Penny Goes Off

[Chris_Sanders]

Well perhaps if you didn't preface your statement by saying "I find it funny that people like Chris Sanders..."

You could just state your opinion without lumping people into groups. I found it especially annoying since I have, as I said, been a staunch supporter of Penny since last year.

When Penny is playing on the court and letting his actions garner him the attention he seems to crave, I really like Penny Hardaway.

When he turns into the Nickel aka "team cancer", I could care less if he ever plays for the Suns again. While you may think this is a "kick in the pants" thing. I can easily seeing it brewing into another war within the Suns.

I believe in a team environment. You win as a team and you lose as a team. Everyone shares responsibility and criticism.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Like I said in the beginning, I thought Hardaway's comments were on the mark. At times everyone on this team plays selfish ball. However, if people moved without the ball, they might get passed to once and a while.


With that said, I think it was just stupid of him to claim that ANYONE on the team cares more about personal recognition than winning. Even if he honestly believes that to be the truth, that is nothing for the public to hear. It is just plain horrible to do.


Granted I never read the sports page except for suns stuff, but has anyone else even heard of this writer? I mean she was listed as "Republic Columnist" at the top of the page. Maybe she was trying to get her "big break" and like Elindholm said, falsified some of the details.

 

[George O'Brien]

That's often due to a poor (low) arc. I haven't studied Johnson's shot enough to notice whether this is an issue, but I'll look out for it.

You may be right. JJ's shot is not nearly as flat as some guys like Juwan Howard, but guys with good arch tend to go either in or out without rimming.

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by thegrahamcrackr
Like I said in the beginning, I thought Hardaway's comments were on the mark. At times everyone on this team plays selfish ball. However, if people moved without the ball, they might get passed to once and a while.


With that said, I think it was just stupid of him to claim that ANYONE on the team cares more about personal recognition than winning. Even if he honestly believes that to be the truth, that is nothing for the public to hear. It is just plain horrible to do.


Granted I never read the sports page except for suns stuff, but has anyone else even heard of this writer? I mean she was listed as "Republic Columnist" at the top of the page. Maybe she was trying to get her "big break" and like Elindholm said, falsified some of the details.

I've always thought that Paula Boivin was the best sports writer the Republic has (although Bob Young is pretty good). I'm surprised that you've never heard of her graham.

I do think that it was stupid to come out and say what he said in the media, even though he's right.

Now whether this translates into a problem with the team, I guess we'll see. But this has happened before in a much more extreme way, and it didn't really affect the team then.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Joe Johnson...

The only player I have ever seen who in one minute can go from looking like Reggie Miller playing hoops to Dennis Miller

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Originally posted by Chaplin
I've always thought that Paula Boivin was the best sports writer the Republic has (although Bob Young is pretty good). I'm surprised that you've never heard of her graham.

I do think that it was stupid to come out and say what he said in the media, even though he's right.

Now whether this translates into a problem with the team, I guess we'll see. But this has happened before in a much more extreme way, and it didn't really affect the team then.

Didn't Hardaway and Marbury have a fist fight once?

 

[Dr. Dumas]

I can't understand why Penny doesn't let the new coach do the talking.
Regardless of what was meant by his speech, every player on this team will formulate their own personal opinion which can go anywhere from he was right, to, that was directed at me. This kind of crap has the possibiltites of setting the team backwards (which the Suns don't need with injuries & coaching changes).

 

[Joe Mama]

Originally posted by Chaplin
I do think that it was stupid to come out and say what he said in the media, even though he's right.

And there it is. It may be right, but it should not have been said in the media. If he had said something like, "at times we are not playing like a team but instead like individuals trying to get our own shots," or something like that I would not have had a problem. But instead he comes out and says that there are players putting their own agendas (and All-Star appearance) before the better of the team. He's basically accusing people of being bad teammates. And if he wanted to make that accusation he should have done it in a team meeting or in the locker room when there were no journalists around.

I definitely think Marbury plays at times like he wants to win the game by himself. I said several times that I think he tries to bad his numbers at times. For example at the end of one of the losses last week he ran down and scored a layup with 2 seconds left when they were down by 5-6 points. But I don't think he is playing just to get into the All-Star game. I still think his teammates need to do a better job of moving without the ball to get into position to get involved.

Joe Mama

 

[sly fly]

Msdundee... Welcome.

To reiterate:

- Penny was right about the young players.

- JJ is hurting this team with his poor shooting.

- Marbury needs to have his teammates knock down shots.

- Marion is having a poor shooting year. And, hasn't shown great ball IQ.

- All this equals one lousy year.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Originally posted by Chaplin
I've always thought that Paula Boivin was the best sports writer the Republic has (although Bob Young is pretty good). I'm surprised that you've never heard of her graham.

To tell you the truth, I haven't actually purchased a news paper since I moved out (about 18 months or so now). I never found the need when I could just read articles online. The only sport I follow is basketball, and Bob Young/Dan Bickley dominate the republic's articles.

Thanks for the follow up.

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by thegrahamcrackr
To tell you the truth, I haven't actually purchased a news paper since I moved out (about 18 months or so now). I never found the need when I could just read articles online. The only sport I follow is basketball, and Bob Young/Dan Bickley dominate the republic's articles.

Thanks for the follow up.

I don't have the Republic either--they charge an insane amount of money to send it here in California, but I do read AZCentral every day, several times a day. She is basically like Bickley, but always seemed to me to have a lot more intelligence.

 

[devilalum]

Originally posted by msdundee
"He's basically agreeing with Hardaway that some of the players have wanted to get some of the attention that other players were getting last year during the success."

