Warrick & Childress or Jefferson?

[Griffin]

Al Jefferson was reportedly just traded to Utah for a couple of first-round picks. A lot of people on this board were hoping that Suns might be able to get Jefferson, but after signing Warrick quickly the Suns no longer had enough of the TPE left to trade for Jefferson. It also would have cost us two first-round picks. But it brings up a question, which would you rather have?

Hakim Warrick (4-year/18M)
Josh Childress (5-year/32M)
$6.5M TPE
No second-round pick in 2011 and 2012

or

Al Jefferson (3-year/42M)
$3.5M TPE
No first-round pick in 2011 and 2013

Seeing how acquiring Jefferson was a viable option, did the Suns made the right choice by using their TPE on Warrick and Childress instead?

 

[Billy Bob]

and we still have some of the TPE left don't we?

 

[AfroSuns]

I prefer Childress/Warrick signing to Jefferson. I just don't see Jeffereson fitting this system. Plus the dude is injury prone, probably missed more games than Amare.

 

[carey]

Not worth the 2 first round picks.

 

[Gaddabout]

Utah got robbed, but Jefferson in Utah makes a hell of a lot more sense than Jefferson in Phoenix. I like a Jefferson/Kirilenko front line.

 

[Hat]

Matt said it best. Jefferson just wouldn't fit our system, he's too slow and flat footed. Having him in Utah makes more sense.

 

[devilalum]

Not worth the 2 first round picks.

If they Suns trade away ant more #1s for anything but an all star I'm gonna lose it.

 

[Bufalay]

Jefferson might be a loser like Shareef Abdur Rahim, He's been in the league for a long time and has lost a lot of games.

 

[Sunburn]

The reason there has been so much talk for Jefferson is because the recent moves have actually done a good job of revamping the roster. It's molded something of a vision of what our team could be, at least for myself. At this point, we're still one piece away from a completed team imo, an inside presence. I felt Jefferson would've rounded out that team nicely, but without the complementary pieces of Warrick and Childress, that vision is hazier, and the team is not nearly as complete. In other words, the acquisition of Warrick and Childress is part of the reason I wanted Jefferson. Without Warrick and Childress, the acquisition of Jefferson is not as meaningful.

 

[devilalum]

The return of SSOL?

With these acquisitions the Suns are more athletic, have more 3 point shooters, more depth and more versatility than the SSOL teams from a couple of years ago. The Suns are gonna run some teams out of the building.

 

[carey]

2 points.

1) Teams know how to stop SSOL now (short answer: physical play with Nash on the permiter).

2) Does that mean we can get Millsap? He'd be a good fit here.

 

[OldDirtMcGirt]

I also think that the Childress signing needs to be looked at as an insurance policy for J-Rich. Now we have the ability to either deal J-Rich's contract at the deadline, or sign another PF (like Troy Murphy) to round out the roster after his contract expires. Before, we'd be really strapped at the two, and have to rely on natural SFs like Dudely and Hill to fill if we were to move Richardson. I'm not a fan of the Warrick signing in the context of our other moves. I would love it if we didn't resign Frye, but now it seems redundant. I'd rather have Lawal/Clark getting Warrick's minutes, and have a $10 million TPE that we could use to get a four.

 

[Errntknght]

2 points.

1) Teams know how to stop SSOL now (short answer: physical play with Nash on the permiter).

2) Does that mean we can get Millsap? He'd be a good fit here.

Actually SSOL is the way to keep Nash from getting hammered so much - it happens in the half court, not the open floor. Keep his minutes under 28 a game and take our lumps with Dragic playing 20+ a game - or Dragic + Reynolds for 20+, if things fall that way.

The way to maximize the value of our depth, speed & long range shooting is to play SSOL style and keep the pedal to metal for 48 minutes with under 30 mpg for everyone. If anyone gripes about his minutes, tell him he just isn't sprinting the floor enough. (D'Antoni had the right idea, he just didn't have the huevos to rely on his bench. Granted he was handicapped by his success coaching 40 min games in very short seasons with knockout playoffs.)

Heck, I'd like to see us use full court pressure a good bit and hire an assistant coach who knows how it should be done. Ideally, a trapping full court zone press ala John Wooden.

