Will the Suns make the playoffs this season?

[sunsfan88]

As the day goes by, it's looking like the West keeps getting weaker by the moment. Let's look at the teams; ( btw, I'm only going over the playoff teams)

1) Lakers- they have a new coach, new system and a couple of disgruntled players. Even if CP3 does get traded to the Lakers

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. One of the Lakers strength is their length with Gasol, Bynum and Odom. If they trade Gasol and Odom for CP3, they lose that and they become a little more beatable in my opinion. And CP3 does not get traded, then it will definitely cause locker room problems with Odom and Gasol wondering if their wanted in LA.

2) Mavericks- they lost Tyson Chandler who changed them defensively. They have also lost Caron Butler and possibly JJ Barea. That's a lot of important components that are hard to replace. To make it worse, they signed Vince Carter. I feel like they've taken a couple of steps back.

3) Nuggets- they had a deep team but since Kenyon Martin, JR Smith and Wilson Chandler are stuck in China, they lose that versatility. In addition, it looks like the Nets are going to sign Nene and that would defiantly set the Nuggets back more than a couple of steps.

4) Trailblazers- they will be without Brandon Roy (retirement) and Greg Oden for the whole season. They added Gerald Wallace and Raymond Felton and LaMarcus Aldridge is going to be out for a couple of weeks due to some heart issues which are not life treating according to the blazers doctors. They are still good but very beatable.

5) Memphis- they are going to be good, are they going to take the next step?

6) Thunder- they are going to be sick and should be One of the if not the favorite to come out of the west.

7) Spurs- getting old and they are losing their size advantage if McDyess retires. Tim Duncan is not the same player but is still effective. Very average team

8) Hornets- should I say more? Once Chris Paul is traded and pending what they get in return. They are going to have a hard time getting past this debacle.

Overall, with the Suns current roster they have a very good chance making the playoffs. Nash is going to have one more year with Gortat and I truly feel like Frye compliments what Gortat does. Having Grant Hill resign and with the additions of the explosive Shannon Brown and Markieff Morris ( he's going to surprise many of you), the Suns have a very good squad. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying. We are far from competing for a title but in my opinion we are going to be competitive this upcoming season. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Suns seasons turns out.

GO SUNS!!!

 

[AzStevenCal]

Overall, with the Suns current roster they have a very good chance making the playoffs. Nash is going to have one more year with Gortat and I truly feel like Frye compliments what Gortat does. Having Grant Hill resign and with the additions of the explosive Shannon Brown and Markieff Morris ( he's going to surprise many of you), the Suns have a very good squad. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying. We are far from competing for a title but in my opinion we are going to be competitive this upcoming season. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Suns seasons turns out.

GO SUNS!!!

I think we'll be in the hunt for a playoff spot. I look at this roster and I think it's better than the roster we ended with last season and much stronger than the roster we started with. The big question is how much does Nash have left and will he still have it at the end of a compressed season. That question also applies to Grant Hill although to a lesser extent as we've been much better at managing his minutes during the season.

Steve

 

[slinslin]

lol
other lottery teams will improve a lot more than the Suns. The Clippers for example.

 

[Folster]

Not a public poll? Slin must have been one of the yes votes.

 

[AzStevenCal]

lol
other lottery teams will improve a lot more than the Suns. The Clippers for example.

I think the Clippers may well be a better team than us but there are teams from the playoffs last season that look to be worse this season. Also, we were in the playoff hunt last season until Channing got injured and we won't lose as much ground at the start of the season this year with the Hedo experiment. Unless we lose Nash for a significant part of the season I'd be surprised if we won fewer than 39 games which should put us in the running.

Steve

 

[AzStevenCal]

Not a public poll? Slin must have been one of the yes votes.

Nah, so far it's just me and Mojo in the yes column. I don't know that I really believe we'll make the playoffs but I think we'll be in the mix so a "yes vote" made more sense than a "no vote" would have. Click on the number of votes to see the breakdown.

Steve

 

[elindholm]

This looks like a 30-35-win team if we had an 82-game season, so I guess that's around mid-20s for a 66-game season with fewer rest days for the Suns' aging core.

 

[Ninjafish]

An easy yes. Suns weren't that far away from the playoffs last year and that was with having Hedo Turkoglu for half a year, Vince Carter for half a year, and not having Gortat for a full season. Just those three things alone mean we should be much better. Then when you factor in that the Suns have made some decent signings in the past few days and the rest of the west has gotten considerably worse, I'm shocked anyone would say no.

What exactly changed over the summer to turn the team from a 40 win team to a 30 win team?

 

[Divide Et Impera]

Where is the "I hope not" option?

 

[BC867]

For the one-million, three-hundred and twenty-four thousand comments I posted about Lopez last season, I hope his getting over his injuries outweigh his immaturity and clumsiness.

If so, and if he could become a solid backup Center, keeping Gortat from wearing out and Frye from playing the position at the 23 ft. line, we could be a playoff contender.

 

[Superbone]

This looks like a 30-35-win team if we had an 82-game season, so I guess that's around mid-20s for a 66-game season with fewer rest days for the Suns' aging core.

I think you're way off.

 

[Mainstreet]

I think the Clippers may well be a better team than us but there are teams from the playoffs last season that look to be worse this season. Also, we were in the playoff hunt last season until Channing got injured and we won't lose as much ground at the start of the season this year with the Hedo experiment. Unless we lose Nash for a significant part of the season I'd be surprised if we won fewer than 39 games which should put us in the running.

Steve

Nice breakdown sunsfan88.

