Suns.com: Suns Prepared to Go at It Without Stoudemire

[George O'Brien]

Suns.com: Suns Prepared to Go at It Without Stoudemire

By Josh Greene, Suns.com
Posted: Oct. 11, 2005
Resigned to the fact that Amaré Stoudemire will be out of action for four months due to microfracture surgery on his left knee, the Phoenix Suns are doing the only thing they can at this point – gearing up to win without him.

While piling up the victories without the All-Star forward-center is easier said than done, Head Coach Mike D’Antoni believes spreading the offensive wealth for the next few months will help ease the burden of temporarily losing the team’s scoring leader from a season ago.

“We have a lot of offensive weapons on the floor, D’Antoni explained. “We lost our biggest weapon, but we have a lot of others. We’re not hanging our heads at all. It’s just too bad for Amaré, but the Phoenix Suns will go on. Steve Nash has played a lot of years without Amaré and his teams have scored up into the hundreds. He’ll find out, as we will as a team, how to score 110 points anyway. That’s our focus, our goal, and if we do that, we’ll be successful. Shawn Marion will have to step up. Steve will have to up his game. Then we have Kurt Thomas, Raja Bell, James Jones – we have a lot of guys to score the basketball. No one will replace Amaré’s 26 points, but four or five guys will add up to that.”

With more minutes to be had all around, the team’s offseason additions will factor heavily into the Suns’ success in the first half of the season.

“We all signed on with this team with the belief we are going to have success,” Brian Grant said. “We understand injuries are a part of it, and it just so happens that it was one of our most dominating players that went down. We also understand that that is opportunity for other guys to step up and show what they can do to fill that void. If we respond early on, when we do get Amaré back, it’ll be that much better come playoffs.”

Like he did when Amaré moved to the five spot last season, Shawn Marion will most likely bounce back to power forward again -- the position where he found so much success, not to mention an All-Star selection, last year.

“I’m going to play a little more forward than expected this year, but we just have to keep our minds focused on these games and just play our ball,” The Matrix said. “We’ll be able to hold it down until Amaré gets back.”

As for Nash, the All-Star playmaker may have lost one of his favorite passing recipients for the time being, but he thinks it’s way too early to count the Suns down and out. If nothing else, Stoudemire’s injury will force the rest of the Suns to improvise and, in turn, become an all-around better team.

“Obviously it’s not the best news we’ve had all year," Nash said. “It’s out of our control, so we just need to go out and make the most of what we have and hopefully we’ll be a better team when he returns. Who knows how this team is going to manifest itself. We have a bunch of new pieces. We only have four guys back from last year without Amaré, so it’s all unknown. We’ll be ready to attack it any way we can. We have to be optimists and not cry over it right now. We have to go out there and be the best team we can be, and hope for a healthy recovery.”

 

[devilalum]

This is so stupid.


What are they gonna say?

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

It was nice that Shawn didn't sound upset about playing PF.

It seems to me that he doesn't like it when there are other options, but he will do it when he is needed to.

 

[elindholm]

People tend to bond together during a crisis. Even Marion had to have high expectations for this season. Everyone will do what they can.

 

[green machine]

When I interviewed Marion right when Amare left the team for a bit (noone knew the severity), I asked him about sliding over to the 4, and he said whatever needed to be done, and that he's not really worried about it.

 

[jandaman]

I expect Marion to continue being the suns 20/10 guy, but he will probably score around the 22-23 range.

Diaw will get a lot of minutes now at the 2/3/4.

Nash will still find a way to get everyone involved... *optimistic sigh*

 

[scotsman13]

was it jordans 2 or 3 year that he was out for over half the year with a foot or knee injury? just because someone has these injuries doesnt mean that the future is over or that they wont get over it. yes arizona team have had a bad history with injury that need this surgery but that doesnt mean that amare is going to have this problem. i will take you flat out that i think that amare will work his butt off getting back to what he was.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

was it jordans 2 or 3 year that he was out for over half the year with a foot or knee injury? just because someone has these injuries doesnt mean that the future is over or that they wont get over it. yes arizona team have had a bad history with injury that need this surgery but that doesnt mean that amare is going to have this problem. i will take you flat out that i think that amare will work his butt off getting back to what he was.

It was his second season, and he missed 64 games.

I think I read that people didn't think that he would ever return to his rookie form after the injury.

 

[George O'Brien]

It was just a few weeks ago I was reading about worries that there wouldn't be enough minutes to go around. This is why teams need depth. Let's hope it comes through.

 

[panfolk]

I expect Marion to continue being the suns 20/10 guy, but he will probably score around the 22-23 range.

Diaw will get a lot of minutes now at the 2/3/4.

Nash will still find a way to get everyone involved... *optimistic sigh*

During the scrimmage Iavaroni said Diaw would play at 1 or 4 but that he didn't provide enough shooting to be a 2 or 3. This is why I wondered in another thread whether we should be taking heart in his performance against Kirilenko and Okur as a defensive 4.

 

[George O'Brien]

During the scrimmage Iavaroni said Diaw would play at 1 or 4 but that he didn't provide enough shooting to be a 2 or 3. This is why I wondered in another thread whether we should be taking heart in his performance against Kirilenko and Okur as a defensive 4.

I would imagine that his best chance to get minutes is at the 4. Marion does not want to do 40 minutes at PF, so Shawn, Jones, and Diaw will probably split the minutes up.