rocky start, like most rookies do, but managed to find his way sooner than later. It would be much better than finishing strong in our final 10-20 games, for instance, because if we can turn the corner now and play good basketball for the 5 months of the season that is a lot longer than we were playing terribly.

 

[1tinsoldier]

So you want Igor to get the boot after this season, regardless of record?

absolutely.
it may sound unreasonable. but i don't trust his judgement based on the problems i'm seeing on the court that are not being addressed. i don't believe he's teaching them the right things. if he is, i'd hold him accountable for the players not respecting his authority.

in other words
if the Suns win 30 this season with Igor, i believe they'd win 40 with a good coach.
and, more importantly, Ayton, JJ, Bridges, and Okobo would be better developed

 

[Krangodnzr]

absolutely.
it may sound unreasonable. but i don't trust his judgement based on the problems i'm seeing on the court that are not being addressed. i don't believe he's teaching them the right things. if he is, i'd hold him accountable for the players not respecting his authority.

in other words
if the Suns win 30 this season with Igor, i believe they'd win 40 with a good coach.
and, more importantly, Ayton, JJ, Bridges, and Okobo would be better developed

40 wins??? With the way the players on this team has played? If Ayton were averaging 22/12, I could see it, but the largest problem with this team right now is talent.

 

[1Sun]

40 wins??? With the way the players on this team has played? If Ayton were averaging 22/12, I could see it, but the largest problem with this team right now is talent.

And yet we are a significantly more talented team than last year and still on our way to a worse record...

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

And yet we are a significantly more talented team than last year and still on our way to a worse record...

This team is only a little more talented and most of the talent upgrades are rookies that are still trying to learn the NBA game. On top of that the Suns have had something like the 2nd hardest schedule so far this season and have been learning an actual offensive system instead of just going out there with no real structure like they have been doing the last few years. Learning a system means that there will be growing pains while the players get comfortable executing things the way they are designed to be executed. Now add the tough schedule, learning a system and starting two rookies all together and it makes sense that they have struggled so much early on.

 

[95pro]

This team is only a little more talented and most of the talent upgrades are rookies that are still trying to learn the NBA game. On top of that the Suns have had something like the 2nd hardest schedule so far this season and have been learning an actual offensive system instead of just going out there with no real structure like they have been doing the last few years. Learning a system means that there will be growing pains while the players get comfortable executing things the way they are designed to be executed. Now add the tough schedule, learning a system and starting two rookies all together and it makes sense that they have struggled so much early on.

Plus pretty much a new roster. Booker and TJ are from the "old" era, that's it.

Bender newish
Daniels newish
JJ newish
Holmes new
Bridges new
Ayton new
Crawford new
Ariza new
Anderson new

That's 5 out of the 8/9 players that are getting significant minutes. Over half this team has never played with each other.

 

[1Sun]

This team is only a little more talented and most of the talent upgrades are rookies that are still trying to learn the NBA game. On top of that the Suns have had something like the 2nd hardest schedule so far this season and have been learning an actual offensive system instead of just going out there with no real structure like they have been doing the last few years. Learning a system means that there will be growing pains while the players get comfortable executing things the way they are designed to be executed. Now add the tough schedule, learning a system and starting two rookies all together and it makes sense that they have struggled so much early on.

That is still no excuse for the likes of the home loss to the Nets and the road loss to a bad Bulls team missing 3/5 of its starting line-up...

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

That is still no excuse for the likes of the home loss to the Nets and the road loss to a bad Bulls team missing 3/5 of its starting line-up...

Young teams play down to their opposition some times. The Bulls game it looked like they just took them lightly and because they didn't have all their players they thought could win easily. Even good teams do that quite a bit. GS the last few years for instance should have essentially won every game and blew out bad teams every time, but there have been a ton of games the last couple years where they were simply coasting and either lost to an inferior team or got into close games with bad teams. Unfortunately we are not good enough to get away with less than 100% effort, but when we bring that effort we compete with virtually everyone.

Also that Brooklyn game happened earlier in the season when the team wasn't consistently competing like they have been. If we could have that game again now I think it is certainly far more competitive and the Suns have a good shot at winning it.