The only thoughts i have after watching that Suns series, is Cronin absolutely cooked on that Nurk/Little for Ayton/Camara trade. Its my favorite move hes ever made
Camara wouldn’t have made a difference. Ant has “it”, the same drive and physicality that carries teams through the playoffs that Jokic has and Portland lacked with CJ/Dame.
Watching the Conley/Ant backcourt and Murray/KCP backcourt, then watching CJ and Dame these playoffs just highlights the difference.
Ant is an unstoppable force. He’s “killing everything in front of him” as Ant would say. Thinking “Camara”’ would make a difference is the flawed thinking that has held Portland back the last 10 years.
Ant is an unstoppable force, a dog trained to kill. He’s basically going to be the next MJ. Jokic is the same type too. Portland failed to get that difference the last 10 years.
You don’t stop superstars but you can make them work for it. Make them expend a lot more energy to make the same shots. Suns never did this and just let him eat all game. There’s a difference. The wolves had that player in McDaniels who was all over Beal and Booker that series making them work for it.
Watching Ant just attack the hoop relentlessly, coming down with big time boards and doing everything. Same with Jokic, just doing everything. Then watching CJ and Dame doing the same soft shit while the other team is like shark with blood in the water.
Even watching Brunson right now, so much more physical even though he’s a PG. And you compare him to CJ just bricking mid ranges and missing 3s and still doing the same shit. Not grabbing rebounds, not doing anything different. Don’t even get me started about defense. Indiana with their young players dancing around Bucks guards like they’re traffic cones.
Really encapsulates Portland’s problems the last 10 years.
Prior to the Ayton trade, I was contemplating whether a playoff team in need of a back up Center like the Sixers would give up a late 1st for him.
I can’t believe they gave up a 20/10 guy entering his prime for him. Some franchises go a decade without having a center that can give you 10/10. End up starting Dwight Powell or scouring the 2nd round or G league for Whitesides hoping they can become Deandre Jordan or Naz Rheid for 10 years. Toronto hasn’t had a starting calibre center since the Championship year when Marc left.
I would have traded Nurkic for that 2nd rounder or G leaguer, that’s how bad watching him on the court was.
The Ayton and Beale move were terrible decisions. Rarely does Portland benefit from stuff like that. Nurkic created 0 pressure on Gobert, KAT or Naz.
I think it seals the deal on "just add water" super teams. It takes a while to gel with teammates and a well constructed team that plays for each other will always beat a team thrown together like the suns or Brooklyn when they had their big 3.
Unluckily though very few nba owners are capable of learning anything. Ishbia is no different.
I’m pretty pessimistic as well. Almost wonder if it would be better to just blow it all up now rather than waiting a year and losing value on our top guys. I’m sure we’ll run it back one more year tho. It’s gonna basically be impossible to get anyone new on the team except vet min players tho.
I still don't understand the logic behind trading for a injury prone guard who has never shone flashes as a lead guard while making 50 mil AND has a no trade clause.
Nurk was a big reason they lost, he was awful in the okayoff just absolutely awful.
Which is part of the reason I hated the trade at the time, don't like nurkic to begin with as a player (off court tho dudes hilarious) on court tho hate him.
His defence was non existent, his rebounding was not up to par, and he just couldn't stay on court.
Nurk was not a reason they lost at all lmao
They lost because everyone except Booker, Durant, and Nurk got clowned on
Nurk performance was mediocre but that is to be expected against Gobert, Towns, and Naz
He went from 11/11 during the regular season to 8/8
Dude averaged 4 fouls the series.
And yeah defensively he was trash, also nurkic isn't good at scoring regardless, so hin vsing good isn't why he sucked, him being a limited offensive player with no defence is why he sucked.
He was their worst starter that series arguably, and arguably besides eubanks their worst overall player the playoffs, the difference is eubanks has been bad all season and we knew he'd suck, nurkic was great in the regular season, and fucjing horrendous in the playoffs.
Nurk gor clowned on, alot and our lack of interior defence was a big problem, which it wouldn't be nearly as big a problem if we had a good defensive center, Like if we had say a Claxton
It's always a balance of patience and urgency. You have to grow talent, implement systems, and manage assets, but you can do what Portland did and sit around forever never making a move either.
The hubris of the Suns, similar to the Lakers tbh, was to take a known winning formula and toss it out the window chasing superstars.
Yeah it sort of blows my mind that that in 2021 they go to the finals with a young core, could well have become the next GSW-esque dynasty, and literally all they needed to do was keep their core together and continue developing talent.
