Grades Game 16- Suns

[Lipoli390]

Our team is built around Ant as our star. He’s a ball-dominant SG in the mold of MJ, Kobe and Wade. So it doesn’t make sense for this team to focus on the PG position.

Ant needs to be smarter with the ball and stop constantly going one on five. It gets worse with Julius also playing too much iso ball. He’s a good passer who needs to give up the ball sooner. Meanwhile, the floor needs to be spaced better with better off ball movement. Those are the things that need to change and that can move the needle. TJ McConnell isn’t going to move the needle and Ja Morant would probably move the needle in the wrong direction considering his issues between the ears and who we’d have to give up to get him.

We have an excellent ball-handler on our roster who has displayed very good passing skills. He’s lightening quick and accelerates our pace when he’s on the floor. His name is Rob Dillingham. Put him out there 25 minutes a game with Ant, Jaden, and Julius or Naz, in which case he wouldn’t have to do much. See what happens. If it doesn’t pan out by mid-January then look for deals by the Feb. trade deadline.

This team has a problem but it’s still essentially the same roster that made the Conference finals last season after an even worse start. I think it would be a mistake to make a panic move now, especially without fully testing our talented recent draft picks - Rob, TSJ and Clark.

[Coolbreeze44]

Let's see how we feel about the point guard position after a couple of OKC games.

[60WinTim]

Let's see how we feel about the point guard position after a couple of OKC games.

100 percent!

[60WinTim]

I don't know what a deal would look like, but the Pelicans will be looking to sell at the trade deadline. Dejounte Murray will likely be working his way back. They added Fears and have Poole. Murray is someone I wouldn't mind having down the road. Plus they have a Q-favorite, Looney. I would be in favor of some sort of deal that landed those two players with the Wolves. I'm not sure who were sending out -- some sort of combo platter of Randle, NAZ, Donte, and/or a youngin'...

[Q-is-here]

Our team is built around Ant as our star. He’s a ball-dominant SG in the mold of MJ, Kobe and Wade. So it doesn’t make sense for this team to focus on the PG position.

Ant needs to be smarter with the ball and stop constantly going one on five. It gets worse with Julius also playing too much iso ball. He’s a good passer who needs to give up the ball sooner. Meanwhile, the floor needs to be spaced better with better off ball movement. Those are the things that need to change and that can move the needle. TJ McConnell isn’t going to move the needle and Ja Morant would probably move the needle in the wrong direction considering his issues between the ears and who we’d have to give up to get him.

We have an excellent ball-handler on our roster who has displayed very good passing skills. He’s lightening quick and accelerates our pace when he’s on the floor. His name is Rob Dillingham. Put him out there 25 minutes a game with Ant, Jaden, and Julius or Naz, in which case he wouldn’t have to do much. See what happens. If it doesn’t pan out by mid-January then look for deals by the Feb. trade deadline.

This team has a problem but it’s still essentially the same roster that made the Conference finals last season after an even worse start. I think it would be a mistake to make a panic move now, especially without fully testing our talented recent draft picks - Rob, TSJ and Clark.

I only mentioned TJ McConnell as an option since he's on a miserable Indiana team right now and may actually be a realistic acquisition that is a) good enough to actually play minutes in the playoffs, and b) not require some major shakeup in our roster. He'd sop up all of Conley and Dillingham's minutes as our backup PG and would get more minutes against the OKC's of the world and less minutes against more bunker-style defenses that Ant and Randle can play-make against.

That being said, I qualified it as a "rash" decision, as I agree it's too early to make any moves and I'm sure Connelly and Finch feel the same way based on their history of patience. But to your point, come January, what if we continue to struggle against ball-pressure defenses and languishing in the middle (i.e. play in range) of the Western Conference standings?

[Q-is-here]

I don't know what a deal would look like, but the Pelicans will be looking to sell at the trade deadline. Dejounte Murray will likely be working his way back. They added Fears and have Poole. Murray is someone I wouldn't mind having down the road. Plus they have a Q-favorite, Looney. I would be in favor of some sort of deal that landed those two players with the Wolves. I'm not sure who were sending out -- some sort of combo platter of Randle, NAZ, Donte, and/or a youngin'...

Murray feels like too big of a change/risk. A less sexy (and less costly for that matter) move would be to trade for Looney and Alvarado. Looney is a rugged paint defender, outstanding rebounder, and excellent screen setter. Alvarado is a little bulldog that has a bit more juice than Conley. Both would be backups of course. Looney would play more in a series against a huge team like Houston and Alvarado would be used more against ball-pressure teams. Not sure that would be "enough" to offset our problems, but again, they seem like realistic targets.

[Q-is-here]

....another thing on Looney. He has nearly a 3:1 assist to turnover ratio for his career. That's actually incredible for a Center. He averages 3.3 assists and 1.2 turnovers per 36 minutes over his career. That along with his defensive rebounding would be a welcome addition to our frontcourt rotation!

[Lipoli390]

Our team is built around Ant as our star. He’s a ball-dominant SG in the mold of MJ, Kobe and Wade. So it doesn’t make sense for this team to focus on the PG position.

