Hollinger's Team Forecast: Phoenix Suns
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
For the second season in a row, the Suns surprised the basketball cognoscenti and raced to a division title and a spot in the conference finals. Phoenix had won 61 games a season earlier but wasn't expected to be as strong in 2005-06 following Amare Stoudemire's microfracture knee surgery, an operation which kept him out for virtually the entire season.
The Suns were unfazed, however, rolling to 54 wins and taking the Mavericks to six games in the conference finals. Optimists pointed out that the Suns had advanced one game farther than the previous season, though in truth that was stretching things a bit -- Phoenix got as far as it did mainly because the seedings were so screwed up (Dallas had to play San Antonio in the second round), and even so the Suns barely made it out of the first two rounds.
But it was another surprising campaign for the Suns, and once again the offensive attack was the key. Phoenix became the first team in league history to lead the league in scoring, field-goal percentage, free-throw percentage, and 3-point percentage. Just for good measure, the Suns led in assists too, and it goes without saying they were No. 1 in my metrics such as offensive efficiency and true shooting percentage. (But they were only second in turnover ratio. They really ought to work on that.)
It was the fifth straight season a Steve Nash team led the league in scoring, the first time that's been done since Dan Issel and Alex English were with Denver two decades earlier. For his efforts, Nash won a second straight MVP award.
Offensive Efficiency Leaders, 2005-06
Team FTA/FGA
Phoenix 109.4
Dallas 108.7
Detroit 107.7
Seattle 107.4
Toronto 106.7
NBA avg 103.5
What made the Suns' offense so interesting was that it was so comically unbalanced. You want post play? Don't look here. Phoenix played with four men around the perimeter and one at the high post, spending most of the time looking to drive and kick for 3-pointers. As a result the Suns set a record for 3-pointers in a season with 837.
Here's the punch line: they had lost two players, Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson, who had combined for over 1,000 attempts from downtown the season before. So despite losing their two most prolific long-range shooters, they still broke the record. Newcomers Raja Bell, Eddie House and James Jones picked up the slack, with an added boost from late-season addition Tim Thomas.
This wasn't just some Golden State-like chuck-fest either -- the Suns could actually shoot it. Of the seven players who did nearly all of the 3-point shooting (Nash, Shawn Marion, House, Bell, Thomas, Jones and Leandro Barbosa), six made 38.6 percent or better, led by Barbosa's 44.4 percent mark.
The flip side to all those 3s was that the Suns hardly ever got to the free-throw line. Phoenix had both the fewest free throws and the fewest free-throw attempts in NBA history, averaging just under 18 trips to the line per game. Phoenix's free-throw rate was phenomenally low even compared to other free-throw-shy teams, and was less than half that of the league's top free-throw earner, the Knicks (see chart). Stoudemire's injury played a huge role, as he was the team's primary free-throw earner a season earlier -- when the Suns still had the league's lowest rate, but nowhere near as low as in 2005-06.
Lowest Rate of Free-Throw Attempts Per Field-Goal Attempt
Team FTA/FGA
Phoenix .206
Chicago .292
Detroit .297
San Antonio .298
Minnesota .299
NBA avg .332
The other noteworthy aspect of Phoenix's attack was how rarely the team got second shots. The Suns rebounded only 22.2 percent of their missed shots; while it hurt them less than other teams because they missed so rarely, this was still a shockingly low number -- barely four-fifths of the league average. Even the next-worst team, New Jersey, rebounded nearly 10 percent more often.
Also, as you might imagine with all those 3-point tries, Phoenix had the league's lowest rate of shots blocked. Opponents sent back only 3.94 percent of Suns' attempts, compared to the league average of 5.94 percent.
It should be noted that although the Suns remained the league's best offense, they fell quite a bit short of the standard they had set the previous season. In 2004-05, Phoenix was light years ahead of everyone else. Relative to the league, the Suns finished with the second-best offensive efficiency mark since the NBA began tracking turnovers in 1973-74. By comparison, the 2005-06 edition was nearly three points worse per 100 possessions and just barely slipped by Dallas for the No. 1 spot. But Phoenix's perch was so high a season earlier that the Suns could slip quite a bit and still remain the league's top offense.
