Game 24, Big 3 debut: The Nets (12-10) @ Suns (13-10) | Wednesday | 7:00PM

[lilfishi22]

If the Suns kept CP3, this board would have lost their damn minds. James Jones made the best trade possible at the time. We all would have done the same thing. It was a no brainer. Still is imo.


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Not that people wouldn't be calling for his head no matter what we did but if we kept CP3, JJ would've felt even more heat. I saw keeping CP3 as not an option and the fact we turned him (AND Shamwow) into Beal, that's nothing short of miraculous.

[Saberestar]

I'm not concerned about us as long as the big 3 stay healthy but if we're talking upgrades the FO absolutely must get another point guard and another 5

PG depth is abysmal and with a Goodwin injury we are completely screwed. At the 5, I dont think we have a reliable backup 5. Everytime Nurk goes out we struggle hard. Eubanks is not reliable enough and Bol Bol is a novelty player, I'd give Dwight a shot before what we throwing out there.

I agree about Eubanks.

IMO he has been hard to watch and when he is on the court his low basketball IQ makes things tougher for his teammates on offense.

Defensively he hasn't been a positive player neither, he looks more like a third string than a backup C.

How to replace him? IDK...I would start giving Metu his minutes. I know that he would be an smallball 5, but I prefer that over playing Eubanks again.

We can add later a C with an small trade or in the buyout market...but for now we need to replace him in the rotation.

The Suns are +49 with Nurkic on the court for the last 5 games and -50 with Eubanks on.

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I like the idea of giving Dwight a shot. A bit annoyed that we could have just gotten Javale McGee over the offseason for the vet's minimum as well, as I thought he was a solid role player during his short stint with the Suns. Eubanks has just been awful. He was good earlier in the season when teams didn't have enough material scouting him playing for the Suns, but now he's easily predictable.

It has to be better options than Dwight's corpse or McGee, I wouldn't be surprised if a solid C on an expiring deal gets a buyout and we can sign him before the playoffs.

[SunsRback4Good]

why 35yo? he'll be 39 in the playoffs.

Just a hypothetical. CP3 was in consideration for MVP in '21 at age 35yo so he probably fixes a lot of issues of this team both on offense and defense.

35yo CP3 wasn't the problem though (although he did get that shoulder stinger in the playoffs). It's 36+ CP3 that became more and more of an issue we needed to overcome. He's not fixing any issues defensively but offensively, I think we'd look more competent and not throw away 4th quarters with bad possessions.

In the end, Father Time is undefeated and if we could turn back a few years, CP3 would've been a huge asset for us.

I don’t believe this applies to Lebron

[lilfishi22]

What a disaster. We lose this game because in our team wasn’t ball movement. One of our big three player dribble the ball and rest of team staying and looking what him doing. This is why we lose. So much iso play , to little passing.

Little is our worse player in this game. Yuta doesn't bring anything , only Jordan played well from the bench.

Good game from Metu, yeah I Know in our team weren’t many players but we should win this game. Nurkic looks like he didn’t know what happened on the floor.

Little shot 4 for 7 from the field including 2 from range. Grabbed 7 boards including 2 on the offensive end and dropped 3 dimes. Ended the game with a +13. How was he the worst play in this game?

Jordan Goodwin did sweet F all out there. Only made one shot, and being our back up point, he only assisted on 1 single shot and turned the ball over twice. I love Goodwin but dude didn't have a good game with that game worst -19

[lilfishi22]

Just a hypothetical. CP3 was in consideration for MVP in '21 at age 35yo so he probably fixes a lot of issues of this team both on offense and defense.

35yo CP3 wasn't the problem though (although he did get that shoulder stinger in the playoffs). It's 36+ CP3 that became more and more of an issue we needed to overcome. He's not fixing any issues defensively but offensively, I think we'd look more competent and not throw away 4th quarters with bad possessions.

In the end, Father Time is undefeated and if we could turn back a few years, CP3 would've been a huge asset for us.

I don’t believe this applies to Lebron

It will

[ArksNetsSince99]

He was talking last year. Brooklyn has played the 10th toughest schedule and 4th toughest in the east.

Ignoring their SOS, they are on a 46 win pace right now.

That’s why I never liked Beal trade , you need guys like DFS or Bruce Browns of the league to give you that hard nosed defensive presence without compromising much on offense

Daniel Theis who went recently to the Clippers for cheap , ilike this guy as well

The thing about the Beal trade was that Chris Paul was basically washed, and Shamet was worthless. I thought we would have to either cut Paul and pay him $15K in guaranteed money to contribute nothing, or pay him $30K. Now in hindsight, maybe keeping him for $30K just for leadership worked, but he hurts to have on the floor much. His FG% from 2 years ago has dropped from around 50% to 40%. His TS% is under 53%.