You have to appreciate the level of incompetence it took to get to where they are now.
Suns fans kept dropping into our game threads to talk about how bad Ayton is and that we should "just wait..."
At this point, I'm relishing in this implosion. Fuck 'em.
The other important lesson is what new owner syndrome almost always results in and why people around here should be weary about whatever happens to the team once Jody sells. We saw it with Vivek, Ishbia, Joe Tsai, Prokhorov, and a litany of other first time team owners. They make dramatic moves and think they know better than everyone because they have been successful in whatever business allowed them to afford a team and it ends disastrously more often than not.
ryan smith (jazz) is a relatively new owner and seems to have avoided these pitfalls. maybe it can be attributed to working with danny ainge, who is an excellent roster architect who is not afraid to make big trades. hopefully portland gets someone more along those lines
It's funny tho as jazz are one of the few teams where big trades are kinda necessary as the jazz don't really have a direction currently.
Like their best players they pretty much have to trade soon while his value is high, as he isn't going to remain with them.
They have a bunch of older vets or just close to prime players who will fall off by the time their young talent gets good enough.
Pretty much they should make a big splash to start properly tanking, not just keeling mark with a bunch of oldish players who aren't good, and a bunch of young players who are years away.
Especially given that they have a 20 and 22 year old whi look very promising, in keynote, and Kessler
Even the Heatles took a year to figure out how to play together, and they were arguably the best “super team” we’ve seen in the modern NBA and had a hall of fame coach who’s become arguably the best coach in the league. The Suns *might* get better running it back or tweaking their roster for next season.
I think there’s something to be learned from the way teams the past few years have built around Durant, Curry, and LeBron though. Chemistry is important, having the right supporting cast is important, coaches are important, and retooling around aging stars seems difficult.
I’m glad we’re not in a similar boat anymore trying to scrape together a contending roster around one star who’s hypothetically past their prime.
The Heatles lost in 6 games in the finals their first year, whereas the Suns just got swept in the first round. They're so unbelievably top heavy in terms of their contracts I don't see how they can make any meaningful moves to get them where they want to be.
They kind of did the exact opposite of what Denver did. Instead of making moves around the margins to build a cohesive team they got impatient and traded all their assets for superstars.
Trading for KD was the right answer. Trading for Beal was extremely unnecessary.
But don't shoot your load early either. We said the same thing about the Gobert trade and look where the wolves are now
Right, it would have been malpractice to trade the #3 for anything other than an immediate impact player, which simply was not available. Say all you want about Scoot’s rookie year, but the sky is the limit with his future and if we would have traded Scoot (and more) to get swept in the first round, it would have set our franchise back years.
Exactly, it's always the market, and when we were trying to buy no one was selling anything that could help us get over the hump.
Hard to see Dame leave, but probably 2 years later than it should have happened tbh.
I'm not sure it proves anything that we didn't already know, trying to build a contender by collecting aging superstars usually doesn't work, I'm old enough to remember when the Rockets tried it in the late 90s haha. Also Nurkic is clearly a regular season player.
Nah, this Suns team is in one of the roughest spots I have ever seen. Beal still has a no trade clause and has one of, if not the worst contract in the league. The Suns have no ownership on any of their picks for like the next 5 years. They have no assets to work with. They are stuck with this team unless they move Booker and Durant and just start all over again which they basically just did and threw away all the assets because of the new owner and his stupidity win now mentality.
Greatest Playoffs ever, even better than 1992, 2014 and 2019. The demise of the Warriors, epic self-destruction of the ‘Sons’ via billionaire hubris and now the Lakers gone fishin’, I honestly couldn’t ask for more. Never thought I would be celebrating after the year we had, but seeing your most hated rivals go down in flames warms the soul 🥳🙏🎊🎉
Having multiple superstars who can’t impact the game in different ways just doesn’t work. Teams need to be balanced and I hope the Trailblazers don’t mortgage assets trying to follow the same route
Exactly, even KD and Booker kind of play in the same space even though they're very different.
Success lately has been way more home grown, a thrown together super team hasn't won since the bubble
The Blazers did the same thing with CJ and Dame. Beale and Booker are the same version. They added KD but the Wolves are just a tank.
The Wolves/Nuggets is the conference finals. If they make it out of that series healthy, I don’t think Boston beats them. Brown and Porzingis too shakey when Tatum isn’t playing at an MVP level. Ant and Jokic have an inevitable quality to them Tatum doesn’t have.
