Suns Reject Pacers offer of Hibbert for Dragic

[jbeecham]

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2...reject-pacers-trade-offer-of-hibbert-copeland

"Indiana offered Roy Hibbert, Chris Copeland and some cash," Dragic told the reporter from Ekipa. "But according to my sources, the Suns rejected the offer."

Jogi says he recalls another report out of Slovenia that Dragic actually got on the phone with the Suns front office when hearing about the offer through the media.

He did go on to say he feels flattered by the attention, Jogi says of the Ekipa interview, but would not want to change his environment as he feels great in Phoenix and has a lot of friends here.

He did say after the season is over, anything is possible, but he's not the caliber of player that has any say in trades.

The Suns have also, reportedly, rejected any and all trade offers for Eric Bledsoe as well. This sends a message that, quite possibly, the Suns are being honest about wanting to play all three point guards, along with Isaiah Thomas, heavy minutes in 2013-14 in an experiment to run other teams off the court.

Good to hear that the Suns rejected that trade & that Dragic wants to be here. I wonder what the sign & trade offers have been for Bledsoe...

 

[3rdside]

Possibly the most ridiculous proposal I've ever actually seen make print.

 

[Cheesebeef]

.

 

[Covert Rain]

I still think the idea the Suns "are being honest about wanting to play all three point guards" is not a good long term strategy, I don't want them to make a bad trade just to say they are not log jammed with PGs on this roster either. Bad trade.

 

[sunsfan88]

I still think the idea the Suns "are being honest about wanting to play all three point guards" is not a good long term strategy, I don't want them to make a bad trade just to say they are not log jammed with PGs on this roster either. Bad trade.

Agreed with this. Feels like the Suns throughout it's entire franchise history has been so insistent on "running teams out of the building".

It hasn't worked thus far. 0 titles. Why not try another method of maybe defense first, half court offense? It's worked for the Lakers and Celtics in recent years (4 finals appearances among them in the past 8 years) No guarantee that will result in a championship for us but it may be good to try something different.

 

[3rdside]

Because every time we try we fail spectacularly?

 

[3rdside]

And the games changing anyway - we've been through this

 

[BC867]

Because every time we try we fail spectacularly?

In response to that, no effort succeeds unless it becomes a growing commitment. When the Suns have tried to be more than a quick, mainly offensive team in the past, it was a try, then back to business as usual.

Although it has never been as extreme as 3 Point Guards on the floor. The league is not changing to the point where that means being a Championship contender.

 

[PDXChris]

http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/f7/pacers-seek-trade-for-goran-dragic-209780.html

 

[3rdside]

In response to that, no effort succeeds unless it becomes a growing commitment. When the Suns have tried to be more than a quick, mainly offensive team in the past, it was a try, then back to business as usual.



Although it has never been as extreme as 3 Point Guards on the floor. The league is not changing to the point where that means being a Championship contender.

It's a philosophical difference here - either you want positions 1 through 5 to be traditional or you don't. I'm firmly in the latter camp, and so are the suns, so any desire to commit to the former seems largely pointless to me because it isn't going to happen. And long may that remain - the thought, in 2014, of trying to go traditional, trying to find that elusive centre we've been after for years etc, just doesn't sound appealing at all. 15 years of suns experience tells me so.

I'm completely fine accepting that not everyone agrees with this but it is what it is. And I may be wrong but I don't think we'll play 3 point guards on the floor for extended periods of time, I'm guessing we just want two excellent guards on court at all times.

Give me sport played the right way - skilfully and with the emphasis on attack (this doesn't just apply to basketball - see Manchester United and Real Madrid) any day of the week; I want points, lots of them, and then an NBA title we are long overdue.

The league knows our style is what's good for it and that's why the rules are changing, and we're in a prime position to capitalise as it's what we've always done.

 

[Iceman]

Wow! Imagine if the front office actually did this??

 

[BC867]

I don't think we'll play 3 point guards on the floor for extended periods of time, I'm guessing we just want two excellent guards on court at all times.

If by two excellent guards on court at all times, you mean two of our 3 Point Guards, I wonder how that would play out with our Shooting Guards, who will be left out of the rotation.

How many Wings (whether Shooting Guards or Small Forwards) are going to be at the end of the bench? Or how many Wings are going to spill over to Power Forward as a result?

And is that going to make us better than our opponents?

It is a lot more complex than it sounds.

 

[Chaplin]

If by two excellent guards on court at all times, you mean two of our 3 Point Guards, I wonder how that would play out with our Shooting Guards, who will be left out of the rotation.