He would have been another player the opponents would not have to guard.

I think Paul was basically untradeable unless we were to take a bad contract. I was shocked we got Beal. I know he isn't what he was but he still is a big scoring threat who can distribute. His D isn't good but at this point, neither is Paul's.

Ideally yes, we could have gotten a better fit or a couple of nice role players for Paul, but it didn't make sense. No one wanted him. The Wizards just wanted to get off his contract. The only reason we got him for Paul was because he had a no trade clause and forced his way to Phx.

To me, the Nets trade was far worse. We traded an iron man, who probably would have been a career Sun, who was super efficient, one of the best wing defenders, and was rapidly gaining new skills, Cam, who was a great shooter and could do other things, and Jae who it turns out was worth 5 2nd round picks. Then on top of that, 4 unprotected picks and an unprotected 29 swap.

That is a crazy trade for a declining injury prone, 35 year old player, no matter how good he is. We traded two starters for 1, losing depth, and Jae who we could have probably traded for Allen or someone similar, kept all the picks, etc, and been a better team.

Beal would look good as option #2 along with Bridges, Cam and whatever we got for Jae. Even the 2nd round picks would be nice to have.

If I’m not mistaken Jae fetched 4 SRP from the Bucks ( surprisingly)

I agree with you that CamJ is replaceable player , I just like the synergy between him and Mikal , they kind of compliment each other , they look to feed each other on the floor too

About Beal , there is certain players I wouldn’t want on the team I’m rooting for no matter the price ( I’m not talking from GM standpoint, just as a fan standpoint) and one of them is Beal , I watched him a lot when there was rumors him being traded to the Nets and I absolutely hate the guy , maybe is crazy to say this but I would prefer Westbrook over Beal for one simple reason, Westbrook cares about winning, he makes bad decisions on the floor often , he got ego ….. but he Cares , I never saw this in Beal , he looks to me like he just happy to collect the check and whatever happens it is

About Paul , ( honestly I don’t know what was his contract situation at the time ) all I remember he wanted bad to stay on this Suns team , and while he is kind of washed he was the REAL LEADER on the Suns , as an opposing team fan I respected Suns team more even when he was on the sidelines

About KD , I don’t like the guy but I gonna be honest with You , Lowest point of KD carrier in my opinion was on the Nets being swept by the Celtics ( he was just terrible, made tons of bad decisions on the floor )
If I have to put percentage on him last night against the Nets - he was 40% better than infamous Celtics series but he was also 70% worse than Bucks series year before ( in that series he was unstoppable superstar, he almost got us to the finals against you alone )
Now can he get back to 100% of KD from bucks series ? No I don’t think so , but you need him to get to 70% of that guy , 40-50 % won’t be enough

About Booker , I think he is great player , but I don’t watch him enough to have solid opinion about him , Let’s leave it at that

[enigmatics]

why 35yo? he'll be 39 in the playoffs.

Just a hypothetical. CP3 was in consideration for MVP in '21 at age 35yo so he probably fixes a lot of issues of this team both on offense and defense.

35yo CP3 wasn't the problem though (although he did get that shoulder stinger in the playoffs). It's 36+ CP3 that became more and more of an issue we needed to overcome. He's not fixing any issues defensively but offensively, I think we'd look more competent and not throw away 4th quarters with bad possessions.

In the end, Father Time is undefeated and if we could turn back a few years, CP3 would've been a huge asset for us.

Right now I'm really missing a true PG who can consistently get the offense into their sets and calm things down ala the days of Nash and CP3.

The irony is I don't even know what Kevin Young's sets are.

[Biff]

Team is injury prone and doesn't play defense. welcome back to 2005-2010.

More hard times ahead.

Difference then is we were an elite offensive team. We're a good offensive team now but nowhere near elite. I suppose there's a chance we get there but I doubt it.

[bwgood77]

I'm gonna catch hell for selling this - but "Point Book" or Book in general looks great in a front running scenario or prior to the 4th quarter. When it's crunch or clutch time he's yet to truly earn his stripes. The other thing is are his assists opening up things in the lane for his teammates? Doesn't seem like it because Young has them all marooned out across the 3pt line.

It's concerning that even with Beal out they've had two elite scorers in Book/Durant yet keep pissing away winnable games like last night.