I believe Penny's comment was more likely directed at Marion, and Shawn as much as admitted it with statements in a recent article in the Trib. Said he felt "left out" of the offense this year, said "everyone knows this is Steph's and my team." Marion mailed it in most games until Amare went down, and at that point he very suddenly and obviously picked it up big-time. Before last year he got most of the attention. Now we have a new boy wonder who's getting all the press and his feelings were hurt. The NBA is full of egos.

It is very curious the way Marion's game took off when Amare went down. It goes way beyond just filling a void.

I absolutely thought Penny was talking about Marion when I read the Article this morning.

During the Suns 1-6 streak Marion's averaging about 25 and 10 and about .........................1.5 assists.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Originally posted by devilalum

During the Suns 1-6 streak Marion's averaging about 25 and 10 and about .........................1.5 assists.

Penny is averaging 3 assits, compared to a career average of 5.7.

Marion is averaging 2.3 assists instead of a career average of 1.9.

 

[msdundee]

and Penny's averaging 25 minutes per game, Shawn averaging just under 40.

 

[scotsman13]

let me get this right? penny is conplaining about a teammate that is trying to ring up 25 points and 10 assists? 10 assist? 10 assists is over 20 points give to teammates in a scoring spot. if i am ringing up 10 assist that is more then jk is doing now a game and everyone in the nba wants to play with him right . to me this is an attack on marbury, if it is a quote from penny then penny needs to have his co-captainship taken away and sit out a couple game for conduct ditermental to the team. marbury is this teams star followed by marion and amare, not penny. penny is a hang over from another age and the only reason that he is still around is because of his contract. if he doesnt like it here then at the end of the season he can get out of his contract and go somewhere else.

 

[devilalum]

Originally posted by thegrahamcrackr
Penny is averaging 3 assits, compared to a career average of 5.7.

Marion is averaging 2.3 assists instead of a career average of 1.9.

Is this over the last 8 games or for the season?

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

The season, it wasn't worth the time to actually get the stats over the 8 game period.

However, even if Marion was averaging 1.5 assists over those 8 games, it would only be .4 assists off of his career average.

He was definitely averaging more than .8 points above his career average, so it works out for the better.


My point is Marion is not supposed to get a lot of assists. His style of play doesn't provide many opportunities for it. He doesn't drive inside (although he should), he gets his points off of spot ups, fast breaks and put backs. There isn't a lot of chances to get an assist out of that style.

 

[George O'Brien]

Shawn might get more assists on breaks, but he is probably the best closer anyway.

Most the reviews I've read about Marion is that he is not yet considered a good ball handler. It would be nice if he could learn to make interior passes off the penitration, but I'm not sure the Suns have pushed him to develop this.

 

[Errntknght]

Penny is a jerk when it comes to talking to the media, but I don't think the other players will pay much attention... 'yeah, he's a jerk but he's our jerk' sort of reaction. The main thing is the team play is slowly improving and it will start to show up in the WL columns. Right now the team loses it's discipline when it gets under pressure in the fourth quarter but that should come around.

One thing I noticed during the Portland game was that D'Antoni called off the atrocious doubling down they were using at the start. Hopefully, he'll get it closer to right even quicker the next game. It seems to me FJ persisted longer with such things when they weren't working.

I've seen one bad sign about D' - he's an activist along the sideline. After Ainge's theatrics, Skiles screeching, and Frank's frantic gesticulations I'm worried. I'd love to see a coach on our sideline that at least acts like he believes he's gotten the team well prepared.

And when it comes to the arch on JJ's shot - it's beautiful most of the time even when he's missing.

 

[Joe Mama]

Originally posted by Errntknght

One thing I noticed during the Portland game was that D'Antoni called off the atrocious doubling down they were using at the start. Hopefully, he'll get it closer to right even quicker the next game. It seems to me FJ persisted longer with such things when they weren't working.

I've seen one bad sign about D' - he's an activist along the sideline. After Ainge's theatrics, Skiles screeching, and Frank's frantic gesticulations I'm worried. I'd love to see a coach on our sideline that at least acts like he believes he's gotten the team well prepared.

And when it comes to the arch on JJ's shot - it's beautiful most of the time even when he's missing.

Frank Johnson literally have the Phoenix Suns double teaming and scrambling on defense 99% of the time. It didn't matter of the other team had figured out how to get easy shots or if they were killing the defense. He would just blame it on the players for poor execution.

I respectfully disagree about D'Antoni's sideline theatrics. Last night against Portland he was more animated, but for the most part it seems pretty calm. I'd definitely wouldn't put him anywhere near the class of sideline hyperactives like Danny Ainge and Frank Johnson.

I think what's most frustrating about JJ's shooting is that for the most part is shot does look very nice. It just won't go in the basket with any consistency.

Joe Mama

 

[George O'Brien]

The Suns really do need a great low post defender, so there isn't a need to double the Duncans and Garnetts of the world to keep them below 30 points.

Part of their problem with doubling is that they do get back into position fast enough once the ball is passed out of the double team. I would rather see straight man defense most of the time and get the players to focus on stopping their guy rather than expecting help all the time.

 

[PhiLLmattiC]

Theres a lot of things about this team that you guys don't know and maybe Penny Hardaway is speaking on some of those things. No one had any idea that Bo Outlaw was a bad guy in the locker room last year. Everyone thought he was a team first hustle guy. So while you're all speculating on what his comments actually just remember is only speculation and you shouldn't judge his character on that.

 

[George O'Brien]

No one had any idea that Bo Outlaw was a bad guy in the locker room last year.

I read the same reports but have not heard any details. If Bo was a problem, it did not continue onto the court.

As for Penny, I'm not sure I disagree with his comments but I do wonder about his judgement in going public. Whatever his goals, the unusal response is to the "shoot the messager".

It does seem clear that the players are confused about their roles. Penny is right in complaining about guys throwing up 3's. But at the same time, whinning about touches and playing time does not help much either.