The Spirit of Hoops

Another day in the NBA off-season and before the fun of the preseason begins and the stories continue to trickle in.  Stephon Marbury may actually report to camp for the Knicks instead of being waived… and the Suns are thinking of limiting Grant Hill’s minutes so that he’s around for the end of the season and the postseason.  What a novel idea.  

 Snide remark aside, it is a good idea, especially with the addition of Matt Barnes (who is, at least in principle, a better defender and 3pt shooter anyway).  Grant Hill is a fantastic player, a better person, and still extremely effective when he’s healthy.  He has about the deadliest creative mid-range game I’ve ever seen even without his full measure of athletic dominance; he’s extremely efficient, has a money mid-range jumper and every move in the book.  Step-backs, rocker steps, various crossovers, jab steps, pump fakes, canny off-ball movement, those little side-hops off of a drive, Grant can do it all and he does.  Curling around screens, he can be at the rim in a blink for a layup or, much less often these days, a big dunk.  He even has some post up move, like a good spin into a baseline fadeaway and the duck-in counter to that move (the up-and-under).  He’s got handles and passing skills, more from his clever recognition of situations than his penetrate-and-pitch stuff from back in his 7 apg days.  

 But he’s over 35 now and has a well-documented injury history.  This past season, it wasn’t his infamous ankle, it was an appendectomy and a reaggravated sports hernia that put him down for the count, but the miles are adding up a bit, so a different tac is obviously called for.  Because the Suns brought in Barnes, they can now afford to meter out Grant’s minutes a little more judiciously, keeping him fresh for when it really matters.  That will change their playoff disposition a lot, if it works.  

This is a guy who averaged almost 16 ppg over the first 34 games of the ‘07-’08 season; he ended up playing 70 games and averaging just over 13 ppg, and just under 4 ppg in his 3 playoff appearances.  He averaged 10/6/2 after the break, but was averaging 15/5/3 before it over 45 games.  It’s always tough to see someone so spectacular declining, especially when it’s evident that he’s better than his body is letting him be.  But now with Barnes, the Suns have some new blood and they can make better use of the old.  

Will it be enough to take them to the title game?  Phoenix has a number of different variables to consider, so simply getting a healthy Hill for the playoffs probably won’t be the deciding factor.   The big issues really center around Shaq (pardon the pun), Amare, Terry Porter and the point guard situation.  

A lot of this really centers around Terry Porter, though; how will he integrate Shaq into the offense?  With the aforementioned training camp, whatever he plans to do will be fully installed into the team’s system, as opposed to an off-the-cuff mid-season adjustment as was the case with D’Antoni (not that it was Mike D’s fault).  Porter has already talked about slowing the Suns down a bit; not too much, but a little bit, and having a more co-ordinated half-court plan of attack.  That’s wise; the Suns tended to have trouble when their transition game was disrupted and teams like San Antonio were wise to letting some of their guys trail and sending their guards back early while the bigs attacked the offensive glass to help slow the pace of the game.  Having watched the late-season explosion Amare put forth when Shaq got on the team because of the fear Shaq inspires in other squads when he’s near the basket, Porter is sure to exploit O’neal in at least some capacity, if only to get more and better looks for Amare.  O’neal, playoff implosion aside, still has some juice and this team has potential.  

The Suns have talked about limiting Nash to 70 games and 30 minutes per game; how much of that actually happens when the season begins is up in the air but if the coaching staff can get away with resting him, then Nash will be healthier and fresher for the playoffs, which can’t hurt.  Attached to this are the hopes pinned on Goran Dragic’s arrival and how he might be able to spell Nash a bit and provide a different (more defensively-oriented) look to the other team.  The Suns also drafted Sean Singletary; he’ll probably spend most of the season in the D-League and won’t see postseason minutes but if he can play 20+ games in the NBA and get some minutes, he can also ease Nash’s workload and that’ll have long-term benefits over the season. 

And then there’s Porter.  He’s not a new coach; he was an assistant in Sacramento and has spent the last two years as an assistant in Detroit.  He was even a head coach for two years and in the first, took a weak Bucks team that was supposed to be lotto-fodder into the postseason.  It’s difficult to get a handle on what his coaching strengths are because of the low-caliber of the rosters he worked with but it was mostly a surprise that he was replaced.  He has more defensive pieces in Phoenix, given Bell and Barnes and Hill, Shaq’s presence down low (and if you’re a terminal optimist, Amare, if you want to believe his new re-dedication to defense). 

IF the Suns manage to get a coherent game plan together, everyone buys into it and there’s a reasonable amount of health in the key players, then the Suns are most definitely a contender.  People generally don’t want to believe this because of their history with the Spurs, the novelty of the idea that Phoenix will play defense, the age of the key pieces aside from Amare, etc.  There are lots of reasons to dislike Phoenix’s chances… but they were WCF guys when they were the underdog and 1-and-done when they were looked upon favorably, so perhaps their fortunes are slated to change.

Unless there’s a big shift in Phoenix’s style, though, and it works really well, I’d expect the best the Suns could hope for is a long series against the Lakers in the WCFs and then a seat at home in June.

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