I'm not concerned about us as long as the big 3 stay healthy but if we're talking upgrades the FO absolutely must get another point guard and another 5

PG depth is abysmal and with a Goodwin injury we are completely screwed. At the 5, I dont think we have a reliable backup 5. Everytime Nurk goes out we struggle hard. Eubanks is not reliable enough and Bol Bol is a novelty player, I'd give Dwight a shot before what we throwing out there.

I agree about Eubanks.

IMO he has been hard to watch and when he is on the court his low basketball IQ makes things tougher for his teammates on offense.

Defensively he hasn't been a positive player neither, he looks more like a third string than a backup C.

How to replace him? IDK...I would start giving Metu his minutes. I know that he would be an smallball 5, but I prefer that over playing Eubanks again.

We can add later a C with an small trade or in the buyout market...but for now we need to replace him in the rotation.

The Suns are +49 with Nurkic on the court for the last 5 games and -50 with Eubanks on.

Read on Twitter

There +/- are kind of worthless because our bench sucks....and our starters are great. This always makes a huge difference. Beal stayed in with the bench for awhile last night and his +/- was off. Nurkic ONLY plays with the starters and stars.

All it takes is a few runs with our starters and runs by other benches to get to that +/-.

I'm not saying Eubanks is nearly as good as Nurkic. Nurkic has been surprisingly good. However, people act like on/off is better or different than +/- and it's not. It's pretty worthless because it depends on who you are playing with and against.

Cleaning the Glass, if it's still around, would dive into this stuff more. But the only way to compare would be to compare Eubanks time with the same other 4 players to Nurkic's, vs the same opponent's 5 players.

[Biff]

Here's another concern: We're 5th from last in SRS in the west. Only teams below us have very bad records. So not only are we not winning much, it's made worse by the fact that we've had a cupcake schedule so far and still haven't been able to put more wins on the board.

I suppose it's possible that we will turn into a contender but I think I'm more likely to wake up with a million dollars in my bank account.

[lilfishi22]

Just a hypothetical. CP3 was in consideration for MVP in '21 at age 35yo so he probably fixes a lot of issues of this team both on offense and defense.

35yo CP3 wasn't the problem though (although he did get that shoulder stinger in the playoffs). It's 36+ CP3 that became more and more of an issue we needed to overcome. He's not fixing any issues defensively but offensively, I think we'd look more competent and not throw away 4th quarters with bad possessions.

In the end, Father Time is undefeated and if we could turn back a few years, CP3 would've been a huge asset for us.

Right now I'm really missing a true PG who can consistently get the offense into their sets and calm things down ala the days of Nash and CP3.

The irony is I don't even know what Kevin Young's sets are.

Basically any rotation level POINT GUARD at this point would be a considerable step up. Not even being greedy and asking for prime CP3 or Nash, just a halfway decent PG would be night and day.

And I agree, I don't really know what Young's offense is. The simple fact that we're almost 25 games in and we still struggle in the 4th quarter with basically everyone outside of Book/KD just watching them create tells me he doesn't really seem to be the offensive genius he's being billed as.

[AtheJ415]

Here's another concern: We're 5th from last in SRS in the west. Only teams below us have very bad records. So not only are we not winning much, it's made worse by the fact that we've had a cupcake schedule so far and still haven't been able to put more wins on the board.

I suppose it's possible that we will turn into a contender but I think I'm more likely to wake up with a million dollars in my bank account.

THIS. It's still early but this is why it has been such an inexcusably terrible. These games, even with our injuries, have been against god awful teams that we trounce talent wise given who was available.

We can get healthy and still do mediocre the rest of the way because it'll be brutal and we have not improved a lick the entire year.

This team needs to be held accountable and not deal with the ra-ra let's stay positive BS.

Did anybody watch Miami tonight? THey came out slow refusing to defend. They dug themselves like a 25 point hole. Spoelstra called 3 timeouts and emptied his bench in the 1st and sat everyone but Butler and they cut it to 4 points by the end before losing in the 4th. We need that level of accountability. It isn't enough to shrug or shoulders, clap our hands, or say we'll get them next time. We need to be learning in game and improving on this BS.

[garrick]

What I don't understand is how JJ/Ishbia didn't do anything to sign even a below average PG like Skylar Mays.

If we have no intention of playing Saben Lee why even bring him back? Might as well take a flyer on another unknown PG and see how they do.

JJ quite clearly doesn't seem like he knows or wants to draft anything besides small forwards. He made great picks with Mikail and Cam & Camara but flopped with Stix/Haliburton. He's a one trick pony when it comes to drafting or free agent acquisitions & these are not new problems either.

