FanPost

The canadien effect and Gentry`s modus operandi




Phoenix Suns are sitting on a 4-7 record but it really doesn`t show what this team is capable of doing, since we have this ability of getting our shit together and climb our way back from a 20 points lead, as we did in the Cavaliers game when we were down 26 points and ended up winning. However we are losing, and we are really not playing the worst basketball, we are missing open shots more than anything, but why ?

Jared Dudley and Markieff Morris

Last season Dudley shot 38 % from 3 point land and now in eleven games this season he is sitting at 31%, Morris is 4-14 from three this season and having a awful like FG % sitting on 28 %. It is really a small sample with just 11 games under the belt this season, however we as fans are getting cranky and tired of watching Dudley and Morris struggle day in a day out. The declining of those offensive numbers seems to have two reasons:

Motivation: Dudley seems to be not caring too much about this, now don`t take me wrong, i know he is a pro and he is probably busting his ass while i write this, what i mean by saying he is not caring too much is that he is not caring as much as he used to. I recall Dudley being a P.J Tucker kinda guy, he had no talent at all but he put his heart every minute he was on court and that seems to be gone, i solidify this affirmation with this:

(This stats were taken from NBA.COM )

Year Team G GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG

11-12 PHX 65 60 31.1 0.485 0.383 0.726 1.5 3.2 4.6 1.7 0.8 0.3 1.11 1.65 12.7
12-13 PHX 11 11 27.4 0.427 0.314 0.500 0.6 1.6 2.3 1.5 0.8 0.2 1.18 1.36 8.5

Every single stat has go down.

The other reason i think this two guys are struggling so much on offense is because of the departure of the canadien guy

Steve Nash`s effect: As much we all love Dragic, and i mean with all my heart, it is nice to have a guy who can score at 2 guys without sweating on a fastbreak, someone who can take over in the offense by himself and still play solid D, but he is no floor general, or maybe he is just not what we are used to see. Nash set up every guy he had perfectly, Morris and Dudley being shooters, i don`t freaking know why Morris is a shooter at this point of his career but whatever, they used to had this guy that fed the ball in the right places for them, now the deadly shooters are force to dribble and find their shots, so right off the bat FG % is going to keep coming down, if they don`t adjust to Dragic`s game or Dragic adjust to their game.

Dragic is fine passer and sadly for us, even when he do a good pass to open Dudz/Morris they would miss it, so something`s gotta give on that side.

And that take us to Alvin Gentry, the controversial men in a suit, some preach his the savior of this team and that his line ups and subs are the reason we even have 4 win in this season, some think he is just too dumb and takes the worst timeouts and the worst time possible, some think he is a offensive genious and some think he is just OKEY.

Gentry would not be my coach, but i am fan who knows squad of basketball, i guess is pretty easy for us too watch at the screen and say the things that would lead us to a championship, however the reality he faces is one, his team is not very talented. I feel like Gentry has a great eye for players, for instance, the very first time we inked for Ronnie Price and Sebastian Telfair, the majority of pèople at BSOTS felt that Price would be the main back up, however Gentry said his guy would be Bassy. He was right. It took sometime to figure out his game here in Phoenix but he ended the last season in a pretty high note.

Other great thing about Gentry is that he has the talent to be a great offensive coordinator, and feel free to disagree but i look back at Frye`s back to back winning shots agaisnt Indy and Nets, and my top 5 best basketball moments the great pass from Grant Hill to Jason Richardson, freaking awesome.

So Gentry with a talented can do wonders, however that is not roster case right now.

(From Basketball-Reference.com)

PTS/G: 98.3 (14th of 30) ▪ Opp PTS/G: 104.3 (29th of 30)
SRS: -6.93 (27th of 30) ▪ Pace: 94.2 (4th of 30)
Off Rtg: 103.4 (17th of 30) ▪ Def Rtg: 109.7 (30th of 30)

We have the worst defense on the league, with just a middling offense. Now you can blame on the players, as none of our players is shooting 40 ¨% from 3 point land, except for Zeller who has not miss a shot from that range...and has only take one, you fool :P.

Gentry is stubborn and has the policy of letting things workout magically, for example, when we the other team starts a 8-0 runs on us, he will just wait for the Suns to either react or wait till we are 14-0 to call a timeout, the latter option seems to be the most likely result. Also he has this close mind perspective, and talking about the Lakers game, in which our best perimeter defender just play 10 minutes, on what it was thought to be a big minute night for him in front of the Black Megalomaniac. This was not case. Though i don`t know why he would use the slow and currently son of Kobe Bryant, Jared Dudley on him, maybe it was because once he stripped Kobe, or maybe it was because Tucker is not tall enough to defend him, yep i am going with this one. I think he did not use Tucker on on Kobe because of his smaller, yet i just know he would have done a better job, Kobe can`t be stop, unless you are Raja Bell, but Tucker would have made him sweat a bit.

Another thing i think he has to do, is to make Marshall part of this team, so he can run the run the bench at somepoint, maybe not right now but eventually, I really like the Bassy/Dragic duo ( I would never start again with that duo, but in 2nd and 3rd quartes those two could be guuuuud), that way you can move Dudley at bench SF, and use more Bassy, while Marshall could try to set up passes for Brown, J.O, Morris, Dudley in the bench, seems more fitting. Why would you draft a freaking PG who can be a great passer to not use it ? There is also this problem at the starting 2, the awful Dudz is playing awful, and the scrappy Dudz is on vacation, till that guy shows up, we need to find some solution to that matter. Tucker ringing your nuts Alvin ?

I could go for pages of why think Gentry is a terrible coach, poor player development, constant technicals, horrible timeouts, awful substitutions and mostly, he wears awful ties but in the end something is true, he is a heck of leader, to have so many comebacks games is something we need to acknowledge. Besides he is not getting fire and i can totally understand why he doesn`t care to play Marshall or Wesley in the rotation, he does not have the time to mess up with that. He is in the ending year of his contract and the word out there is that Babby and Lance don`t like him. When something as good as Shannon Brown 4th quarter performances come along, you just don`t mess with that, and i think that is the right call for everyone. He don`t have room to experiment. He wants/needs to be in playoffs.

This season is turning to be a good, i firmly believe we are not as bad as our record is, our team is just going to get better, i am aiming to the next season, for us to trade for a SG the missing piece for this to be a good team IMO, and again, we are going to get better because how deep is the bottom when Charlotte and Orlando looked like NBA champs agaisnt us?