One reason they didn't slip further was the completely unexpected development of Boris Diaw. Phoenix acquired the versatile forward in the Joe Johnson sign-and-trade the previous summer, a deal viewed as a bummer at the time because it cost the Suns one of their best young players. However, Phoenix targeted Diaw as a throw-in because it felt he could play the frontcourt (he had been used as a guard in Atlanta), and the Suns were right. Playing the high post and driving past opposing big men, Diaw could use his dribbling and passing skills to much greater effect. He ended up winning the league's Most Improved Player award, and became vital once the Suns lost Kurt Thomas in February.
Diaw wasn't the only new addition to make an impact. The trade of Richardson to New York for Thomas made the Suns a much tougher defensive team, because they had a legit center who could handle good post players. The acquisition of Bell was another coup -- though Bell's offensive impact was vastly overstated, his ability as a perimeter defensive stopper was a huge factor. Two other cheap free-agent pickups, Jones and House, gave Phoenix a bench strength it had lacked a season earlier. While not every move worked out -- the Brian Grant and Pat Burke signings were flops -- enough did that Phoenix could survive losing Stoudemire.
However, another loss had a much bigger impact on Phoenix. The Suns were among the league's best defensive teams until Thomas went out with a foot injury in February, forcing Diaw to take over as the starting center. At that point, the team's defense completely fell apart. At the time, Phoenix had given up 100.2 points per game on 44 percent shooting. Following the injury, Phoenix allowed 107.6 points on 47.8 percent shooting.
Overnight, the Suns went from a very good defense to an incredibly bad one, and increasingly relied on their offense to bail them out. A good example was the first game of the post-Thomas era, a 136-121 win over Charlotte in which the Suns gave up 74 points in the first half at home, against one of the league's worst teams. Phoenix went through a 21-game stretch in which it didn't hold a single team under 95 points, and managed to go 18-11 without Thomas only by posting its best offensive stretch of the season.
The Suns picked up Tim Thomas late in the season to try to bolster their big-man rotation, but he was more interested in winging 3-pointers. Fortunately, he made enough of them to have a real impact, especially in the postseason. His sterling play helped the Suns overcome massive defensive breakdowns in the second round against the Clippers, before a calf injury to Bell and a lack of answers for Dirk Nowitzki finally caused Phoenix to succumb in the conference finals.
One other noteworthy move took place off the court, as general manager Bryan Colangelo -- the architect of Phoenix's helter-skelter attack -- left to take the same job with the Raptors. In his place the Suns promoted head coach Mike D'Antoni, which should preserve continuity -- he's an even bigger fan of this style than Colangelo. However, it remains to be seen if he can be as successful in his personnel role as he is in his coaching position. The two positions require very different outlooks and having one man holding both simultaneously has rarely been a recipe for success.
OFFSEASON MOVES
With its core group intact, the Suns didn't need to make a big splash in free agency. They signed two reserves, extended Barbosa (a reasonable five years for $30 million), and called it a summer -- though an extension for Diaw is a piece of unfinished business heading into the season.
• Signed Marcus Banks, let House leave. House was more or less gone after D'Antoni's no-confidence vote in him during the playoffs, but the Suns went in a very different direction with Banks. He's a penetrator and ball hawk with great jets, and his ability to push the tempo while Steve Nash sits makes him a great fit. He'll also make it easier for D'Antoni to give Nash more rest, provided he keeps the turnovers under control.
• Signed Jumaine Jones, let Tim Thomas leave. The Suns knew Thomas was a two-month rental when they signed him, so I'm not sure they were that upset to see him leave for the Clippers. At any rate, Jones does most of the same things Thomas did and cost a pittance ($1 million for one year, or about 1/24th of Thomas' contract), making him one of the better free-agent bargains of the summer.