[enigmatics]

There +/- are kind of worthless because our bench sucks....and our starters are great. This always makes a huge difference. Beal stayed in with the bench for awhile last night and his +/- was off. Nurkic ONLY plays with the starters and stars.

All it takes is a few runs with our starters and runs by other benches to get to that +/-.

I'm not saying Eubanks is nearly as good as Nurkic. Nurkic has been surprisingly good. However, people act like on/off is better or different than +/- and it's not. It's pretty worthless because it depends on who you are playing with and against.

Cleaning the Glass, if it's still around, would dive into this stuff more. But the only way to compare would be to compare Eubanks time with the same other 4 players to Nurkic's, vs the same opponent's 5 players.

Except in most games Book and Durant have been staggered - same goes with the Gordon's and Allen's of the world. The other starters aren't anything to write home about.

Even when Nurks been in foul trouble early Eubanks isn't doing anything with it. He's a one dimensional player and one who's not very disciplined. No need to cape up for him in order to be so dismissive of Nurk's importance to this team.

[Saberestar]

I'm not concerned about us as long as the big 3 stay healthy but if we're talking upgrades the FO absolutely must get another point guard and another 5

PG depth is abysmal and with a Goodwin injury we are completely screwed. At the 5, I dont think we have a reliable backup 5. Everytime Nurk goes out we struggle hard. Eubanks is not reliable enough and Bol Bol is a novelty player, I'd give Dwight a shot before what we throwing out there.

I agree about Eubanks.

IMO he has been hard to watch and when he is on the court his low basketball IQ makes things tougher for his teammates on offense.

Defensively he hasn't been a positive player neither, he looks more like a third string than a backup C.

How to replace him? IDK...I would start giving Metu his minutes. I know that he would be an smallball 5, but I prefer that over playing Eubanks again.

We can add later a C with an small trade or in the buyout market...but for now we need to replace him in the rotation.

The Suns are +49 with Nurkic on the court for the last 5 games and -50 with Eubanks on.

Read on Twitter

There +/- are kind of worthless because our bench sucks....and our starters are great. This always makes a huge difference. Beal stayed in with the bench for awhile last night and his +/- was off. Nurkic ONLY plays with the starters and stars.

All it takes is a few runs with our starters and runs by other benches to get to that +/-.

I'm not saying Eubanks is nearly as good as Nurkic. Nurkic has been surprisingly good. However, people act like on/off is better or different than +/- and it's not. It's pretty worthless because it depends on who you are playing with and against.

Cleaning the Glass, if it's still around, would dive into this stuff more. But the only way to compare would be to compare Eubanks time with the same other 4 players to Nurkic's, vs the same opponent's 5 players.

Well, it's not only about the +/-, that's only one stat that shows the huge drop-off between him and Nurkic.

Eubanks doesn't pass the eye test, he is making mistakes left and right on both sides of the court.

[Puff]

We keep complaining about our Back-up center and Point guard play, which we should.

Why not give: Udoka Azubuike and Saben a chance to earn a spot in the rotation. Watanabe has been horrible, along with KBD at the other forward spot, give those minutes to Metu, Give Eubanks minutes to Udoka. Just drop Bol Bol from the roster. He is useless. If you can find a suitable replacement in another way fine.

Please give Saben Lee at least a shot at earning minutes. It is early in the season, right. That is the excuse for our struggles. What can we lose?

On the Gambo show two things were brought up that are right on point, imo.

Why do we struggle to defend when we hired the championship defensive coach?

Why do we struggle to score in the 4th quarter with Point Book at the controls?

Bingo - those are the two biggest issues. Even with Eubanks and others stinking up the joint we still have had a good chance to win most games. However, we have crapped the bed when the games where on the line all too often on both ends of the court.

Could coaching, which includes who he chooses to play the problem?

I also am tired of hearing about our injury issues. We were able to win last year in spite of all the injuries but this year we cannot defend or score in the 4th quarter with a so called upgraded roster and coaching staff. WTF

That is our biggest problem.

[AtheJ415]

There +/- are kind of worthless because our bench sucks....and our starters are great. This always makes a huge difference. Beal stayed in with the bench for awhile last night and his +/- was off. Nurkic ONLY plays with the starters and stars.

All it takes is a few runs with our starters and runs by other benches to get to that +/-.

I'm not saying Eubanks is nearly as good as Nurkic. Nurkic has been surprisingly good. However, people act like on/off is better or different than +/- and it's not. It's pretty worthless because it depends on who you are playing with and against.

Cleaning the Glass, if it's still around, would dive into this stuff more. But the only way to compare would be to compare Eubanks time with the same other 4 players to Nurkic's, vs the same opponent's 5 players.