Ant needs to be smarter with the ball and stop constantly going one on five. It gets worse with Julius also playing too much iso ball. He’s a good passer who needs to give up the ball sooner. Meanwhile, the floor needs to be spaced better with better off ball movement. Those are the things that need to change and that can move the needle. TJ McConnell isn’t going to move the needle and Ja Morant would probably move the needle in the wrong direction considering his issues between the ears and who we’d have to give up to get him.

We have an excellent ball-handler on our roster who has displayed very good passing skills. He’s lightening quick and accelerates our pace when he’s on the floor. His name is Rob Dillingham. Put him out there 25 minutes a game with Ant, Jaden, and Julius or Naz, in which case he wouldn’t have to do much. See what happens. If it doesn’t pan out by mid-January then look for deals by the Feb. trade deadline.

This team has a problem but it’s still essentially the same roster that made the Conference finals last season after an even worse start. I think it would be a mistake to make a panic move now, especially without fully testing our talented recent draft picks - Rob, TSJ and Clark.

I only mentioned TJ McConnell as an option since he's on a miserable Indiana team right now and may actually be a realistic acquisition that is a) good enough to actually play minutes in the playoffs, and b) not require some major shakeup in our roster. He'd sop up all of Conley and Dillingham's minutes as our backup PG and would get more minutes against the OKC's of the world and less minutes against more bunker-style defenses that Ant and Randle can play-make against.

That being said, I qualified it as a "rash" decision, as I agree it's too early to make any moves and I'm sure Connelly and Finch feel the same way based on their history of patience. But to your point, come January, what if we continue to struggle against ball-pressure defenses and languishing in the middle (i.e. play in range) of the Western Conference standings?

I understood TJ was an example. My point is that a TJ McConnell level player isn’t going to move the needle enough to make us a championship contender if Ant doesn’t take his game up a notch consistently. I like TJ a lot, but I don’t think he’s that guy, especially at this point in his career when he’ll be turning 34. I can’t come up with a move-the-needle PG we could get in a net-gain trade. If we’re no better in mid-January then I might have a different view, although I’m not sure. If we’re still hovering around 5 games over .500 then, I don’t think we can honestly say we’re a back-up PG away from contending for a championship. I just want to make sure we’ve maximized the evaluation and development of our current players before we feel compelled to make a trade-deadline deal in late January or February.

[Lipoli390]

I don't know what a deal would look like, but the Pelicans will be looking to sell at the trade deadline. Dejounte Murray will likely be working his way back. They added Fears and have Poole. Murray is someone I wouldn't mind having down the road. Plus they have a Q-favorite, Looney. I would be in favor of some sort of deal that landed those two players with the Wolves. I'm not sure who were sending out -- some sort of combo platter of Randle, NAZ, Donte, and/or a youngin'...

Murray feels like too big of a change/risk. A less sexy (and less costly for that matter) move would be to trade for Looney and Alvarado. Looney is a rugged paint defender, outstanding rebounder, and excellent screen setter. Alvarado is a little bulldog that has a bit more juice than Conley. Both would be backups of course. Looney would play more in a series against a huge team like Houston and Alvarado would be used more against ball-pressure teams. Not sure that would be "enough" to offset our problems, but again, they seem like realistic targets.

I agree that Murray is an unacceptable risk. Coming back from a torn Achilles less than a year ago at age 29 is problematic, especially for a PG. Keep in mind also that he’s a 34% career 3-point shooter and was shooting only 39% from the field through 31 games last season before his injury. I was a big Murray fan years ago, but I thought his game has declined significantly after he left San Antonio. When a top organization like the Spurs trades away a high-performing player like Murray it always gives me pause. We didn’t see the same Murray after the Spurs traded him and now he’s coming off a torn Achilles. Definitely a stay-away.

I’m a huge Looney fan and think he’d be great for the Wolves. Alvarado is an interesting PG target. It would be interesting to see what we’d have to give up for those two. Another potential PG target is our old friend, Tyus Jones. He’s not playing much in Orlando and his numbers are really bad - worse than Rob’s in several respects. But we know what Tyus can do when he gets significant consistent minutes.

[D-Loser25]

This team, as constructed, isn’t getting out of the 1st round. Unless something changes soon, I think finch needs to go. His knucklehead GM didn’t give him anything resembling a starting PG and expects him to produce a contender. His knucklehead GM also gave up a bunch of assets for a bust in Dillingham. If we still had those assets now we could use them to acquire the starting PG that TC forgot to add this offseason. I think this year was always meant to be a lower expectation year. We had one legit conference finals run and one that was gifted to us with curry injury last year. The fact that we didn’t acquire a starting PG is proof that the unspoken expectations in the organization for this year are 1st round exit and let the young guys develop. I mean we haven’t beaten a winning team yet this year guys… we simply ain’t that good. Once our schedule gets tougher I’m seeing more of a 43-39 team. We’ve only played one game so far against the wests big 3 and we got smoked.