• Traded Brian Grant and first-round pick to Boston. This was basically the Suns paying Boston (in the form of a draft pick) to take Grant's contract; dropping both the pick and the contract helps Phoenix do its annual dance around the luxury tax line.
• Signed Eric Piatkowski and Sean Marks. Move along, there's nothing to see here.
BIGGEST STRENGTH
Team speed. Good heavens this team is fast. Nash obviously is a dynamo in transition, but what makes him even more deadly is the ability of Marion and Stoudemire to run on the wings. With those two routinely beating opposing big men up the court, it requires a guard to momentarily drop into the lane and pick one of the two up -- which is how Nash is able to advance the ball to an open 3-point shooter for a quick shot so easily.
Pace Factor Leaders, 2005-06
Team Pace
Phoenix 98.1
Denver 96.4
Charlotte 96.0
Golden State 95.7
Chicago 95.5
NBA avg 92.9
Those three are far from the only threats, however. Barbosa is as fast with the ball as any player in the league, streaking up the left sideline for drives and quick shots, while newcomer Banks is another speed demon who will help keep the pedal down when Nash takes his rest. Diaw also moves well and is a mismatch in transition against opposing big men, while the Suns' secondary offensive players -- Bell and the two Joneses -- get up the floor reasonably well. As a result, the Suns play at a blistering pace; they have led the league in pace factor for two consecutive seasons.
Phoenix's offensive and defensive tendencies exaggerate the impact of the speed. One thing you'll notice in watching a Suns game is that the action almost never stops, and the reason is that Suns games hardly have any fouls. The Suns had the lowest rate of free-throw attempts in the league, but they also strived to avoid fouling on defense -- despite their lack of interior strength. Phoenix had the second-lowest rate of opponents' free-throw tries in basketball. As a result, the Suns frequently had multi-minute stretches without a whistle during which they could run opponents ragged.
BIGGEST WEAKNESS
Interior defense. Phoenix's lack of muscle in the paint was especially noticeable in the Clippers series, when Elton Brand ritually abused the Suns' overmatched "big" men to keep L.A. in the series. Considering the path to the Finals likely goes through post players like Brand, Houston's Yao Ming and San Antonio's Tim Duncan, it's a major concern for Phoenix.
Phoenix hopes the return of Thomas and Stoudemire will help patch that weakness, but there's still reason for concern. Thomas is 34 and only stands 6-9, so he seems like a solution mostly because he's not as bad as his teammates. Stoudemire, meanwhile, was a poor defensive player in 2004-05 and will have to improve his awareness and effort to make up for what is likely to be a loss of timing and quickness when he first returns.
If Stoudemire's knee woes continue and Thomas' injuries or age becomes a factor, then the Suns are down to their worst-case scenario -- playing Diaw at center. At 6-8, he was overmatched last season, a huge reason Phoenix's defense crumbled after Thomas went out.
2006-07 OUTLOOK
In making a list of the top contenders in the West, three names are at the tip of everyone's tongues -- the Suns, the Mavericks and the Spurs. Phoenix's hopes are thought to rest largely on the fate of Stoudemire's knee, since the team seemed a notch below Dallas and San Antonio without him last season. But the margin is smaller than you think -- the Suns had 58 expected wins last season, and had only 54 wins largely because they were 0-7 in games decided by fewer than three points.
Remember, too, that Phoenix was playing quite a bit better when Kurt Thomas was healthy … and that the additions of Jones and Banks make this season's second unit arguably stronger than last season's … and that with such a young roster several Phoenix players are bound to improve. All of which says that the Suns have a chance at winning the title even without Stoudemire, just as they did a season ago.
The difference is that without Amare, everything has to go perfectly -- Nash can't age, nobody can get hurt and the 3-pointers have to keep falling. Conversely, if a healthy Stoudemire returns, the possibilities widen considerably -- Phoenix would have to be the favorite to win the title in that case. The most likely scenario is something in between -- a bumpy return for Stoudemire that goes in fits and starts, but sees him in reasonably good shape by April. If so, I doubt the Suns will have the West's best record, but they could be a terror come playoff time.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
For the second season in a row, the Suns surprised the basketball cognoscenti and raced to a division title and a spot in the conference finals. Phoenix had won 61 games a season earlier but wasn't expected to be as strong in 2005-06 following Amare Stoudemire's microfracture knee surgery, an operation which kept him out for virtually the entire season.
