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  • Hawks at Suns

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    lethalweapon3

     

    “I don’t wanna be here, either, Coach Ty… but I can’t recall my Twitter password!”

     

    “With his emergence and importance to not only what we’re doing in the short term, but hopefully in the next decade-plus, I think it’s important to make him a partner in the process.”

    Relax, Atlanta Hawks fans, that wasn’t Travis Schlenk speaking of Dennis Schröder. That was the GM of Dennis’ opponent tonight, the Phoenix Suns (9:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports Arizona), speaking about the inclusion of 21-year-old star guard Devin Booker in his team’s player-personnel affairs.

    The GM is only 16 years Booker’s senior, but Ryan McDonough wasn’t born yesterday, as he understands the sports market in which he works. While the Hawks have jostled with the Barves, Dawgs, and Falcons for Atlantans’ attention since moving to Georgia back in 1968, the Suns had The Grand Canyon State all to themselves for the first two decades of their existence. That was quite awhile before Cardinals flew, Diamondbacks slithered, and Coyotes sauntered their way into the Valley.

    Phoenix is, and remains, Suns Town. Its sports fans look upon Their Team with a more critical eye than any others. Fifty years in, generations of fans are looking to a guy who was years away from being conceived when Gar Heard made The Shot to return their favorite franchise to even modest glory.

    Now in his fifth year of swings and mostly misses, the recently contract-extended McDonough (whose brother, Terry, works just down the pike as the recently-extended VP of player personnel for the Cards) needs to put a fresh face that isn’t his own behind the wheeling-and-dealings. So why not use one of the few hits the former Celtics scouting director has had since he arrived on the scene in 2013?

    Since plucking Amar’e Stoudemire out of high school in 2002, the Suns have selected 10 lottery players over the past 15 NBA Drafts, including at least one from each of the last seven drafts, three of them top-five in their respective draft years. Illustrating how boom-or-bust these picks can get, the lotto pick from 2012, Kendall Marshall, just retired from hoops altogether in November.

    Of those ten players, five remain on the roster, six if you count draft-day trade acquisition Marquese Chriss. Of that subset, only Booker (career-highs of 24.9 PPG, 38.4 3FG%, 47.7 2FG%, 87.0 FT%, 4.5 RPG, 4.2 APG) stands out as a surefire star, while T.J. Warren remains as-advertised for a hustle player without a hint of long-distance range (19.4 PPG, 16.9 3FG%). The rest (Alex Len, Chriss, Dragan Bender, Josh Jackson), plus second-year second-rounder and starting point guard Tyler Ulis, display varying levels of waning potential on a nightly basis.

    McDonough was granted his contract extension by Suns owner Robert Sarver in mid-July, and seems to have avoided making any significant additions to a roster, coached by Earl Watson, that checked in 2016-17 at 24-58, a mere one-game improvement over the prior season. Watson couldn’t last beyond the first three games of this season, a start marked by a pair of ignominious blowout losses and the defection of its former leading playmaker, hair salon expert Eric Bledsoe.

    Bledsoe’s “I Dont wanna be here” tweet finally spurred McDonough to make a move, exchanging EBled for a protected 1st rounder in 2018 from Milwaukee along with Greg Monroe, essentially bubble-wrapped for a future trade deal. Athletic third-stringer project Derrick Jones was bounced to allow two-way G-Leaguer Mike James to become a historical footnote, the latter waived just weeks after signing a full NBA contract in favor of guard Isaiah Canaan (5.0 APG, 40.0 3FG%, 96.7 FT% off-bench in last 8 games).

    At least until the NBA trade winds begin to blow, the Suns have set on Ulis, Booker, Canaan and Troy Daniels (42.5 3FG%) in the backcourt, Warren at the wing in front of a very green Jackson, and a frontcourt rotation of Tyson Chandler, Len, Monroe and Jared Dudley (questionable for today, illness) in front of the very green Chriss (starting today) and Bender. Under the direction of replacement coach Jay Triano, the senior bigs are waffling between major minutes on one night and DNP-CDs in the ensuing games, ostensibly to keep them “fresh”, for something.

    If Booker’s value holds any weight, then Triano will remain at the helm for the foreseeable future. “He’s giving a lot of players a lot of opportunities,” Booker told the local media, “but he’s also holding people accountable at the same time, which is what we need.”

    Triano is instilling an offense that forces players, from Booker to the centers, to share the ball and keep it from excessively dribbling it on the ground, where their turnover problems (15.8 TOs/game, 2nd-most in NBA) tend to take hold. Only the Hawks’ prior (and next) opponent, Portland (1.26), has a lower assist-turnover ratio (1.29) than the Suns, an issue Triano wants to fix foremost.

    Len was strung along all summer as a restricted free agent without a contract, but is now enjoying a career season when he does get off the bench (11.0 RPG when granted 20+ minutes). He added, “I definitely love Jay and love playing for him.”

    If the Suns (no playoffs since GM Steve Kerr, coach Alvin Gentry and player Grant Hill’s 2010 Western Conference Finalists) truly want to demonstrate that newfound sense of love and stability to their lotto-weary fanbase, they need to start stringing some wins together here at TSR Arena, and soon.

