Phoenix Suns 2010/11 Player Evaluations: Josh Childress, The Price Is Wrong

I don’t entirely agree with you, but you got some points right.

Josh’s play was nothing great at all, but it was the case for our whole team in the season. But I do think that Childress is worth the money we paid for him and he didn’t get the best opportunity yet to show us what he brings to the table.

I saw the last games of the season only to see what he could do with 20+ minutes of playing time on a consistant basis. I don’t have the stats right now to validate it, but I liked what I saw. And I can remeber now at least one game (that victory at Oklahoma City in the mid season) where he was everything we wanted – a great defender with nice touches around the rim.

And I don’t agree with your take that Vince Carter is only passive of criticism. I tought he played some good games for us and was just put on a bad position (starter) by Gentry. I think he can play a nice role off the bench as a scorer for us on the next season, but I highly doubt that we’ll resign him.

Does the afro slow him down or change his shot because of the aerodynamics?

This team needs players with potential for growth, not more role players with limited skill-sets

This is the biggest thing that bothers me about him. When I think of Josh Childress the first three words that pop into my head are fro, chilly and limited. I like fros and I like chilly, but I don’t limits.

He has the skill-set of a PF, but is too small to play it. He can’t play SG either because he’s too slow. He can do a good job defensively on other SF’s, but that’s it. When it comes to his offensive game, he can’t shoot, not even a mid-range jumper. I didn’t see him take one last season. He can only be an SF for us, but he’s got to get that mid-range jumper back in order to be effective on this team.

except he’s not as good at anything as Marion was. Chill can rebound, but Marion did it better. Chill can slash, but marion did it better. Chill can shoot, but Marion did it better (sadly enough).

There is a chance that Chill will be much better next year, and reprise his 10/5/3 career numbers. He needs to believe in his shooting, even if its only successful 33% of the time (like Marion was). But that will only happen if the Suns get a big-time shooter/scorer on the court with him to balance out the spacing. He’s like Hill and Dudley – great at being no better than the 4th-7th best player on the court. If the Suns score big on a 2 this summer – either through the draft or FA or trade – then Chill would be a good compliment.

He can D, he can finish at the rim, thats all we need from a backup-SF, but hey he does a lil more, he gets offensive rebounds, he always seems to be at the right place at the right time, yeah he might not shoot but i do think he can score pretty well under the rim, 30 mils for that <—— thats the way our FO works, totally fkd up… And besides i,d use pietrus for SG instead of SF.

The biggest gripe people have against Chilli is his lack of 3 ball. I say who cares about him shooting the three.

Driving to the basket is a more conventional attack and draws in the defense, freeing other 3 point shooters (ie Dudley or Frye). You guys remember Sweet Lou couldn’t shoot a lick but totally made an impact on the game when he was in. Chilli created impact. Grabbin’ offensive boards and putting them in and slashing towards the hoop for example instead of fading away and standing around on the three point line.

There are more ways to be productive than hoisting threes. Give me Chilli over Pietrus on my team ANY day. Chilli is a team player, Pietrus is a black hole.

He’s about the same size and had some similar traits (always around the ball for garbage points, not a good shooter). Check out this comparison of each of them at age 24. I don’t use Childress’ stats from this season with the Suns because I think he deserves a mulligan for several reasons, but he was 24 in his last season with the Hawks.
Check it out.
Ceballos scored more, but did it less efficiently. They were roughly equal defensively and with rebounding, and virtually even on win shares per 48 minutes. Note that early in his career, Ceballos almost never attempted 3s, but built himself up into being a below average but acceptable 3 point shooter later in his career. Can Chilly do the same?

Those of you old enough to remember Ceballos, what do you think of the comparison? And, if it’s relatively fair, would you have thought Ceballos was worth then what the Suns are due to pay Childress now?

One of the most honest and accurate assessments of Chill that I’ve read thus far. Like you, I really like Josh and was excited when I heard we signed him. I thought he would end up being the steal of free agency, and I also would fit into our offense just like Marion did.

Well, we were certainly wrong on that one weren’t we? In fact, many of us were so wrong that it begs the question, “What went wrong?”. This is where it gets interesting…

1. As you pointed out, we could blame his poor season on the broken finger, which may have been further exacerbated by our refusal to shut him down at the start of the season and just let it heal. Instead, Josh tried to play through it and it took away even more accuracy from his already poor shooting. The injury lingered on for months, and by the time it finally healed he was already on his way out of the rotation…which leads me to #2

2. Another issue that goes along with the first possibility is that Josh had such a poor start to his season that Gentry began limiting his minutes before he even had a chance to play with a healthy shooting hand. Not only this, but you have to think that the poor start and the DNP’s must have done a number to Chill’s confidence as well…Which may have been the reason that he was so reluctant to take open shots. And this also ties in quite nicely to #3…

3. When Chilldress played for ATL he was very Marionesque, and this was the player we all expected to see return to the NBA. However, Chill admitted that it was going to be a difficult transition back to playing in the NBA compared to his time in Greece. I’m sure it has to be quite a change even for a player who already played in the NBA prior, and I’m not sure if Chill adjusted to playing with the quicker, faster, stronger players of the NBA as quickly as he’d hoped.

Those are ny best guesses as to what happened this season, and I actually believe it could be a combination of all three that made for such a disappointing season. The good news is, Josh now has an entire off-season to work on the areas of his game he struggled with last season and get himself ready for next season. The player he was in ATL is still in there somewhere, and he’s still very young with plenty of productive years left ahead of him.

I still remain cautiously optimistic that he will be able to turn it around next season and contribute meaningful minutes off the bench. We did see flashes this season, and maybe next season we can see them more regularly. If so, then maybe there is hope for him to stay in PHX as an option to start in the post Hill era. If not, then I agree that we should at least hope that he can play well enough to regain some trade value.

Like I said, I still have hope for J-Chill and I would like to see him play one more season before making up my mind one way or another. I know how productive he can be on both ends of the floor, and I just hope he gets a chance to prove himself with a clean slate at the beginning of next season, and that he is able to find his way into the rotation. Time will tell…

But you just left one word out of the headline.

To pout and have become a distraction over his lack opf pt.However he handled himself with class, was the first guy off the bench cheerleading and that alone I think commands respect.

There are certainly some similarities between the 2, but they are nnot the same player. Shawn is a better post player and is a bit thicker, which is why he was able to play PF. Chilly is much more perimeter-oriented. He is a better ball-handler and can make things happen off the dribble, which wasn’t exactly Shawn’s strength. This again leads me back to the same point I’ve made multiple times. Give him a shot initiating the offense some as a SF off the bench.