The Suns were unfazed, however, rolling to 54 wins and taking the Mavericks to six games in the conference finals. Optimists pointed out that the Suns had advanced one game farther than the previous season, though in truth that was stretching things a bit -- Phoenix got as far as it did mainly because the seedings were so screwed up (Dallas had to play San Antonio in the second round), and even so the Suns barely made it out of the first two rounds.
But it was another surprising campaign for the Suns, and once again the offensive attack was the key. Phoenix became the first team in league history to lead the league in scoring, field-goal percentage, free-throw percentage, and 3-point percentage. Just for good measure, the Suns led in assists too, and it goes without saying they were No. 1 in my metrics such as offensive efficiency and true shooting percentage. (But they were only second in turnover ratio. They really ought to work on that.)
It was the fifth straight season a Steve Nash team led the league in scoring, the first time that's been done since Dan Issel and Alex English were with Denver two decades earlier. For his efforts, Nash won a second straight MVP award.
Offensive Efficiency Leaders, 2005-06
Team FTA/FGA
Phoenix 109.4
Dallas 108.7
Detroit 107.7
Seattle 107.4
Toronto 106.7
NBA avg 103.5
What made the Suns' offense so interesting was that it was so comically unbalanced. You want post play? Don't look here. Phoenix played with four men around the perimeter and one at the high post, spending most of the time looking to drive and kick for 3-pointers. As a result the Suns set a record for 3-pointers in a season with 837.
Here's the punch line: they had lost two players, Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson, who had combined for over 1,000 attempts from downtown the season before. So despite losing their two most prolific long-range shooters, they still broke the record. Newcomers Raja Bell, Eddie House and James Jones picked up the slack, with an added boost from late-season addition Tim Thomas.
This wasn't just some Golden State-like chuck-fest either -- the Suns could actually shoot it. Of the seven players who did nearly all of the 3-point shooting (Nash, Shawn Marion, House, Bell, Thomas, Jones and Leandro Barbosa), six made 38.6 percent or better, led by Barbosa's 44.4 percent mark.
The flip side to all those 3s was that the Suns hardly ever got to the free-throw line. Phoenix had both the fewest free throws and the fewest free-throw attempts in NBA history, averaging just under 18 trips to the line per game. Phoenix's free-throw rate was phenomenally low even compared to other free-throw-shy teams, and was less than half that of the league's top free-throw earner, the Knicks (see chart). Stoudemire's injury played a huge role, as he was the team's primary free-throw earner a season earlier -- when the Suns still had the league's lowest rate, but nowhere near as low as in 2005-06.
Lowest Rate of Free-Throw Attempts Per Field-Goal Attempt
Team FTA/FGA
Phoenix .206
Chicago .292
Detroit .297
San Antonio .298
Minnesota .299
NBA avg .332
The other noteworthy aspect of Phoenix's attack was how rarely the team got second shots. The Suns rebounded only 22.2 percent of their missed shots; while it hurt them less than other teams because they missed so rarely, this was still a shockingly low number -- barely four-fifths of the league average. Even the next-worst team, New Jersey, rebounded nearly 10 percent more often.
Also, as you might imagine with all those 3-point tries, Phoenix had the league's lowest rate of shots blocked. Opponents sent back only 3.94 percent of Suns' attempts, compared to the league average of 5.94 percent.
It should be noted that although the Suns remained the league's best offense, they fell quite a bit short of the standard they had set the previous season. In 2004-05, Phoenix was light years ahead of everyone else. Relative to the league, the Suns finished with the second-best offensive efficiency mark since the NBA began tracking turnovers in 1973-74. By comparison, the 2005-06 edition was nearly three points worse per 100 possessions and just barely slipped by Dallas for the No. 1 spot. But Phoenix's perch was so high a season earlier that the Suns could slip quite a bit and still remain the league's top offense.
