Phoenix Suns Preseason Game #1: Partizan Belgrade
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 6, 2009 9:09 PM MDT
in Game Coverage
52 comments
I'm not going to lie to you. I know more about the Fort Wayne Mad Ants then I do about the team the Phoenix Suns are facing to kick off the 2009 exhibition season.
Pretty much all I can tell you about Partizan Belgrade is that Suns Coach Igor Kokoskov once played for them and their roster has the largest concentration of players who names end in "ić" (10 of 12) this side of the Croatian National Team.
That is assuming of course that this wikipedia roster of their team is up-to-date.
Since I won't be attending tonight's "ić-fest" to provide you with any locker room insight or court-side pronunciation tips, I will take this opportunity to say a few things about preseason:
- If you are a player who's over the age of about 25 and have played more than about 3 years in the league what you do in preseason is pretty much meaningless
- Sure, Amare needs to work himself back in shape but don't blow your orange lid if he goes 2-36 and gets dunked on by Nemanja Bešović
- At least for this Suns roster there's only a couple of guys that might be worth watching in preseason and one of them already broke his foot so that leaves...
- Goran Dragic. How Mr. Slovenia looks this preseason might actually give us some insight into how much he's developed this summer. I won't care so much about his points, turnovers or assists but I do want to see him play with some swagger
- Earl Clark. Honestly, I kind of feel like I've seen all I need to see from Clark in Vegas. The kid's got all five tools and the question for him is can he put it together over the course of an NBA season. I am sure he's going to do some amazing things over these next few games but honestly, I don't care. I want to know how he looks in early February after the excitement has worn off and he's cashed a few of those big pay checks
- Alando Tucker. Again, I think we know what Tuck can do and I fully expect him to have another great preseason. I also fully expect that it won't matter too much unless the Suns are showcasing him for a trade. He's just too deep in the depth chart right now
- Lou and JD. I group these guys together because they each will have the opportunity to show us pretty much the same thing. Has Lou improved his odds of making a few throw to a ratio greater than a coin toss? Can JD stop tweeting long enough to actually hit that corner three he's been talking so much about? Will either of these guys demonstrate that they have a speed other than "balls-out"?
- The goals for everyone else on the team is this. DON'T GET HURT
While I am selfishly choosing to attend my 12 year old daughter's school concert instead of going to the 1st Annual Phoenix Claššić, we will be getting exclusive photo's from the game in which you will see the Whitest Team West of Latvia vs. Your Phoenix Suns!
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I really want Alando to succeed, he’s really a great guy, but I’m not sure where he’ll play unless (knock on wood) there’s an injury that allows him to crack the rotation.
I take it no TV coverage on this? I know KTAR has it.
by Wil Cantrell on Oct 6, 2009 4:42 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
The Chiller in Indian Wellser
will be on TNT on Saturday but no TV for this one….
anyone going?
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 6, 2009 4:43 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Hahahaha....
Oh Stan, your use of swagger in the same sentence as Goran Dragic tickles me in a way that if my wife tickled me in that way I would say, “oh yeah, that’s nice”
by watdogg10 on Oct 6, 2009 4:44 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
I loved this line:
Can JD stop tweeting long enough to actually hit that corner three he’s been talking so much about?
Stan’s feelin’ it today.
by Wil Cantrell on Oct 6, 2009 4:46 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
I kind of liked this line myself...but thanks
1st Annual Phoenix Claššić
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 6, 2009 4:51 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Well done...
All around good quotes in this one
by watdogg10 on Oct 6, 2009 4:54 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Partizan Belgrade
I remember this team used to be a real power. Did Drazen Petrovic and Kresimir Cosic play for these guys? And Dalpagic? He would have been in the NBA if it was possible back then.
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 6, 2009 4:46 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
I think Georgi Glouchkov was.
Oh wait, he was Bulgarian.
by Wil Cantrell on Oct 6, 2009 4:51 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
drazen is croatian
he did play for yugoslavia, but played for a croatian team before joining the NBA
Shazzam!
by emirem on Oct 6, 2009 10:30 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Unless you’re saying specifically that Amundson and Dudley are too slow, what speed would be better than “balls-out”?
by species8473 on Oct 6, 2009 6:03 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
Is this the team
that got smoked by the nuggets a couple nights ago?
I hope we shoot 68% and beat them by 50.
And in the 4th Q we sneak Thunder Dan into the game. He’ll put on a wig and a #15 jersey and play Lopez.
by gadogry on Oct 6, 2009 6:04 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
Funny
Great report, or preport, Stan. Funny stuff. Let the on-court fun begin!
by AllanGentry on Oct 6, 2009 6:07 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
no Nash
Nash isn’t playing due to chest congestion
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 6, 2009 7:31 PM MDT via mobile reply actions 0 recs
I know it's the preseason...
… and there’s 10 minutes left in the game and the Suns are up by almost 30, but, um, they’re getting outrebounded by Partizan Belgrade. That cannot be good.
by Mike Lisboa on Oct 6, 2009 10:19 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
Partizan Belgrade has
2 starters who are 6’11", one that is 6’9", and one guy off the bench who’s 7’6"! Are you kidding me?
by SunsFTW on Oct 7, 2009 12:51 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
As opposed to?
