What Will The Legacy Of The Suns Be?

[George O'Brien]

If the Suns lose in the first round, all the "I told you so" proponents of bare knuckle basketball will feel vindicated. But if the Suns do well, it may lead a lot of general managers to rethink their views of how to build at team.

1. Team Oriented: Most teams have been built around a couple of superstars with everyone else as supporting players. The Suns produced three all stars, but everyone gets involved.

2. Ball Handling Emphasized: The Suns make fewer turnovers than nearly every other team in spite of their pace. Nash is crucial, but the entire team has worked hard at moving the ball without throwing it away all the time.

3. Everyone Has to Be Able To Shoot: Up to this point teams have focused on getting defensive specialists and hoping they could score enough to be useful. On the Suns, everyone is a threat to score or like Bo won't play.

4. Maintain a Balance Between Inside and Outside Scoring: Unlike the 2001-02 Mavericks, the Suns score a lot of points in the paint in their half court offense.

5. Athleticism Over Strength: The Suns have some strong players, but they emphasize their speed and athletic skills. Everyone can run and they keep running for the entire game.

6. Focus on Matchups Rather than Defense: The Suns do not "go big" even when being beaten on the boards, but instead focus on exploiting their opponent's poor foot speed on the other end of court.

7. Try Make Opponents Shoot Long Jumpers: The Suns generally focus on packing the paint and making opponents shoot from the outside. Remarkably enough, they hold opponents percentage shooting three to a low pwercentage than all but one other team. However, the result is a lot of long rebounds which are more often grabbed by the offense, but also trigger Sun's fast breaks.

Moving to a Sun's style play will not be easy for most teams. Very few coaches understand how to develop an up tempo offense, how to train players to play in an unstructured offense, and how to train their point guards to be playmakers without losing their abilit to score. Many superstars have a problem being effective without the ball in their hands all the time or blending into a team oriented style. Most general managers have a hard time understanding the kind of players it takes to make this style work.

I expect several teams to claim to be moving to a Suns style, but they will fail. It is like the teams that tried the triangle without understanding it.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Interesting post, but it's like asking teams to play the Rams style offense during Warner's prime and the Ravens style defense in their prime; the system, while good, is generally as good as the personell. I agree, people will attempt to imitate, but without unique talents like Nash, Amare, and Marion, I just don't see it being done.

 

[lancelet's cousin]

I think the Suns will do to the NBA what Shaq did: change how it is played.

When it became obvious that Shaq was too dominating to ignore, the opposition drafted and built their teams (and still do as of '05) to attempt to beat him. Just to put butts in the seat teams were forced to draft "the athletic big man" year after year. Of course, just like all the "next Jordans", they didn't stand up. But I think that the presence of Shaq slowed the game down as a result. During the Laker-Spur era it was/is just conventional wisdom to slow down the ball and take time off the clock.

With Shaq seeing his twilight years, I believe scoring would have eventually gone up anyways-but the suns just came along 3 or 4 years early.

One thing I see happening are that future draft busts won't be the "next Jordan" or athletic running big men. It will be the pass first PG's-the next steve Nash. And just like the Harold Minors and countless athletic big men-most will be busts.

And that will be telling of which team they are trying to keep up with-the Suns.
I see our average over 110/game being just better than average league-wide in 3-4 years as well.

But we have the best of all worlds right now: A team built for the future that might start that future right of the bat.

IMO, the US losing to Euroball >Sun dominate game w/Euro-style playing the NBA will be intertwined 10-15 years from now as both being significant to the resurgence of the NBA.

If we win it all this year it will be a clear sign to the league and fans that they need to play catch-up. The problem for them is that we have a starting five no team in the NBA can afford to emulate. And there aren't many pass-first PG's in the NBA. But to make the fans even think their team can take us, they'll be drafting athletic shooters and trying to find that elusive playmaking pass-first PG.

Scoring will go up, as will ratings. But any documentary on ESPN about it all will look to the Olympics as the reason teams started playing that style-and we were the by-product.

Don't know if that's an accurate asessment. But that's how this will be remembered, I think, by the people who tell most sports fans what to think

I'm not saying all this will come true-but I love guessing.

 

[George O'Brien]

Interesting, but I doubt that most Europeans would recognize what the Suns do as especially European even with D'Antoni's background. He was considered unusual even then.

What he has done is to combine European style passing, movement, and three point shooting with American style athletes, a running style, and a super power player. (I can guarantee the Europeans have never had a guy like Amare.)

 

[lancelet's cousin]

Interesting, but I doubt that most Europeans would recognize what the Suns do as especially European even with D'Antoni's background. He was considered unusual even then.

What he has done is to combine European style passing, movement, and three point shooting with American style athletes, a running style, and a super power player. (I can guarantee the Europeans have never had a guy like Amare.)

I think the Sun's philosophy more closely resembles the European style than it does the Triangle, The Right Way, or whatever Pop calls his slowball stuff. True Amare is an abberation. But they play the numbers like the Euro's do. As in take the shot that that's worth the most. And Shoot from the shortest distance, the corners. And get it to the open man (passing). But you're right it's not true Euroball. Euro-influenced ball maybe.

