They LIED About The Phoenix Suns..

They LIED About The Phoenix Suns..

Welcome back to Suns Valley after the Suns got a nice, honestly an impressive win over the Lakers. Now, they didn’t have Luca. They didn’t have LeBron James. So, it is what you would have expected, but at least they cleared that hurdle Sunday. They didn’t go in there and lose or get boat raced by a LeBronless Lucalless team. That would have been unbearable, honestly. No Jaylen Green in this game. No Mark Williams. It seems like the Suns are being extra cautious and careful with them. Maybe they’ve got a little bit of Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant PTSD and they’re just uber focused Sundo on not getting their best players injured before things get going because that kind of snowballed for us the last couple of seasons. So, I’m not upset with that. We got to see Oso start at the five, Brooks at the four, Ryan Dunn at the three, Booker at the two, and I mentioned on stream the fact that Grace and Allen was starting technically at point guard leads me to potentially think they might look at running Jaylen Green at the point guard first, giving him first crack at being the PG. I don’t know how I feel about that, but is that what it looked like to you? I think that’s about right. I think you will see Jaylen Green start at the point guard. And I really do think it’s just going to be a sort of point guard by committee. I hate to use that football term, but it just seemed like the entire game, whether it was Gillespie or Jared Butler or Grayson Allen or Booker, there was a sort of point guard by committee feel to the game. Is is that kind of how you saw it, too? Because that that’s kind of how I saw it. That is what I saw. And I really thought that Book was going to be the unquestioned point guard going into the season, but now I’m not so sure. Yeah. So, I I think that’s going to be the strategy and the route they’re going to go. I mean, if you just look at the roster, there are there are a lot of ball ball handlers on this team. Jordan Goodwin, Colin Gillespie, Jared Butler, Booker, I guess we can put Grayson Allen in there, and Jaylen Green. So, there’s there’s going to be plenty of guards who will have the ball in their hands. So, I think that’s the route they’re going to go because we couldn’t come up with a solid starting point guard. And I mean, it’s it sounds as solid as any strategy you could. I I I want to believe that Jordan Knot can make that work. Um, I agree with you on the the health thing with Jaylen Green and Mark Williams. I’m I do want them to take it easy with those two. Mark Williams with his history and then of course with Jaylen Green, like you just don’t want to mess with anything hamstring related. So that was absolutely wise. Gabe, I I really do want to talk. I mean, I don’t want to be petty, but there are two players that outplayed Eightton. And I don’t want to make this about Aton, but we just can’t help ourselves. But Oso clearly as a big man outplayed, out hustle, out physical. And then even Malawatch ended up with four points to Eightton’s one point. I just found that um very humorous. And so I know we can’t let it go because of how he played. I know it’s just so funny. You just can’t let that go. But I just wanted to point that out. I mean, I’d be lying if I told you that every time he throws a shot up, I’m not saying a tiny little silent prayer that he misses cuz I am. What did you think about Dylan Brooks? I mean, he was three or four from the stripe, 10 points, picked up where he left off. I know you weren’t the biggest fan of that pickup because it’s Dylan Brooks, but I mean, are you starting to see the light just a little bit? So, to be completely honest, yes. And it’s because he spent a lot of time in that game just catching and shooting, spreading the floor, being in the right place. They’re leaving him open. He was making them pay. And it wasn’t until a few days ago, embarrassingly, I wish I had known this. I should have known this, but I didn’t. It kind of escaped me, probably because I’m not paying too much attention to him because I’ve disliked him for so long. But I didn’t really realize until recently that he’s an over 40% three-point shooter, at least last season. And that’s an impressive, goddy number, man. And like I said during our stream, if he knows his role and isn’t a jabron that tries to get his own shot and iso and if he’s just playing his level defense, inspiring the team, and catching and knocking down threes, I probably will end up loving him just like everyone’s predicting. Yeah. Well, with the way he played, if if that continues throughout the season, it’ll be everything that I hoped for from Dylan Brooks for the season. Just a tough uh person