    Phoenix (14-24) has the NBA’s worst home record, at 6-14. They’ve notched just two wins since beating then-downtrodden Chicago way back on November 19, and both victories came against still-downtrodden Memphis, one of those wins off a sneakily-designed buzzer-beating alley-oop play.

    While they’re only two games from the Western Conference basement, the Suns are only five games behind the 8-seed and have a rational 9-13 mark in-conference, 9-10 since that disastrous start. Getting back in the playoff hunt requires beating teams at home, especially teams like the Hawks (10-26, league-worst 3-15 on the road).

    With half the country currently shivering in sub-zero wind chills, Arizona native Mike Budenholzer’s troopers couldn’t have picked a better NBA locale to kick off their five-game, four-arena road trek. His Hawks have shown signs of warming up themselves, notching three home wins over their past four games, and now want to see how good their improving show can be when they take it on the road. Atlanta is 0-6 away from Philips Arena since beating Brooklyn back on December 2, although those first five road defeats were by single digits.

    Budenholzer (199 Hawks wins, t-5th w/ Hubie Brown) would love to rotate his frontcourt more, a la Phoenix, but those schemes were precluded by early injuries to Dewayne Dedmon and Mike Muscala, and to current starters Ersan Ilyasova and Miles Plumlee before that. The good news for Coach Bud is his frontline is beginning to firm up.

    Having labored through a mostly-bad nine-game stretch at the season’s outset, before getting shelved to heal a bum ankle, Muscala is back after a quick jaunt through the lake-effect snow up in Erie, and he’s probable to be available for tonight’s game. Meanwhile, Dedmon is a good bet to return to the floor by the time Atlanta’s road trip concludes on January 10.

    Moose won’t be thrown to the wolves, or the Suns, quite like ex-Sun Plumlee and Tyler Cavanaugh were in their season debuts. Rather, he’ll be used sparingly until he can find a rotation (likely, ones paired with centrifugal forces John Collins and Plumlee) where he regains a comfort level spreading the floor and hustling for rebounds and loose-balls.

    Frontcourt passing was the name of the game in Atlanta’s 104-89 victory over the visiting Trail Blazers on Saturday night. Schröder’s brilliance re-emerged, particularly as a scorer late in the contest (22 points, 8 assists, 1 TO) as Atlanta pulled ahead and away. But Dennis’ pinpoint passing was matched with 13 dimes by a combination of Taurean Prince (12 points, team-high 10 rebounds, 5 assists), Ilyasova, John Collins, and Plumlee. Collins’ three dimes in the space of four early fourth-quarter minutes helped to break the game open for the home team. Collins led a Hawks bench crew that out-assisted Portland’s 10-1.

    Superior passing, deadeye shooting, and an 18-10 points-off-turnovers edge helped the Hawks minimize a 46-28 disadvantage versus the Blazers in the paint. Still, that last part sounds fine to Chandler, who has enjoyed 23-rebound and (a Suns-franchise record) 27-rebound outings versus the Hawks during the past four seasons. As has been custom on back-to-backs, Triano will likely choose to let Chandler go full-bore tonight, then rest him in tomorrow’s contest in Denver.

    Muscala’s addition won’t firm up Atlanta’s interior defense (63.8 opponent FG% within 5 feet, 4th-highest in NBA) or keep opponents from getting extra helpings (NBA-high 14.5 opponent second-chance PPG, 15.2 on the road). But the more frequently he can manage to make smart, decisive decisions when the ball comes his way, the sooner he will discover it wasn’t the Man-Bun holding him back.

    Schröder (29.0 PPG vs. PHX last season) was noticeably active on the defensive end on Saturday, and more of the same from he and Kent Bazemore will help keep Booker (6.0 FTAs per game), Canaan and Ulis from creating havoc and foul problems in the paint. Coercing Phoenix’s scorers out to the margins works out well for most of their opponents. The Suns join the Lakers, an upcoming Hawks opponent, as the only clubs shooting below 35 percent on three-point shots above-the-break and below 40 percent in each of the corners.

    Add a poor perimeter shooting night (PHX is 2-20 when shooting below 35 3FG%) to the Suns’ sloppy transition defense (13.7 opponent fastbreak points per-48, 4th-most in NBA), anemic interior defense (48.4 opponent paint points per-48, tied-2nd-most in NBA), and problems with turnovers (18.5 opponent points per-48 off TOs, 4th-most in NBA), and you have the makings for a messy yet entertaining, high-paced competition between two struggling squads that checked out of 2017 with a 6-9 December record.

     

    #SarverOut electronic billboards currently dot the Arizona sky. While Philips Arena’s two-year renovation process is already underway in Atlanta, Sarver’s $450 million renovation proposal for his older TSR Arena isn’t going so well. Fans and politicos alike are peeved, and a deliberate tank job won’t satisfy anyone around town. For all the Processed meat chewed up and spat out over the past seven years, Phoenicians want to see a lot more steak than just Booker on the floor.

    With everyone peeved about the stagnating state of his franchise, Sarver is sure to pass the heat onto his managerial staff if the home losses continue piling up, especially to teams like Atlanta. As one recent Oakland Raiders coach would warn McDonough, multi-year contract extensions don’t mean quite as much as they once did.

     

    Go Dawgs! And Let’s Go Hawks!

    ~lw3


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