Whatever you call what these guys do is fun as hell to watch. I wish we could see them play that Erouleague exhibition game sooner that they have it slated. I doubt they play us after that.

 

[scotsman13]

just be glad that we dont have a coach like that rat faced bastard JVG. that is the type of coach that will drive this game into the ground. there seems to be a problem with coach believe that they are the key to winning and not the players. JVG needs to micro manage everybit of the game in order to make it a coachs game and not a players game.

 

[lancelet's cousin]

just be glad that we dont have a coach like that rat faced bastard JVG. that is the type of coach that will drive this game into the ground. there seems to be a problem with coach believe that they are the key to winning and not the players. JVG needs to micro manage everybit of the game in order to make it a coachs game and not a players game.

Another reason to like the Suns chances is that they have an under-rated ingredient to winning it all. D'Antoni has a coaching philosophy that not only suits his players well, but they "bought into it" as they say. Jim O'Brien also has a "system" that he insists on using-with the wrong team. And it's killing Philly right now. Come to think of it, one of the main reasons we got JJ was because he felt Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk fit his system. We have an excellent player-coach combo. Players don't have to think on this team. If you have the ball and you're open...SHOOT!!!

Look at how much JJ bought into the system. He needs to showcase his considerable halfcourt game. But the system makes sense to run to the corner for the short range 3. So in his contract year he is playing to the strengths of the system and not to the strengths of his individual game. Same for Q. One of the best post up perimeter players in the NBA is running to the open corner for the 3 as well, rarely showcasing his post-up offense.
But it makes great sense. JJ hits over 60% from the corners, which is the mathematical equivalent of hitting for over 90% from inside the arc.

In fact Marion and STAT bought in big time by playing completely out of position. I think this is as important as anything to winning a championship.

And back on topic , the Suns legacy cleary depends on Amare's development. We'll go as far as he takes us. I hope he stays driven throughout his career, because our legacy may be that of the team that brought the fans back to the game. The Tiger Wood of the NBA, if you will .

 

[cly2tw]

The only NBA champion that did not win at least 30 games the season before?

 

[zett]

The only NBA champion that did not win at least 30 games the season before?

Boston!

 

[Gee!]

just be glad that we dont have a coach like that rat faced bastard JVG.

I always thought he looked more like this guy.

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[boisesuns]

it will be interesting becuase we are being compared to the mavericks teams that had great regular seasons and melted in the playoffs. I think we have more weapons then those teams, but if we don't win in the playoffs, we will be compared to death with them.

if we do win, it will shake up a lot of things like the centers going near the top of the draft, and the nba will get more exiting overall. there will be a big youth movement probably to.

when shaq leaves, the suns players will still be in their prime. we won't really have any big men to worry about that we coudn't handle. i don't know if we will have a player that can take over a game like shaq can or jordan did. I feel like thr NBA overall is more talented as well.

 

[Stoner]

When it became obvious that Shaq was too dominating to ignore, the opposition drafted and built their teams (and still do as of '05) to attempt to beat him.

Very true. Without the presence of Shaq, I highly doubt Jake Tsakalidis would have even been drafted, much less been given two good years of consistent playing time in the hopes he would "develop," when it was clear he was a stiff. The "Tsaki Bomber" should take Shaq out to lunch or something.

 

[JPlay]

If for some reasons the Suns style of play is exposed in the playoffs they should look at bringing in an athletic, rebounding, shot-blocker....ala Tyson Chandler.

 

[lancelet's cousin]

If for some reasons the Suns style of play is exposed in the playoffs they should look at bringing in an athletic, rebounding, shot-blocker....ala Tyson Chandler.

Who? Anyone fitting that description in the draft won't last until our pick. And the handful of FA's who fit this description would cost us too much money (and JJ).
And this is my point (no pun intended) about PG's in the future. If we do put up an impressive showing people will be looking for a different mythical player: the "pass-first" point guard. The NBA has a handful of each.

As great as our future looks, we could still use a little more luck in the draft or FA.

 

[JPlay]

Who? Anyone fitting that description in the draft won't last until our pick. And the handful of FA's who fit this description would cost us too much money (and JJ).
And this is my point (no pun intended) about PG's in the future. If we do put up an impressive showing people will be looking for a different mythical player: the "pass-first" point guard. The NBA has a handful of each.

As great as our future looks, we could still use a little more luck in the draft or FA.

Tyson Chandler, 7'1 Center for the Chicago Bulls who leads the league in 4th quarter shot blocking and rebounding. He doesn't score much but he's a FA next year and I think the Bulls would prefer to keep Curry. He would be a good option if we don't resign JJ.

 

[Joe Mama]

Tyson Chandler, 7'1 Center for the Chicago Bulls who leads the league in 4th quarter shot blocking and rebounding. He doesn't score much but he's a FA next year and I think the Bulls would prefer to keep Curry. He would be a good option if we don't resign JJ.

Anything the Phoenix Suns could offer (mid-level exception at most) would certainly be matched by Chicago. Unless there is a trade the Suns have absolutely no shot at Chandler.

Joe Mama