that’ll play tough defense who can shoot threes. And that’s a perfect fit for a player like Booker who’s going to have to have the ball in his hands as well as Jaylen Green. So, really like the fact that we got him in that trade. I want to move on, Gabe, to the power forward position because that seems to be next to point guard the glaring hole on this team. We have Nigel Hayes Davis who we signed from was it Turkey I believe and then Rasheir Fleming the rookie. How I was underwhelmed by at least Nigel Hayes Davis’s play. Now Fleming didn’t get a whole lot of minutes through the main part of the game. He played a lot in the fourth but so we’ll let that go. To be fair he was underwhelming as well and that’s my guy. Like I’m very excited for him but no he didn’t play great either. I mean, he didn’t play great, but but again, he only played in the fourth quarter, so so we’ll excuse that. Hayes got good run during the first three quarters. Um, he was one of six from the field overall. I did see a lot of hustle from him. I did see some good rebounding. So, at least we have that. And what more could you ask for from a player like that? A veteran player that’s just trying to stay on the team. Like, yes, you you’ll take that. But the one of six didn’t really like. He had one really impressive three-point shot though that we mentioned in the stream. But man, I feel like power forward could potentially be an issue depending on how you look at it. We could still play the Dylan Brooks and Dun at the power forward, you know, if we go small. But there’s going to be times where we got to go big and we’re not going to have that power forward that I think we need for this team. Luckily though, our centers are absolutely gigantic, at least two of them. Mark Williams is huge. The only reason he’s not going to seem that huge is because common malaw watch is huge. I mean, I I keep saying this, but the dude is 7 foot2 without shoes. Like, it’s basically the first time I feel like we’ve had somebody that big with talent to back it up and with a high ceiling to back it up. So, yeah, maybe we only have Dylan Brooks out there, but you saw the way he was pushing against Aton when he got posted up. You know, Ryan Dunn can play above his size and has the standing reach, shout out to Tory Jones, and the length to play up in position. So, if they are backed up by somebody who can truly protect the rim because of their ridiculous length and, you know, leaping ability, I don’t know that it’s going to be the worst thing in the world to have a couple of undersized fours that do shoot the three. Well, hoping that Ryan Dunn falls into the same category as Dylan Brooks. Fair enough. I I was going to mention that next about the fact that we have, I believe, four very capable centers that can be played. Malawatch, of course, he’s a rookie. There’s some things that he’s got to work on, but as you mentioned, dude’s huge, can be a defensive anchor. You could literally put him in the paint, plug it up, and he’s going to make people at least make people flinch in the paint. So, there’s always that. But OSO played great. I thought Oso did really well in the paint. um played good defense on Aton, really kind of pushed him around and was physical. I loved seeing the passes from him. Him being a connector was just really, really great to see. I thought Nick Richards when you gave him a good point guard like Colin Gillespie or Butler who were actually looking for him in the paint, there was a lot of plays that were made. So, I could see that same thing happening for Mark Williams. We really do have Riches at the five position, which we did not have last year. It’s like we almost overcompensated this year, but I’ll take it, dude. As long as there’s a presence down there, whether it’s Richards, Williams, Malawatch, and even now Oso, if he’s going to continue to improve the way he has been, I I really like what we have. And I think it’s it is a very good problem to have and I think it’s such a good problem to have that, as we mentioned in the stream, someone will end up being moved by the trade deadline. I agree with that. And I’ve been trying to temper expectations going into this season. So, I have to say other teams, other fans of other teams might look at us and say, “Y’all don’t have no embarrassment of riches at center.” But I would say as a Suns fan, what we have now definitely feels like an embarrassment of riches compared to he who shall not be nerked. This video is brought to you by our presenting sponsor, FanDuel. Sunday and I will be using FanDuel Sports all season for every bet and parlay and so should you. In fact, right now on the FanDuel sports book, you can get in on the action for game one for the Suns regular season