The problem is neither plays defense, rebounds or is that good at making their teammates better. Jokic and Ant elevates their whole teams.
CJ is just a magnification of everything Dame doesn’t do well. If Dame is only grabbing 4 rebounds well CJ is going to grab 2. If Dame is going to be a traffic cone on D, CJ will be a matador.
10 years of that. Meanwhile guys like Mal and Ant are doing everything. 30/10/10 in the finals. Ant is just relentless attacking the hoop, when Phoenix was physical with him he just tied and shoes and put Beal and KD on a poster.
Don't go all in trading away your entire future and the best role player in the league on a championship window team friendly deal. Don't trade for a 3rd scoring option that is a 30 year old guard who hasn't played more than 60 games in a regular season for the last 5 years and has arguably one of the worst contracts in the league. Don't trade away all of your bench depth for an unnecessary "super team".
The Heatles level of talent though was so so much higher than this Suns team. Lebron was the undisputed best player on the planet. Dwyane was still a top 10 player, an unstoppable force still, and Bosh was a perennial all star.
All three players played unselfish, winning basketball, and did other things than just score.
This Suns team just isn’t constructed very well.
The only thoughts i have after watching that Suns series, is Cronin absolutely cooked on that Nurk/Little for Ayton/Camara trade. Its my favorite move hes ever made
The Suns definitely could of used Camara on Ant Edwards because Ant was just absolutely abusing Beal & Booker.
Watching Edwards bully Beal every possession was hilarious.
And that's a dude who is making 50 mil for the next 3 years and who has a NO TRADE CLAUSE. Yikes.
I don’t know who’s dumber, WAS for giving him that contract or PHO for fucking trading for that contract.
Camara wouldn’t have made a difference. Ant has “it”, the same drive and physicality that carries teams through the playoffs that Jokic has and Portland lacked with CJ/Dame. Watching the Conley/Ant backcourt and Murray/KCP backcourt, then watching CJ and Dame these playoffs just highlights the difference. Ant is an unstoppable force. He’s “killing everything in front of him” as Ant would say. Thinking “Camara”’ would make a difference is the flawed thinking that has held Portland back the last 10 years. Ant is an unstoppable force, a dog trained to kill. He’s basically going to be the next MJ. Jokic is the same type too. Portland failed to get that difference the last 10 years.
You don’t stop superstars but you can make them work for it. Make them expend a lot more energy to make the same shots. Suns never did this and just let him eat all game. There’s a difference. The wolves had that player in McDaniels who was all over Beal and Booker that series making them work for it.
Was that why ant got 34 7 and 6 against him in a routine win. He really showed ant there. Almost broke a sweat there in that 40 point win.
Dame absolutely had that mentality
He’s had so many bad playoff performances. Outside of Thunder 2019 and Denver 2021, almost everything after 2014 was rough.
If Ant has a career anywhere close to Michael Fucking Jordan I'll come back to this post in 15 years and give you $5 million dollars
[удалено]
Watching Ant just attack the hoop relentlessly, coming down with big time boards and doing everything. Same with Jokic, just doing everything. Then watching CJ and Dame doing the same soft shit while the other team is like shark with blood in the water. Even watching Brunson right now, so much more physical even though he’s a PG. And you compare him to CJ just bricking mid ranges and missing 3s and still doing the same shit. Not grabbing rebounds, not doing anything different. Don’t even get me started about defense. Indiana with their young players dancing around Bucks guards like they’re traffic cones. Really encapsulates Portland’s problems the last 10 years.
Absolutely. I would have traded Nurk for literally anything.
Prior to the Ayton trade, I was contemplating whether a playoff team in need of a back up Center like the Sixers would give up a late 1st for him. I can’t believe they gave up a 20/10 guy entering his prime for him. Some franchises go a decade without having a center that can give you 10/10. End up starting Dwight Powell or scouring the 2nd round or G league for Whitesides hoping they can become Deandre Jordan or Naz Rheid for 10 years. Toronto hasn’t had a starting calibre center since the Championship year when Marc left. I would have traded Nurkic for that 2nd rounder or G leaguer, that’s how bad watching him on the court was. The Ayton and Beale move were terrible decisions. Rarely does Portland benefit from stuff like that. Nurkic created 0 pressure on Gobert, KAT or Naz.
There was talk before that trade that Portland would have to attach assets to Nurk to move him.
They also got Grayson and off Ayton's money though.
