- Joined
- Apr 2, 2004
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DarenG,
Don't read more into what I wrote than is there. I just disagreed with what you said about his D in a specific game (and I still do). That doesn't translate to considering him to be a good defender. He might be slightly better this year than in the past but it probably comes from have better D from the bigs behind him more than anything else.
On the other hand, Steve is not as bad a defender as some people on here proclaim - often and stridently. He's alert to whats going on and is a fair team defender though he's not tall enough or enough of a leaper to help on bigger players that get loose. What he does that helps: he's good at stepping in to take a charge, he gets back on defense, he shows in a timely manner on a scissors in the lane or a wing threatening to drive across, he impedes opponent movement w.o. fouling, and he knows when to give an intentional foul. Small stuff and not very noticeable but it does help.
Why do we 'hide' Nash on players other than his opposite number? You'd think this would be obvious but the way people bring it up its like they think its unmanly or something. Two reasons - 1) his opposite number is charge of the opponents offense and disrupting that is critical, so we put one of our best perimeter defenders on him, and Steve is not in that category. 2) to conserve Steve's energy for the offensive end. You may have noticed that our offense requires Steve to be involved like 80% of the 24 second clock - that consumes energy. On top of that, so far this year the team loses ground rather steadily when he's not playing. So Gentry has him guard someone who doesn't move around a whole lot, letting Steve play more minutes and/or at a higher energy level. Heck, last summer I was ticked when the Suns didn't do squat to keep the second unit intact - my reasoning being that was our only hope of keeping Nash's minutes at a nice low number. Gentry, at least, should have known how important that is. Well, finally, at 2/3rds of the way through the season we might have a second unit that can stay even.
Now if we can just settle on a closing group that can execute...
Excellent post.
Steve
Only problem here is that the Suns might have to overpay to keep Brooks or let him go to another team. Brooks has game, there is no question about that, he should get more minutes and let him break down defenses. I can see him as a real weapon against the Lakers with his speed.