versus the Kings at home. Currently, the Suns are favored by a point and a half. And I’m going to take that. I think the Kings are going to have a down year and Phoenix is going to look good in game one. Or how about this bet? The Phoenix Suns to make the playoffs. You put down $100, you can win 640 if you think that’s really going to happen. And some do. Download the FanDuel app or go to sportsbook.fanuel.com. Sign up today and start winning money on the Suns. I mean, forget forget about that part. There’s there’s a lot of size on this team. A lot of size. And like you you can’t teach size in my in my eyes. And as you mentioned, we’re Suns fans and we had it so bad last year, but there’s just a lot of size on this team. And athleticism. That’s the next important part. You know, we did have sides with Nerk, but there was no athleticism there. We have that now. There were a few people who didn’t play. One being Kobe Brea, Gabe. Hopefully, we do see him in China in the last preseason game. I really missed him. I really did want to see what he had on the court today, but we just didn’t see him. It was a game time decision uh to sit him. I’m just looking at the rest of the roster of players who didn’t play. Are you interested in Livers seeing him? I know that you made a video about him and I know you were interested, but like I don’t I don’t know if I’m interested in seeing him. CJ Huntley, I know I do want to see him. He’s the two-way. Kobe Brea is also there. What do you feel about any of those names that didn’t play that we will be seeing later? I was definitely sad that Kobe Brea didn’t get to play. Maybe my hopes are just too high for him. Isaiah Livers, I’m not going to act like I’m not doing a What was that? Jackson that I loved. Justin Jackson. I’m not going to act like I’m not doing a Justin Jackson with Isaiah Livers, but I would have been excited to see him play. I’m not going to cry about it though. And then with CJ Huntley, I just think we have too many bigs for him to be getting any real run right now. And that’s what I wanted to go to was just like the lineups. I was interested most in these lineups because we have a new coach, a new decision maker, and this was our first time to get a good clean look at the decisions that he is going to make about who’s going to play and who’s not. And I don’t know if he feels any sort of heat on his seat due to the fact that we always fire our coach after one bad year the last three years, but or or or what his line of thinking is, but it it doesn’t seem like he’s going the way of like I’m playing the young new guys now and I’m going to get them going and I’ve got time to develop them. It seems like he’s at least initially, and I can’t blame him, looking for that potential lineup that could win now. And I just don’t know how that’s going to play. Be real honest. Can I got to be real honest, I really do like it. Like, here’s the deal. Like, I know that we see Malo watch and we see the size and we want to see him play. He does need to have some things developed about his game. He can’t just play all the minutes. Same thing goes for for Fleming. I know we want to see the young guys there, but Fleming definitely needs developed. So does Brea, right? And so I I absolutely do like this. We we’ve mentioned this before like Ishb is not going to let him play young guys and sort of not win, especially when in the position that this team is in. Yeah, we did have a draft this year, but we still don’t have hardly any picks the year after and the year after that all the way into 2030. So I know for a fact that this coach was brought in cuz they like his mind. I know for a fact that they want to win to make sure that, you know, HBS talked about it. He wants to be competitive. So, I like that. And I also like the decisions that he made and how he played these guys. And these guys didn’t look lazy. They didn’t look underwhelming. They hustled. They played hard in a preseason game. He had Royce O’Neal looking good. We didn’t see any, you know, the whole, you know, the whole thing with Royce is, yeah, he’ll he’ll shoot threes, but there’s also times where he’s lack of days to go on defense. Same thing with Grey Goose, you know what I mean? Like none of these dudes really looked out of place, if that makes any sense. So, I I I really like that. I know you’re not for that, per se, but I really did like the fact that he did play the vets and that seems to be the route they’re going to go and they’ll sprinkle in they’ll sprinkle in the young guys here and there. I wouldn’t say that I don’t like it. It was just interesting. And I, like I said, I don’t blame him because you got to at least try. You at least have to put your best foot forward and see, hey, of the guys