Its the perfect time to do it since our final opponent would be one that has three great players and, hopefully, a rotten bench.

 

[Sunburn]

We need Childress. Warrick is expendable. If there was any way to get both Childress and Jefferson, this is what I wish had happened.

 

[cly2tw]

Actually SSOL is the way to keep Nash from getting hammered so much - it happens in the half court, not the open floor. Keep his minutes under 28 a game and take our lumps with Dragic playing 20+ a game - or Dragic + Reynolds for 20+, if things fall that way.

The way to maximize the value of our depth, speed & long range shooting is to play SSOL style and keep the pedal to metal for 48 minutes with under 30 mpg for everyone. If anyone gripes about his minutes, tell him he just isn't sprinting the floor enough. (D'Antoni had the right idea, he just didn't have the huevos to rely on his bench. Granted he was handicapped by his success coaching 40 min games in very short seasons with knockout playoffs.)

Heck, I'd like to see us use full court pressure a good bit and hire an assistant coach who knows how it should be done. Ideally, a trapping full court zone press ala John Wooden.

Its the perfect time to do it since our final opponent would be one that has three great players and, hopefully, a rotten bench.

That's debatable. Actually, the US redemption team won the gold medal with a DA offense kinda like SSOL. But he has the best indiv. in the world to implement it. (Actually, this makes him the best coach for the 3 stooges in Miami)

To win with trackmeet over 48min and SSOL, you need to make sure that your team commit less mistakes than the other. One part is done by your team being used to this speed compared to the opponents. The other is the quality of your indiv. players and whether they in smooth and warmed up on the court. It's hard to have enough good quality on the bench to begin with. Then, it's hard for them to get into the flow without real warmup times, and produce with 5-20 min they are given. That's the dilemma of DA's SSOL. And with Nash and Amare at the core, that's already the best conceivable under normal salary cap situation in NBA. Maybe Miami now could emulate that and win a title with SSOL, given their superior talent.

 

[Irish]

SSOL was a not really applied consistently after the 2004-05 team; but it became a greater goal as Gentry began integrating the D'Antoni offense with better team play. SSOL or nothing was not a good plan.

The reason SSOL worked was that most defenses are inside out oriented. They would get in front of the bastet first and THEN get out to the shooters. The longer you wait, the better the defense; which is why taking the first good shot makes sense. Knowing what is a good shot takes experience.

Ideally, once the first 10 seconds of the possession is over, the players need to move without the ball rather than wait for Nash to throw them the ball. One reason the Suns beat up on bad teams is that reallly good ones stay on the shooters and don't leave them open. Bad teams don't shut down the three.

 

[mojorizen7]

SSOL sucks.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

The return of SSOL?

With these acquisitions the Suns are more athletic, have more 3 point shooters, more depth and more versatility than the SSOL teams from a couple of years ago. The Suns are gonna run some teams out of the building.

we're going to get KILLED on the interior and on the boards.

denigrate amare's rebounding and defense all you want, but he was still an athletic 6'10 power player. his size/movement alone will be missed. and as bad a rebounder as he was, he still averaged 8.9/game last year. correct me if i'm wrong, but did anyone else on our roster even average 6 last year?

 

[Chaplin]

we're going to get KILLED on the interior and on the boards.

denigrate amare's rebounding and defense all you want, but he was still an athletic 6'10 power player. his size/movement alone will be missed. and as bad a rebounder as he was, he still averaged 8.9/game last year. correct me if i'm wrong, but did anyone else on our roster even average 6 last year?

Nope.

Grant Hill - 5.5
Channing Frye - 5.3

 

[devilalum]

we're going to get KILLED on the interior and on the boards.

denigrate amare's rebounding and defense all you want, but he was still an athletic 6'10 power player. his size/movement alone will be missed. and as bad a rebounder as he was, he still averaged 8.9/game last year. correct me if i'm wrong, but did anyone else on our roster even average 6 last year?