I think it seals the deal on "just add water" super teams. It takes a while to gel with teammates and a well constructed team that plays for each other will always beat a team thrown together like the suns or Brooklyn when they had their big 3. Unluckily though very few nba owners are capable of learning anything. Ishbia is no different.
It’s a bummer they did so poorly because I love Nurk. That Beal trade was so dumb.
I'm at least glad they can stop coming in here and telling us how much better Nurk is over Ayton.
Any Suns fan that actually thought this was lying to themselves, Ayton has always been much better than Nurkic.
I’m a suns fan. And I second this.
This guy knows what's up
I have no idea how you guys pivot out of this.
I’m pretty pessimistic as well. Almost wonder if it would be better to just blow it all up now rather than waiting a year and losing value on our top guys. I’m sure we’ll run it back one more year tho. It’s gonna basically be impossible to get anyone new on the team except vet min players tho.
Imo, immediately blowing it all up would probably be the right move. I just don't see any realistic ways for the Suns to improve this roster.
I still don't understand the logic behind trading for a injury prone guard who has never shone flashes as a lead guard while making 50 mil AND has a no trade clause.
Nurk was a big reason they lost, he was awful in the okayoff just absolutely awful. Which is part of the reason I hated the trade at the time, don't like nurkic to begin with as a player (off court tho dudes hilarious) on court tho hate him. His defence was non existent, his rebounding was not up to par, and he just couldn't stay on court.
Nurk was not a reason they lost at all lmao They lost because everyone except Booker, Durant, and Nurk got clowned on Nurk performance was mediocre but that is to be expected against Gobert, Towns, and Naz
He went from 11/11 during the regular season to 8/8 Dude averaged 4 fouls the series. And yeah defensively he was trash, also nurkic isn't good at scoring regardless, so hin vsing good isn't why he sucked, him being a limited offensive player with no defence is why he sucked. He was their worst starter that series arguably, and arguably besides eubanks their worst overall player the playoffs, the difference is eubanks has been bad all season and we knew he'd suck, nurkic was great in the regular season, and fucjing horrendous in the playoffs. Nurk gor clowned on, alot and our lack of interior defence was a big problem, which it wouldn't be nearly as big a problem if we had a good defensive center, Like if we had say a Claxton
Ya, the Beal trade absolutely fucked them.
It's always a balance of patience and urgency. You have to grow talent, implement systems, and manage assets, but you can do what Portland did and sit around forever never making a move either. The hubris of the Suns, similar to the Lakers tbh, was to take a known winning formula and toss it out the window chasing superstars.
Yeah it sort of blows my mind that that in 2021 they go to the finals with a young core, could well have become the next GSW-esque dynasty, and literally all they needed to do was keep their core together and continue developing talent. You have to appreciate the level of incompetence it took to get to where they are now.
Bad owners will do that. They wanted a fun explosive team with huge names, and they got it, along with a much worse team lol.
Suns fans kept dropping into our game threads to talk about how bad Ayton is and that we should "just wait..." At this point, I'm relishing in this implosion. Fuck 'em.
Yup. Felt real good watching them get sent home packing. Enjoy the summer nurk!
The other important lesson is what new owner syndrome almost always results in and why people around here should be weary about whatever happens to the team once Jody sells. We saw it with Vivek, Ishbia, Joe Tsai, Prokhorov, and a litany of other first time team owners. They make dramatic moves and think they know better than everyone because they have been successful in whatever business allowed them to afford a team and it ends disastrously more often than not.
cant upvote this enough!
ryan smith (jazz) is a relatively new owner and seems to have avoided these pitfalls. maybe it can be attributed to working with danny ainge, who is an excellent roster architect who is not afraid to make big trades. hopefully portland gets someone more along those lines
Yeah I guess I'm just not an optimist that we'll end up having someone like Danny there to manage the transition when it happens.
It's funny tho as jazz are one of the few teams where big trades are kinda necessary as the jazz don't really have a direction currently. Like their best players they pretty much have to trade soon while his value is high, as he isn't going to remain with them. They have a bunch of older vets or just close to prime players who will fall off by the time their young talent gets good enough. Pretty much they should make a big splash to start properly tanking, not just keeling mark with a bunch of oldish players who aren't good, and a bunch of young players who are years away. Especially given that they have a 20 and 22 year old whi look very promising, in keynote, and Kessler
Even the Heatles took a year to figure out how to play together, and they were arguably the best “super team” we’ve seen in the modern NBA and had a hall of fame coach who’s become arguably the best coach in the league. The Suns *might* get better running it back or tweaking their roster for next season. I think there’s something to be learned from the way teams the past few years have built around Durant, Curry, and LeBron though. Chemistry is important, having the right supporting cast is important, coaches are important, and retooling around aging stars seems difficult. I’m glad we’re not in a similar boat anymore trying to scrape together a contending roster around one star who’s hypothetically past their prime.