that I’ve got who I think deserve to be playing now and stuff, can I put them together? Can we go out there and beat teams with hustle, intensity, intelligence, and integrity? I see what you did there. I I I really do see what you did there with the with the three eyes. Dude, like I I I don’t know if it’s as I I this is going to sound bad saying this. I don’t know if it’s as much a coaching decision as it is a mandate from the front office and the higherups. Like I believe that was part of the interview process. Like, hey, we have Devin Booker, we have Jaylen Green, we feel like we do have a good team. We we want to win games. This is not a tank job. You are here to win games. And so I feel like that’s what he’s trying to do. Maybe if that doesn’t work out and we just can’t and it becomes obvious. Not that it will, not that I’m saying it will, but if it did, maybe then they’re like, “Okay, green light. Play the rooks. Let’s get ready.” Absolutely. Absolutely. But I I do think I just really did like what he did. And I think that there is some promise. It’s not like I I think we’re going to be world beaters, but there is some promise there that he knows what he’s doing. He seemed seemingly played the right guys this game at least because there was really really not any negatives on this team other than you could say Nigel Hayes Davis was a negative and and maybe maybe I don’t even think I could say anybody else now I’m thinking about it bro Jared Butler looked good butler real quick talk Jared go talk about your boy Jared Butler he popped he popped on camera you saw him you noticed him you go who’s 5. That’s Oh, yeah. We did sign Jared Butler. Hey, he looks kind of good. He looked great. One game, small sample size. Just want to throw his name out there and say that I’m I’m excited about his future. Yeah, I’m I absolutely agree with that one. Colin Gillespie could have been the other negative, but did you see enough from Colin Gillespie where you’re like, “That was a terrible performance.” He was three of nine, one of six. That’s the worst thing you can say about him. But he still had three rebounds, four assists. He was still plus three in the point differential with eight points. So your worst performances, I’m putting that in quotation came from Nigel Hayes Davis and Colin Gillespie. And you really can’t say they were that bad of performances. Gillespie has enough goodwill in the bank with me as far as specifically what I think of him as a shooter that going one for six one night from three don’t bother me at all. I don’t mind. I I agree. I absolutely agree with you and that’s my point. like like there there wasn’t there didn’t seem to be any sort of bad rotation or or bad um lineups, right? Just these shots didn’t fall for these guys. But he made some great passes and I mean great passes, not just good great and absolutely and he played some good defense. Remember that uh slap I believe off of Rui Hachimura’s knee, you know, he’s playing. All we’re looking for is look man, I know you’re not going to necessarily stand in front of a allstar offensive player and slide your feet to the point to where he can’t get around you. You shut people down like a prime Dylan Brooks, but can you be that guy who who’s always hustling and getting opportunistic steals and deflections? I saw that. I saw that through I saw that from a lot of players on this team. I saw that from Hayes Davis hustling there. Um, you know, Butler, even Goodwin in the short amount of minutes he played, he there was some hustle there, you know, like that’s the thing. There was just so much energy and so much hustle on this team that you didn’t see from this team at all last year. There is a different energy about this team, bro, that I’m very much looking forward to watching for the entire season because I believe it’ll be there. Do I think they’re going to be a top five team in the West? No. But at least there’s something here. I can’t put my finger on it, but I love the effort. I love the hustle. I love the mindset of this team. It’s going to be fun to watch. Dude, I think they have the potential so far super early to be a team that fights for playoff contention. And we couldn’t say that last year. And we were supposed to be able to say that and then some. So, it’s a win. Absolutely. Tell us in the comments if you will, guys. What are your thoughts of this first game? Are you high on the Sun’s chances this year? Did you see anything you didn’t like? We will see you guys in China next Friday live stream 500 a.m. Valley time if you believe it or not. It’ll be 7 a.m. our time here in Central time, but we’re going to be there. We hope you will be as well. Until then, go Suns.

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