How many Wings (whether Shooting Guards or Small Forwards) are going to be at the end of the bench? Or how many Wings are going to spill over to Power Forward as a result?

And is that going to make us better than our opponents?

It is a lot more complex than it sounds.

Why is it so hard to accept that Dragic can play shooting guard? It makes no sense. He has PROVEN he can play it, yet you still deny it.

 

[BC867]

Why is it so hard to accept that Dragic can play shooting guard? It makes no sense. He has PROVEN he can play it, yet you still deny it.

The focal point of my post wasn't simply can Dragic play Shooting Guard.

Read it again.

I wonder how that would play out with our Shooting Guards, who will be left out of the rotation.

How many Wings (whether Shooting Guards or Small Forwards) are going to be at the end of the bench? Or how many Wings are going to spill over to Power Forward as a result?

And is that going to make us better than our opponents?

It is a lot more complex than it sounds.

It was about the effect on the rest of the team, particularly legitimate Shooting Guards moving to Small Forward, Small Forwards moving to Power Forward.

It is not just about Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe or Isaiah Thomas. It is about the ripple effect of moving 2's to 3's (or having them languish on the bench), 3's to 4's and 4's to 5's.

The novelty of a 3 Point Guard rotation in the backcourt could result in most of our squad playing primarily out of position. Over the course of a season and especially in the post-season, that wears out a team.

 

[Phrazbit]

Again, I think you're way too caught up on positions. What "shooting guards" are going to be displaced by this? Gerald Green is the only rotation guy even listed as a SG on our roster (besides Dragic... yes, Dragic is listed as SG), and Green is just as much of a small forward as a SG, basically Green is your classic wing player, and in this 2/3 role he had the best year of his career last season, just as Dragic did as a combo guard.

Its not a 3 point guard rotation because Dragic is not a pure point guard. He is as much a SG as a PG and arguably better at the SG role.

 

[Chaplin]

It was about the effect on the rest of the team, particularly legitimate Shooting Guards moving to Small Forward, Small Forwards moving to Power Forward.

It is not just about Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe or Isaiah Thomas. It is about the ripple effect of moving 2's to 3's (or having them languish on the bench), 3's to 4's and 4's to 5's.

The novelty of a 3 Point Guard rotation in the backcourt could result in most of our squad playing primarily out of position. Over the course of a season and especially in the post-season, that wears out a team.

Which of our "shooting guards" would lose time? I suppose Gerald Green is the only one we need to be concerned about. Archie just isn't good enough yet to garner a lot of time. If you consider Green our 2nd shooting guard and Archie our 3rd, that's about right. The only danger is possibly moving Green to the 3 sometimes, but who cares? We still have enough coverage at the 3 between PJ, Marcus Morris and TJ Warren. And like it or not, Marcus will play some at the 4--that's going to happen whether we have 3 point guards or not.

I'm just not seeing this as big a problem as you make it out to be.

 

[3rdside]

Have done a bit of analysis and it looks like we're probably one guard heavy suggesting that Bledsoe might not be so important after all, and that maybe the Suns did actually forecast the offseason playing out how it is (big assumption here) hence the acquisition of Thomas.



Wasn't expecting that even though it was probably a pretty obvious conclusion.



If Bledsoe does stick around then good players from last year - Green, Dragic, Tucker, Thomas, Marcus - might have to reduce their minutes, significantly in Thomas's and Marcus's case, to make a sensible rotation work.



Feel free to point out where i've gone wrong (numbers in brackets are what they played last year and non-bracketed numbers my guess for the upcoming season):



Guards x 2 / 96 minutes



Dragic - 32 mins (36 mins)

Bledsoe - 30 mins (33 mins)

Thomas - 26 mins (35 mins)

Green - 6 mins (28 mins)

Goodwin - 2 mins (10 mins)





SF x1 / 48 mins



Tucker - 20 mins (30 mins)

Green - 20 mins (28 mins)

Warren – 8 mins (n/a)



PF x 1 / 48 mins



Kieff - 20 mins (26 mins)

Tolliver - 18 mins (20 mins)

Marcus – 6 mins (22 mins)

Warren - 4 mins (n/a)



C x 1 / 48 mins



Plumlee – 18 mins (25 mins)

Len – 18 mins (9 mins)

Kieff – 8 mins (26 mins)

Marcus – 4 mins (22 mins)

 

[Chaplin]

Sorry, but Gerald Green is not going to go from 28 minutes a game to only 6. Even if he doesn't start anymore. I'm not sure if that means putting him at SF, but he's going to get more than 6 minutes per game.