All the short line-ups the Suns will face in the NBA?
by Mike Lisboa on Oct 7, 2009 4:34 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
ic - fest
IC is the slavic version of son, like Son of John = Johnson
Dragic = Son of Drag(a)
there are a few Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian restaurants in the valley. There are about 25000 former YuGos here …
Shazzam!
by emirem on Oct 6, 2009 10:32 PM MDT reply actions 1 recs
How do you tell
the difference between Croatian names and Serbian names? Like, I know Divac is Serbian, but Kukoc is Croatian. I know they dislike each other.
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 7, 2009 7:29 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Do tell. Is it an ethnic thing, or an on-court-incident-based hostility?
by species8473 on Oct 7, 2009 10:49 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
its both
Peole are very passionate abou ttheir teams overthere, you add a bit of ethnic mix into it, and you have a house on fire …
Shazzam!
by emirem on Oct 7, 2009 5:48 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don’t know of passion causing any inappropriate behavior by Serbian fans, but what passion apparently drives some European sports fans to do makes me nervous. One book on the Suns describes an incident that happened to current broadcaster and former player (1992-1993) Tim Kempton when he played in Italy. Because his team lost a game, fans chased the team bus on the highway for miles and threw rocks through the windows, forcing the bus riders to cower on the floor while waiting for the police.
by species8473 on Oct 7, 2009 7:05 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Bonzi Wells
reportedly once chased the Warriors team bus with a gun….that’s passion….or something
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 7, 2009 8:02 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Yes, well, that thug is now in basketball limbo where he belongs. I’d call it a crime of passion, perhaps.
by species8473 on Oct 7, 2009 11:27 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
impossible to tell
you can only tell by firstnames
So for example Vlade is serbian, and Toni is croatian, it would be difficult by the last name only. So anyone named Vladic, is mosltikely a serb since Son of Vlade = Vladic …
Shazzam!
by emirem on Oct 7, 2009 5:47 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
You learn something new every day
Thanks for the info
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 8, 2009 11:29 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Goran Dragic
I thought Dragic played very well. It looks like he has no problem scoring.
by species8473 on Oct 6, 2009 11:29 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
Ill bet
he had some extra motivation, these being the big guys from Belgrade and he from the tiny former Yugo republic of Slovenia. Let’s hope he finds the same fire competing in the NBA.
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 7, 2009 7:31 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
the veterans didn't need to play much
I hope Coach Gentry doesn’t make Grant Hill play many preseason minutes. There is no need for a former All-Star near the end of his career to play in the preseason. Earl Clark and Alando Tucker should get the minutes. Nash doesn’t need to play either except for the new players to get used to him. Barbosa has nothing to prove, and Richardson has nothing to prove except that he really did improve his defense.
The Spurs have this right—Tim Duncan and Tony Parker didn’t play at all in their last preseason game.
by species8473 on Oct 7, 2009 10:54 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Timmy and Parker are going to go into the regular season out of shape and out of chemistry with the rest of the team. The first month or two of the Spurs season is gonna be hard for them, just like last time, but they’ll still be a very good team. I think popps has this one all wrong. He’s too cautious about his star players.
by SunsFTW on Oct 7, 2009 12:53 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Remember how he psyched us out
in 2005? He held Duncan and Parker out of a late season game when they weren’t hurt, and the Suns struggled to beat their scrubs while at full strength and in Phoenix. It was a meaningless game from Pops’ point of view, but SA got in our heads. By the time we played them in the WC finals, we had no confidence we could beat them. Marion stunk, Richardson stunk, even Nash had a bad series. The only guy who seemed unaffected by it all was Stoudemire, who dominated Duncan. But it wasn’t enough.
Pop always has a method to his madness. He knows what he is doing. If he appears to be coddling the stars, he probably knows they don’t really need to play.
What would you do if youy had to teach Jefferson, McDyess, Ratliff, and Blair the ‘Spurs way’? Don’t worry about SA. They’ll be fine. If their chemistry is bad, we’re still trying to figure out how to boil water.
Popovich has more coaching wisdom and wiles in his fingernail than Gentry will ever have. I hate him and the Spurs, and I wish Georgi Glouchkov, Tim Perry, and the big white Australian whose name cannot be named on them, but that’s a fact. And Kerr vs Buford? Come on. Let’s see. We need big man depth, SA needs big man depth. Buford gets rid of the lumbering Oberto and signs McDyess and Ratliff, and drafts Blair. Kerr counters by grabbing Channing Frye, skips on James Johnson (18 pts, game winner , and Blair (16 points and 19 rbs) while drafting Clark.
what’s wrong with this picture?