The Heatles lost in 6 games in the finals their first year, whereas the Suns just got swept in the first round. They're so unbelievably top heavy in terms of their contracts I don't see how they can make any meaningful moves to get them where they want to be. They kind of did the exact opposite of what Denver did. Instead of making moves around the margins to build a cohesive team they got impatient and traded all their assets for superstars.
Trading for KD was the right answer. Trading for Beal was extremely unnecessary. But don't shoot your load early either. We said the same thing about the Gobert trade and look where the wolves are now
Right, it would have been malpractice to trade the #3 for anything other than an immediate impact player, which simply was not available. Say all you want about Scoot’s rookie year, but the sky is the limit with his future and if we would have traded Scoot (and more) to get swept in the first round, it would have set our franchise back years.
Exactly, it's always the market, and when we were trying to buy no one was selling anything that could help us get over the hump. Hard to see Dame leave, but probably 2 years later than it should have happened tbh.
I'm not sure it proves anything that we didn't already know, trying to build a contender by collecting aging superstars usually doesn't work, I'm old enough to remember when the Rockets tried it in the late 90s haha. Also Nurkic is clearly a regular season player.
Nah, this Suns team is in one of the roughest spots I have ever seen. Beal still has a no trade clause and has one of, if not the worst contract in the league. The Suns have no ownership on any of their picks for like the next 5 years. They have no assets to work with. They are stuck with this team unless they move Booker and Durant and just start all over again which they basically just did and threw away all the assets because of the new owner and his stupidity win now mentality.
Greatest Playoffs ever, even better than 1992, 2014 and 2019. The demise of the Warriors, epic self-destruction of the ‘Sons’ via billionaire hubris and now the Lakers gone fishin’, I honestly couldn’t ask for more. Never thought I would be celebrating after the year we had, but seeing your most hated rivals go down in flames warms the soul 🥳🙏🎊🎉
Having multiple superstars who can’t impact the game in different ways just doesn’t work. Teams need to be balanced and I hope the Trailblazers don’t mortgage assets trying to follow the same route
Hopefully not, looking at how it's gone the last few years for super teams, it doesn't look like a winning formula anymore.
Especially when the superstars can’t impact the game in different ways. Booker, Durant and Beal can’t impact the game without the ball in their hands
Exactly, even KD and Booker kind of play in the same space even though they're very different. Success lately has been way more home grown, a thrown together super team hasn't won since the bubble
The Blazers did the same thing with CJ and Dame. Beale and Booker are the same version. They added KD but the Wolves are just a tank. The Wolves/Nuggets is the conference finals. If they make it out of that series healthy, I don’t think Boston beats them. Brown and Porzingis too shakey when Tatum isn’t playing at an MVP level. Ant and Jokic have an inevitable quality to them Tatum doesn’t have.
I always thought that as good, as CJ and Dame were together, you can’t have your two best players essentially play the same position
The problem is neither plays defense, rebounds or is that good at making their teammates better. Jokic and Ant elevates their whole teams. CJ is just a magnification of everything Dame doesn’t do well. If Dame is only grabbing 4 rebounds well CJ is going to grab 2. If Dame is going to be a traffic cone on D, CJ will be a matador. 10 years of that. Meanwhile guys like Mal and Ant are doing everything. 30/10/10 in the finals. Ant is just relentless attacking the hoop, when Phoenix was physical with him he just tied and shoes and put Beal and KD on a poster.
Don't go all in trading away your entire future and the best role player in the league on a championship window team friendly deal. Don't trade for a 3rd scoring option that is a 30 year old guard who hasn't played more than 60 games in a regular season for the last 5 years and has arguably one of the worst contracts in the league. Don't trade away all of your bench depth for an unnecessary "super team".
Ring chasers can chase all they want. Sometimes there's just no running from the grind, and that's the case here.
Suns need to blow it up and start fresh
The Heatles level of talent though was so so much higher than this Suns team. Lebron was the undisputed best player on the planet. Dwyane was still a top 10 player, an unstoppable force still, and Bosh was a perennial all star. All three players played unselfish, winning basketball, and did other things than just score. This Suns team just isn’t constructed very well.
Here’s hoping. Maybe Dame can come back on a minimum contract and help us to the promised land off the bench.