The best player on the team is Steve Nash – who is currently 36 years old and will turn 37 just before the All-Star break next season.

Hate to break it to you, but Nash is already 37 and will be turning 38 next season.

Good work dude. Nice break down on just how distinctly average the players on this team are outside of Nash and Hill.

I think you summed it up best the other night when you tweeted something along the lines of ‘Jared Dudley is good, I just wish this team was good enough to have him as a 7th man’.

I have to disagree with the Gortat comment though. Without a quality point guard, dude is not gonna get you 14 and 10. The 10 boards are the most likely part of that line but the 14 points simply won’t materialise because his post game is almost non-existant and the majority of his points at the moment feel like they come from pick and rolls with Steve,

I could check out hoopdata.com to confirm my thoughts but I can’t be bothered. I’m almost certain that he scores 80% of his points from lay-ups off the pick and roll.

I guess he could develop a post game during the inevitable lockout, in which case I’m all for him being signed up for longer.

But if Steve leaves and he hasn’t improved his post game, I really don’t see him being very beneficial to us.

Still, he IS an improvement on the current Robin Lopez version we have – version 2.blows.

Man, this Suns team is terrible.

It almost seems like every player has one skill that they’re pretty good at but that the rest of their game needs rounding out. If a mad scientist took the time to combine all the best bits of the entire Suns roster (minus Hill and Nash), they could probably create two really good players. That might be preferable.

Jesus, the more I think about it, the more angry I get about this roster.

It’d be so easy to name each player and not only rip into them but name the deficiencies I see them having. It actually angers me how bad some of the players are and how we’re forced into putting up with them. F*cking pile of sh*t.

And with every bad and negative word I type, I think of Hakim Warrick. The poster boy of the Suns season – Thought to be competent, able to compete against most opposition but ultimately limited in talent and pretty pathetic.

I’m definitely on the bad side of my bi-polar today.

Nash, Hill, Gortat, Dudley, Chill and Frye will likely be here next season while Pietrus, Warrick, Lopez and Brooks will likely be gone next season. The only way to improve this team would be through trade or free agency as you said. Of course it’s difficult to predict what they will do because we don’t know how much money Sarver will be willing to spend due to the upcoming CBA and possible lock-out.

Anyway, we know what this team needs; a starting PF, so Frye can come off the bench, a better SG and a decent backup PG to Nash. It would really help if one of those guys is a star, but it’s unlikely that will happen. So, lets check out this year’s free agency list.

Who would the Suns be interested in? I have a list of unrestricted free agents with no options attached.

AK-47 (PF)
Dalembert ©
Bibby (PG)
Barea (PG)
Crawford (SG)
Krstic ©
Davis (PF/C)
Prince (SF)
Hayes ©
Humphries (PF)
Landry (PF)
J-Rich (SG)

Barea, Humphries and Crawford/J-Rich are the guys I’m most interested in and although each one will fulfill a roster need, neither is a star and we will likely be unable to sign all 3 of them anyway. Humphries would be my first choice and target if I was in the FO, but he’ll likely be the most expensive. Still if were going to conbuild than we might as well sign someone good and not another Warrick.

Other than the 3 stars Scott mentioned, the 2012 free agency class isn’t much different. With or without Nash were kind of doomed for at least the next 3-(lets just say a long time) years.

Damn you and your accurate pessimism, Scott.

Four years ago we had the stars, but not the role players. Now we got the role players, but not the stars.

The more I think about the Suns’ future, the more I need a hug.

If you like the sound of clanking rims, this NCAA championship game is for you!

Anyone check out the floppers list on the Yahoo box? Ginobili should definitely be 1 ahead of Varejao, Fisher is probably 3, and Paul Pierce (absent from the list) is right up there as well.

Seth? Will he play Wednesday?

but it could be worse,

we could be kings fans

There’s a reason the Suns are 1-7 when Jared Dudley scores 20 points; it’s because if you have Jared Dudley scoring 20 points your basketball team isn’t very good.

Pretty sad.

Good article, Scott.

before Seth has to turn the background color to red with darker slashes.

The front office obviously needs to fine new all-star talent. That can be had via a very good draft or a very good trade. Once that all-star talent is back on the team, a plethora of good, supporting role players awaits. With an all-star (maybe 2?), the Suns can turn this back around.

I had a dream that I was a bench player for the Suns (once again) and we were losing a game. Thunder Dan was talking to us during the timeout and said “don’t worry guys…I’ll see you on the court when 4th quarter starts”. Dudley was like “you’re kidding me!” and he said no and ended up really playing with us in the 4th. It was so awkward haha what was more awkward was Carmelo Anthony was in our team, yet we were still losing.

I agree with your findings. All those years of dumping draft picks have added up. I understand you can’t keep every 1st round pick you have when you are dealing with cap issues and in the mode of winning now. But you have to add youth through out your runs. Sure this team has had some good runs, 3 WCF appearances in the last 7 years, but now the cupboard is getting bare.
 Out of all the free agents I would try to add Humphries. He can board and plus his lady friend would make good camera shots during the games.

Why does everyone think he’s all Nash? He can score with any borderline competent PG. He played well whenever he got some sort of minutes in Orlando and he played with a shoot-first PG in Nelson who downright refused to pass him the ball even if he had a wide open path to the basket.

His pick and roll game isn’t amazing because of Nash, he was already really good at that in ORL, he just was underutilized. Same goes for the jumper, he hit it on a pretty consistent basis. He averaged 9 pts 9 rebs 1.5 blks every single time he played at least 20+ minutes for the Magic. Kendrick Perkins averaged about the same for the Celtics in 09. So are you going to keep making up weirder and weirder ways to call him solid (Solid Snake?) or will you admit that he is actually, you know, one step from that breakout All-Star season that will end with him filling the role of that weird looking big white guy in the All-Star game?

Most teams would pay through their nose for him, why do you think Mavs offered him that contract in 09 despite him being considered a career bench guy? And why do you think Magic went and matched that offer? He’s got the best offensive game of any defensive center in the freaking league (except Pumaman obviously) that is unless you guys consider that one post move Bynum does offense.

I dread that Sarver will just dive into rebuild mode and trade Gortat to the Mavs, Heat or even someone Spurs or (gasp!) Lakers for scrubs. And 11-12 wll be marked by Nash spending his last days on the court tanking with scrubs and D-Leaguers watching his bro Dirk (or Gasol, or Timmy D, or the Super Friends) straight up murder teams with Gortat as the oft-forgotten sidekick.

the only player under contact past next season whose contract is bad is warrick in my opinion.

I’d resign dudley, frye, gortat, and childress to their same contracts if it was a choice between that and letting them go.

And I think that Sarver would give us another chance to see this core of players ( Nash, Hill, Dudley and Frye) another shot.
He may sign two or three players, surely one SG and one PF. I don’t see that we’re going to sign a star, or get a star from the draft, but yes we’re going to improve next year, just because all the players will work to get better and become more important players. It’s their job, don’t underestimate them.
So think…if we can get those two players, would you think that we can be a top five seed next year?
I think that yes, we can. See the team and believe

Nash/ Brooks
J-Rich/ Dudz
Hill/ Childress
Millsap/ Warrick
Gortat/ Frye/ Siler

that’s a very good team

am i right?