 

[3rdside]

Sorry, but Gerald Green is not going to go from 28 minutes a game to only 6. Even if he doesn't start anymore. I'm not sure if that means putting him at SF, but he's going to get more than 6 minutes per game.

And 20 mins at SF so 26 in total.

 

[elindholm]

I don't think that limiting Dragic and Bledsoe to 32 and 30 minutes is realistic. It's good to have depth, but the team will be better when its best players are on the floor, and if the goal is to win, you can't regularly have your best players playing 2/3 of the game or less. You won't find any example, I don't think, of an NBA team getting through a season with no one on the roster averaging at least in the mid-30s.

(Edit: Okay, actually the Spurs did it just last season. No one averaged even 30. That's amazing -- probably impossible to duplicate, but it did happen.)

So that means a chain reaction: Even less time for Green at SG (this is assuming Bledsoe is in the fold), pushing him to SF; probably no minutes for Warren at SF, pushing him to PF; and fewer minutes for Tolliver, almost certainly.

As for the center rotation, I can't imagine that Len is ready for 18 minutes a game, so it's probably going to be Plumlee in the 20s and the twins.

My first reaction to your list is that 10 minutes for Marcus Morris is too few. But maybe not. He's a less good player than his brother, maybe less good than Tolliver, and hopefully Warren will start beating him for court time sooner rather than later. So I could easily see Marcus having a hard time staying in the rotation, in which case your projection of 10 might be pretty good.

Overall I'd guess that your list is pretty close, but that the two forward positions are going to be shifted even smaller because of heavier minutes for the star guards. The bottom line is that having Bledsoe on the roster is going to mean lots and lots of small ball, more severe than we've ever seen from this franchise. It just doesn't add up any other way.

 

[Chaplin]

And 20 mins at SF so 26 in total.

Duh, totally missed that. Except I think Marcus will get SF minutes as well here and there.

 

[elindholm]

Except I think Marcus will get SF minutes as well here and there.

Right, that's the problem. Even in t3s's original list, which is quite stingy to the three PGs, Green, and Tucker, there are no minutes for Marcus at SF -- which is his natural position! So where do the minutes come from? How do you shrink down the guard minutes even further? This is what some of us have been talking about ever since the Thomas signing.

 

[Phrazbit]

Right, that's the problem. Even in t3s's original list, which is quite stingy to the three PGs, Green, and Tucker, there are no minutes for Marcus at SF -- which is his natural position! So where do the minutes come from? How do you shrink down the guard minutes even further? This is what some of us have been talking about ever since the Thomas signing.

I think Green sees a significant reduction in minutes. The Warren pick, the Thomas signing, keeping Tucker, I get the feeling with all those moves that they are not planning on keeping Green beyond next season and that they probably dont trust him much to play at the level he did last season.

Just my hunch.

 

[JCSunsfan]

I think Green sees a significant reduction in minutes. The Warren pick, the Thomas signing, keeping Tucker, I get the feeling with all those moves that they are not planning on keeping Green beyond next season and that they probably dont trust him much to play at the level he did last season.

Just my hunch.

Too many players. I think Keef is going to get Frye's minutes, with Len getting some too. Marcus is going to get Keef's backup minutes along with Toliver, and you are going to see Green more at SF.

Archie is going to Siberia along with Ennis.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Guards x 2 / 96 minutes



Dragic - 32 mins (36 mins)

Bledsoe - 30 mins (33 mins)

Thomas - 26 mins (35 mins)

Green - 6 mins (28 mins)

Goodwin - 2 mins (10 mins)

I don't think Thomas is getting this many minutes. Maybe 20. Bledsoe will get 2-3 more, Goran will get 2-3 more, and Green will get the rest. Green will only get garbage minutes.

SF x1 / 48 mins



Tucker - 20 mins (30 mins)

Green - 20 mins (28 mins)

Warren – 8 mins (n/a)



PF x 1 / 48 mins



Kieff - 20 mins (26 mins)

Tolliver - 18 mins (20 mins)

Marcus – 6 mins (22 mins)

Warren - 4 mins (n/a)

I don't see any way Tolliver gets 18 minutes. Tolliver gets 10 and Warren gets 12. Warren is too good. It is going to be nearly impossible to keep him off the floor.

C x 1 / 48 mins



Plumlee – 18 mins (25 mins)

Len – 18 mins (9 mins)

Kieff – 8 mins (26 mins)

Marcus – 4 mins (22 mins)

If Marcus gets any minutes at C I am going to scream.