One reason they didn't slip further was the completely unexpected development of Boris Diaw. Phoenix acquired the versatile forward in the Joe Johnson sign-and-trade the previous summer, a deal viewed as a bummer at the time because it cost the Suns one of their best young players. However, Phoenix targeted Diaw as a throw-in because it felt he could play the frontcourt (he had been used as a guard in Atlanta), and the Suns were right. Playing the high post and driving past opposing big men, Diaw could use his dribbling and passing skills to much greater effect. He ended up winning the league's Most Improved Player award, and became vital once the Suns lost Kurt Thomas in February.
Diaw wasn't the only new addition to make an impact. The trade of Richardson to New York for Thomas made the Suns a much tougher defensive team, because they had a legit center who could handle good post players. The acquisition of Bell was another coup -- though Bell's offensive impact was vastly overstated, his ability as a perimeter defensive stopper was a huge factor. Two other cheap free-agent pickups, Jones and House, gave Phoenix a bench strength it had lacked a season earlier. While not every move worked out -- the Brian Grant and Pat Burke signings were flops -- enough did that Phoenix could survive losing Stoudemire.
However, another loss had a much bigger impact on Phoenix. The Suns were among the league's best defensive teams until Thomas went out with a foot injury in February, forcing Diaw to take over as the starting center. At that point, the team's defense completely fell apart. At the time, Phoenix had given up 100.2 points per game on 44 percent shooting. Following the injury, Phoenix allowed 107.6 points on 47.8 percent shooting.
Overnight, the Suns went from a very good defense to an incredibly bad one, and increasingly relied on their offense to bail them out. A good example was the first game of the post-Thomas era, a 136-121 win over Charlotte in which the Suns gave up 74 points in the first half at home, against one of the league's worst teams. Phoenix went through a 21-game stretch in which it didn't hold a single team under 95 points, and managed to go 18-11 without Thomas only by posting its best offensive stretch of the season.
The Suns picked up Tim Thomas late in the season to try to bolster their big-man rotation, but he was more interested in winging 3-pointers. Fortunately, he made enough of them to have a real impact, especially in the postseason. His sterling play helped the Suns overcome massive defensive breakdowns in the second round against the Clippers, before a calf injury to Bell and a lack of answers for Dirk Nowitzki finally caused Phoenix to succumb in the conference finals.
One other noteworthy move took place off the court, as general manager Bryan Colangelo -- the architect of Phoenix's helter-skelter attack -- left to take the same job with the Raptors. In his place the Suns promoted head coach Mike D'Antoni, which should preserve continuity -- he's an even bigger fan of this style than Colangelo. However, it remains to be seen if he can be as successful in his personnel role as he is in his coaching position. The two positions require very different outlooks and having one man holding both simultaneously has rarely been a recipe for success.
OFFSEASON MOVES
With its core group intact, the Suns didn't need to make a big splash in free agency. They signed two reserves, extended Barbosa (a reasonable five years for $30 million), and called it a summer -- though an extension for Diaw is a piece of unfinished business heading into the season.
• Signed Marcus Banks, let House leave. House was more or less gone after D'Antoni's no-confidence vote in him during the playoffs, but the Suns went in a very different direction with Banks. He's a penetrator and ball hawk with great jets, and his ability to push the tempo while Steve Nash sits makes him a great fit. He'll also make it easier for D'Antoni to give Nash more rest, provided he keeps the turnovers under control.
• Signed Jumaine Jones, let Tim Thomas leave. The Suns knew Thomas was a two-month rental when they signed him, so I'm not sure they were that upset to see him leave for the Clippers. At any rate, Jones does most of the same things Thomas did and cost a pittance ($1 million for one year, or about 1/24th of Thomas' contract), making him one of the better free-agent bargains of the summer.