Last season the worst rebounding team averaged 38 a game, the best averaged 44. Somebody new will get the boards. Phoenix ranked 6th. If you remember the Suns were consistently out-rebounded until Lopez started getting consistent minutes.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/sortable_team_statistics/sortable2.html?cnf=1&prd=1

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Last season the worst rebounding team averaged 38 a game, the best averaged 44. Somebody new will get the boards. Phoenix ranked 6th. If you remember the Suns were consistently out-rebounded until Lopez started getting consistent minutes.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/sortable_team_statistics/sortable2.html?cnf=1&prd=1

"somebody new will get the boards" - ?!? WHO? there are only 240 minutes on the court available. none of our players average within a whiff of what amare averaged. whomever gets his minutes, even if it's multiple players, will average less rebounds/min likely. if we drop 4 rebs/game on average i guarantee you that we won't be ranked 6th.

we were tied for 13th in rebounding rate. i guarantee that drops to the 20's if we're netting 4 less/game.

we were ranked 14th in terms of rebounding differential at +0.65/game. drop that 4 to -3.35 and we're ranked . . . 27th.

 

[Chaplin]

"somebody new will get the boards" - ?!? WHO? there are only 240 minutes on the court available. none of our players average within a whiff of what amare averaged. whomever gets his minutes, even if it's multiple players, will average less rebounds/min likely. if we drop 4 rebs/game on average i guarantee you that we won't be ranked 6th.

we were tied for 13th in rebounding rate. i guarantee that drops to the 20's if we're netting 4 less/game.

we were ranked 14th in terms of rebounding differential at +0.65/game. drop that 4 to -3.35 and we're ranked . . . 27th.

Last season proved you can't adequately predict almost anything in the NBA. The numbers are pretty to look at, but it doesn't mean anything until this unit gets on the court.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Last season proved you can't adequately predict almost anything in the NBA. The numbers are pretty to look at, but it doesn't mean anything until this unit gets on the court.

true. particulary with this suns team. when they're expected to do little they usually outperform. but this is a lot of new players. i really have no idea what to expect.

 

[Griffin]

A lot of the defensive rebounds that Amare gets are the easy type where the opponent doesn't crash the boards. Those obviously will be picked up by someone else. Imo, I don't think we'll be out-rebounded any more often without Amare than we were with him, because he was often ineffective in preventing other bigs from getting offensive rebounds. Plus, so much of that depends on other players boxing out. Rebounding is a team effort, so at this point it is extremely difficult to predict how the loss of Amare will impact us in that area.

The numbers indeed tend to mislead in this case. It's true no one on our team approached Amare's rebounding averages, but you would expect your starting PF playing 35 mpg to be your leading rebounder, especially when your center only plays 19 mpg. Lopez, btw, averaged 9.1 boards per-36 minutes, just under Amare's 9.3 average. If we look at per-36 minute defensive rebounding averages, Amare was at 6.4 last year, Frye was at 5.9, Lopez at 5.3 playing alongside Amare. Turkgolu was at 4.8 last season, but that number should come up somewhat just by virtue of playing PF. Warrick was at 4.1 and 4.9 the year before. We have guys capable of getting interior defensive boards. How well they can work together is another story.

 

[Sunburn]

A lot of the defensive rebounds that Amare gets are the easy type where the opponent doesn't crash the boards. Those obviously will be picked up by someone else. Imo, I don't think we'll be out-rebounded any more often without Amare than we were with him, because he was often ineffective in preventing other bigs from getting offensive rebounds. Plus, so much of that depends on other players boxing out. Rebounding is a team effort, so at this point it is extremely difficult to predict how the loss of Amare will impact us in that area.

The numbers indeed tend to mislead in this case. It's true no one on our team approached Amare's rebounding averages, but you would expect your starting PF playing 35 mpg to be your leading rebounder, especially when your center only plays 19 mpg. Lopez, btw, averaged 9.1 boards per-36 minutes, just under Amare's 9.3 average. If we look at per-36 minute defensive rebounding averages, Amare was at 6.4 last year, Frye was at 5.9, Lopez at 5.3 playing alongside Amare. Turkgolu was at 4.8 last season, but that number should come up somewhat just by virtue of playing PF. Warrick was at 4.1 and 4.9 the year before. We have guys capable of getting interior defensive boards. How well they can work together is another story.

I still cringe every time I see Turkoglu and PF in the same sentence. We need a quality 4 da*^it. The team is so close. I really feel they could be something special with a solid 4. It's torture. I know there's a lot of time left. I hate being patient.