Except in most games Book and Durant have been staggered - same goes with the Gordon's and Allen's of the world. The other starters aren't anything to write home about.

Even when Nurks been in foul trouble early Eubanks isn't doing anything with it. He's a one dimensional player and one who's not very disciplined. No need to cape up for him in order to be so dismissive of Nurk's importance to this team.

Eubanks would be good if asked to defend and rim run. We have him out past the FT line trying to playmake and chasing around small forwards at the 3 point line on defense because our coach is a moron.

[garrick]

There +/- are kind of worthless because our bench sucks....and our starters are great. This always makes a huge difference. Beal stayed in with the bench for awhile last night and his +/- was off. Nurkic ONLY plays with the starters and stars.

All it takes is a few runs with our starters and runs by other benches to get to that +/-.

I'm not saying Eubanks is nearly as good as Nurkic. Nurkic has been surprisingly good. However, people act like on/off is better or different than +/- and it's not. It's pretty worthless because it depends on who you are playing with and against.

Cleaning the Glass, if it's still around, would dive into this stuff more. But the only way to compare would be to compare Eubanks time with the same other 4 players to Nurkic's, vs the same opponent's 5 players.

Except in most games Book and Durant have been staggered - same goes with the Gordon's and Allen's of the world. The other starters aren't anything to write home about.

Even when Nurks been in foul trouble early Eubanks isn't doing anything with it. He's a one dimensional player and one who's not very disciplined. No need to cape up for him in order to be so dismissive of Nurk's importance to this team.

Eubanks would be good if asked to defend and rim run. We have him out past the FT line trying to playmake and chasing around small forwards at the 3 point line on defense because our coach is a moron.

I think we are expecting our vet minimum signings to just do too much either by playing out of position or by asking them to do something they just aren't capable of doing.

Watanabe, KBD and Little just lack the size to guard power forwards. Eubanks is a backup center or maybe even a 3rd string center on a good team but we need to rely on him a lot especially when Nurkic is in foul trouble.

Maybe the expectations for this team are just too much due to the "championship or bust" mentality but we have players underachieving who should really be playing a lot better normally.

[bwgood77]

There +/- are kind of worthless because our bench sucks....and our starters are great. This always makes a huge difference. Beal stayed in with the bench for awhile last night and his +/- was off. Nurkic ONLY plays with the starters and stars.

All it takes is a few runs with our starters and runs by other benches to get to that +/-.

I'm not saying Eubanks is nearly as good as Nurkic. Nurkic has been surprisingly good. However, people act like on/off is better or different than +/- and it's not. It's pretty worthless because it depends on who you are playing with and against.

Cleaning the Glass, if it's still around, would dive into this stuff more. But the only way to compare would be to compare Eubanks time with the same other 4 players to Nurkic's, vs the same opponent's 5 players.

Except in most games Book and Durant have been staggered - same goes with the Gordon's and Allen's of the world. The other starters aren't anything to write home about.

Even when Nurks been in foul trouble early Eubanks isn't doing anything with it. He's a one dimensional player and one who's not very disciplined. No need to cape up for him in order to be so dismissive of Nurk's importance to this team.

I wasn't saying Eubanks was playing well or anything. Just that that metric is overused and relied on.

[bwgood77]

We keep complaining about our Back-up center and Point guard play, which we should.

Why not give: Udoka Azubuike and Saben a chance to earn a spot in the rotation. Watanabe has been horrible, along with KBD at the other forward spot, give those minutes to Metu, Give Eubanks minutes to Udoka. Just drop Bol Bol from the roster. He is useless. If you can find a suitable replacement in another way fine.

Please give Saben Lee at least a shot at earning minutes. It is early in the season, right. That is the excuse for our struggles. What can we lose?

On the Gambo show two things were brought up that are right on point, imo.

Why do we struggle to defend when we hired the championship defensive coach?

Why do we struggle to score in the 4th quarter with Point Book at the controls?

Bingo - those are the two biggest issues. Even with Eubanks and others stinking up the joint we still have had a good chance to win most games. However, we have crapped the bed when the games where on the line all too often on both ends of the court.

Could coaching, which includes who he chooses to play the problem?

I also am tired of hearing about our injury issues. We were able to win last year in spite of all the injuries but this year we cannot defend or score in the 4th quarter with a so called upgraded roster and coaching staff. WTF

That is our biggest problem.

No, we were not. We were bad when we had so many players out. We dropped down to play in territory and needed a great run to get up to the 4 or 5 seed or wherever we ended up.

Injuries to stars are a big deal, and our depth is wildly overrated.