I agree with AzStevenCal that the Clippers should be a better team than the Suns. The key point that he raises is that the Suns were playing musical chairs with all the personnel changes last season. I totally agree that stability alone should improve the Suns but I'm still not expecting to make the playoffs.

On a side note Al McCoy was raving about the Suns coaching staff and it is the best staff he has seen since he has been here. I never heard that from McCoy before.

He heaped praise on Alvin Gentry as a coach that could communicate with the players and still get things done. Also he said the Elston Turner hire was great and he should really help the Suns defensively. I believed Al McCoy was really pumped and not just doing promotion.

So despite my better judgment I am voting "yes" for the Suns making the playoffs.

 

[slinslin]

The notion that Hedo held us back last season is ridiculous.

Our record did not improve after the trade.

 

[Billy Bob]

Yes!

 

[Ninjafish]

The notion that Hedo held us back last season is ridiculous.

Our record did not improve after the trade.

This is like saying The notion that the sky is up is ridiculous.

The reason why our record didn't improve is because we had to take back and start an equally lazy and worthless player in Vince Carter. Pietrus and Brooks also didn't help things. They didn't play well here and I'm happy to see them gone. How can you look at the current roster and not think it looks better than any point last season?

 

[Mainstreet]

The notion that Hedo held us back last season is ridiculous.

Our record did not improve after the trade.

It's not just Hedo but all the personnel moves last season.

One could make the argument that the Suns should be one of the better teams coming out of the gate because of their veteran leadership and minimal roster changes.

 

[slinslin]

This is like saying The notion that the sky is up is ridiculous.

The reason why our record didn't improve is because we had to take back and start an equally lazy and worthless player in Vince Carter. Pietrus and Brooks also didn't help things. They didn't play well here and I'm happy to see them gone. How can you look at the current roster and not think it looks better than any point last season?

Funny enough the Suns had their statistically best lineup with carter in there..

And how is it going to help that they replaced players that didnt help us winning with worse players?

 

[Mainstreet]

Funny enough the Suns had their statistically best lineup with carter in there..

And how is it going to help that they replaced players that didnt help us winning with worse players?

Basketball is more than stats. Too often the Suns looked to Carter to create a shot when the clock was winding down when the Suns would have been better off creating ball movement. Pietrus, well he never seen a shot he didn't like with the Suns. Brooks seemed totally tentative. I'm not knocking these players so much as they didn't fit well with the Suns style of play. I just don't see where the Suns have worse players on the roster for this team.

 

[Ninjafish]

Funny enough the Suns had their statistically best lineup with carter in there..

Well that tells you how useless those kinds of stats are, doesn't it? Are you sad to see Carter go? If you watched even one game with Carter last season, I can't buy that you would seriously think he was a positive for the team. You really want to pretend that you think Carter had a positive impact on the court for us?

And how is it going to help that they replaced players that didnt help us winning with worse players?

Pietrus is a low IQ chucker who always tried to take hero shots every chance he got. At the very least, I can never recall Shannon Brown being that for the Lakers. I just think of him as being an explosive guy that brought a lot of energy to the Lakers bench and usually did good things for them while Kobe wasn't playing. It also would be almost impossible for Brown to play any worse for us than Pietrus played.

The same goes for Brooks. I thought we'd honestly be better if we just played Dowdell over Brooks last season. Brooks gave us absolutely zero on offense and defense. At least Dowdell could defend.

 

[sunsfan88]

I broke the tie

And I don't the LA will improve much with Jordan likely leaving them and them having to rely on a front court of the old and injury prone Kaman + Griffin...neither can play defense. And they still have Delnegro as HC...enough said

Golden State is a team I can see making the biggest jump. A new coach who will emphasize defense, possibly signing DeAndre Jordan to anchor that defense and the threat of Curry and Ellis.

 

[slinslin]

Well that tells you how useless those kinds of stats are, doesn't it? Are you sad to see Carter go? If you watched even one game with Carter last season, I can't buy that you would seriously think he was a positive for the team. You really want to pretend that you think Carter had a positive impact on the court for us?

The same goes for Brooks. I thought we'd honestly be better if we just played Dowdell over Brooks last season. Brooks gave us absolutely zero on offense and defense. At least Dowdell could defend.

Too bad that factual data and statistics prove all your points wrong.

The Suns as a team played much better with Carter in the lineup compared to Dudley and the Suns did horrible when Dowdell got playing time.

 

[Matt L]

The poll question should be, "do you want the suns to compete for the eighth playoff seed?"

and I would answer, "no"

 

[BC867]

The notion that Hedo held us back last season is ridiculous.

Our record did not improve after the trade.

Is that not because Gentry continued to start an injured and undeveloped Lopez at Center, while Gortat sat on the bench, then played more consecutive minutes game after game than any sub in the league?

At least that dysfunctional approach is history now.

 

[sunsfan88]

If Frye & Nash didn't get injured last season, and had Gortat actually STARTED then I bet we could've got in as the 8th seed.

And you guys are all forgetting one thing, losing VC is addition by subtraction....just like when we got rid of Shaq...another example of addition by subtraction.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Too bad that factual data and statistics prove all your points wrong.

The Suns as a team played much better with Carter in the lineup compared to Dudley and the Suns did horrible when Dowdell got playing time.

That's just absurd. Watch a game and you'll sound less ignorant. If you had these kind of stats over a season perhaps they'd have some bearing but far too small of a sampling to draw the kind of conclusion you seem to have drawn. There are just too many variables involved (opponent, injuries, playoff race vs garbage stretch of season etc). If you had watched a few games you would have seen that Carter was an incredible liability on both ends of the court.

Steve