• Traded Brian Grant and first-round pick to Boston. This was basically the Suns paying Boston (in the form of a draft pick) to take Grant's contract; dropping both the pick and the contract helps Phoenix do its annual dance around the luxury tax line.
• Signed Eric Piatkowski and Sean Marks. Move along, there's nothing to see here.
BIGGEST STRENGTH
Team speed. Good heavens this team is fast. Nash obviously is a dynamo in transition, but what makes him even more deadly is the ability of Marion and Stoudemire to run on the wings. With those two routinely beating opposing big men up the court, it requires a guard to momentarily drop into the lane and pick one of the two up -- which is how Nash is able to advance the ball to an open 3-point shooter for a quick shot so easily.
Pace Factor Leaders, 2005-06
Team Pace
Phoenix 98.1
Denver 96.4
Charlotte 96.0
Golden State 95.7
Chicago 95.5
NBA avg 92.9
Those three are far from the only threats, however. Barbosa is as fast with the ball as any player in the league, streaking up the left sideline for drives and quick shots, while newcomer Banks is another speed demon who will help keep the pedal down when Nash takes his rest. Diaw also moves well and is a mismatch in transition against opposing big men, while the Suns' secondary offensive players -- Bell and the two Joneses -- get up the floor reasonably well. As a result, the Suns play at a blistering pace; they have led the league in pace factor for two consecutive seasons.
Phoenix's offensive and defensive tendencies exaggerate the impact of the speed. One thing you'll notice in watching a Suns game is that the action almost never stops, and the reason is that Suns games hardly have any fouls. The Suns had the lowest rate of free-throw attempts in the league, but they also strived to avoid fouling on defense -- despite their lack of interior strength. Phoenix had the second-lowest rate of opponents' free-throw tries in basketball. As a result, the Suns frequently had multi-minute stretches without a whistle during which they could run opponents ragged.
BIGGEST WEAKNESS
Interior defense. Phoenix's lack of muscle in the paint was especially noticeable in the Clippers series, when Elton Brand ritually abused the Suns' overmatched "big" men to keep L.A. in the series. Considering the path to the Finals likely goes through post players like Brand, Houston's Yao Ming and San Antonio's Tim Duncan, it's a major concern for Phoenix.
Phoenix hopes the return of Thomas and Stoudemire will help patch that weakness, but there's still reason for concern. Thomas is 34 and only stands 6-9, so he seems like a solution mostly because he's not as bad as his teammates. Stoudemire, meanwhile, was a poor defensive player in 2004-05 and will have to improve his awareness and effort to make up for what is likely to be a loss of timing and quickness when he first returns.
If Stoudemire's knee woes continue and Thomas' injuries or age becomes a factor, then the Suns are down to their worst-case scenario -- playing Diaw at center. At 6-8, he was overmatched last season, a huge reason Phoenix's defense crumbled after Thomas went out.
2006-07 OUTLOOK
In making a list of the top contenders in the West, three names are at the tip of everyone's tongues -- the Suns, the Mavericks and the Spurs. Phoenix's hopes are thought to rest largely on the fate of Stoudemire's knee, since the team seemed a notch below Dallas and San Antonio without him last season. But the margin is smaller than you think -- the Suns had 58 expected wins last season, and had only 54 wins largely because they were 0-7 in games decided by fewer than three points.
Remember, too, that Phoenix was playing quite a bit better when Kurt Thomas was healthy … and that the additions of Jones and Banks make this season's second unit arguably stronger than last season's … and that with such a young roster several Phoenix players are bound to improve. All of which says that the Suns have a chance at winning the title even without Stoudemire, just as they did a season ago.
The difference is that without Amare, everything has to go perfectly -- Nash can't age, nobody can get hurt and the 3-pointers have to keep falling. Conversely, if a healthy Stoudemire returns, the possibilities widen considerably -- Phoenix would have to be the favorite to win the title in that case. The most likely scenario is something in between -- a bumpy return for Stoudemire that goes in fits and starts, but sees him in reasonably good shape by April. If so, I doubt the Suns will have the West's best record, but they could be a terror come playoff time.