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 8, 2009 11:49 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Someone has a case of Spurs envy…
by species8473 on Oct 8, 2009 12:51 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
not at all
Only their championships
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 8, 2009 2:49 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Fair enough. I have that too. The success of the Spurs’ ugly, rough and unethical playing style makes me very flexible about how my team wins.
by species8473 on Oct 8, 2009 5:32 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Last Night's Game
As I walked into the US Airways Soccer Dome, US Airways Center, I couldn’t help but notice a different feeling in the air. There were many a Serbian here this night. When the man checking tickets in my section let me know of the roughly 9000 tickets sold, I was sure of it; there weren’t too many Suns fans here tonight.
The chants went on from tip off to the last second buzzer beater that meant absolutely nothing other than a moral victory for the Partizan Belgrade. You gotta give it to them though, they know how to support their team. Much better than our undeserving Suns fans we have here in Phoenix. I’m willing to bet that close to, if not more than half of the arena last night was Partizan fans, and rightly so, they do not frequent the US too often. The surprising thing was the lack of full seats and therefor, lack of Suns fans in the building. It was not even full enough to open all of the consession stands on the second level. In my humble opinion: that really sucks! I just hope that this is not an omen of things to come, but rather a game on a Tuesday Night against a team that 98% of the state hasn’t heard of in their life.
The game itself was fantastic! Dudley stood out to me on both ends of the floor, getting defensive stops, steals, raining 3’s and driving to the basket drawing And 1’s! Earl was awesome on both ends as well, he’s got a pretty shot, and the moster jam in the 4th quarter was sick! the highlight of it on NBA.com does it NO justice at all! Taylor Griffin had a monster block on one end, and a monster dunk on the other end a few posessions later! It was great to see all of this, and at the same time, see Amare go for back to back dunks in the third quarter. Dragic’s confidence definitely showed last night as well, leading the team in scoring.
The Ref’s were rediculous with the foul and turnover calls. I’ve never seen so many corner pocket out of bounds calls in my life! I think I saw a total of 3 or 4 last season throughout the entire NBA, and they called like 8 of them last night. It truly was rediculous.
All in all, it was a great game though. I am very happy I went, and I can’t wait to go again on the 20th!
by SunsFTW on Oct 7, 2009 1:03 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs
thanks for the report!
just curious, where those corner out of bounds on them or us b/c I would understand if those guys had trouble w/ that given the different floor dimensions.
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 7, 2009 1:33 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
It was mostly them, but the Suns had 3 or 4 of them. It was unusually high.
by SunsFTW on Oct 8, 2009 10:34 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
how the mighty have fallen
If I weren’t emotionally repressed, I might have cried at how far the Suns have fallen in local public esteem. Their preseason game preempted a baseball playoff game between the Twins and Tigers; whoever was broadcasting the game whined about it before he went off the air; and as soon as Al McCoy got on, he apologized for it and profusely promised to interrupt his Suns broadcast to report the damn baseball score. This, in addition to the dreadful lack of non-Serbian local interest that SunsFTW noticed. The way things are going, if the Suns come out of nowhere to win a championship this year, all but us diehard fans will say, “So they finally won a championship. Change the channel.”
I agree with SunsFTW—everyone played well. I was impressed.
by species8473 on Oct 7, 2009 2:07 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
I’m sure things will change once the season starts. again, I think it’s chalked up to a pre-season game vs. a team no one’s heard of
by SunsFTW on Oct 8, 2009 10:34 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
RE: Poor attendance
Watching the Lakers-Warriors pre-season game right now… lots of empty seats. I wouldn’t necessarily consider a lack of attendance a loss of public esteem by the Suns. These are the defending champs after all.
by Mike Lisboa on Oct 7, 2009 9:18 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Well, maybe not. I could be confusing the Suns with the NBA, which has definitely fallen very far in popularity. I’ve been laughed at for following the NBA, and more than once lectured on how superior college ball is. I now tend to say “I’m an NBA watcher. Please don’t hate me.” (I don’t say “fan” anymore, because I’m not. I love the Suns, but I despise the NBA.)
by species8473 on Oct 7, 2009 11:31 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
The NBA fallen far in popularity?
Where are you getting this from? the NBA as a whole has seen attendance figures rise for four straight seasons. It has set new records for average attendance (17,757) and sell-outs (600 – the highest figure in a decade) for the third straight season.
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 8, 2009 12:04 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
Where am I getting this? No research, to be sure…just the verbal abuse I get for mentioning that I watch NBA games.
by species8473 on Oct 8, 2009 12:53 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
do you hang out
with hockey or soccer fans?
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
by Hawk42 on Oct 8, 2009 2:50 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
or WNBA fans perhaps?
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 8, 2009 3:53 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
i'll be hanging out with WNBA fans tonight.
free box seats at game 5 of the WNBA finals? yes please.
by iamtrevorpaxton on Oct 8, 2009 5:05 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
+1 Phoenix Stan
How awesome would it be if WNBA fans started looking down their noses at NBA fans? It would be no less wrong-headed than the converse, but it’s a hilarious thought.
by Mike Lisboa on Oct 9, 2009 12:34 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
I've already
had to restrain myself in comparing Suns players to various stars in the W….
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan
by Phoenix Stan on Oct 9, 2009 9:47 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs
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