Thoughts on the Suns’ two-headed center of the future, the Detroit collapse, J.J. Hickson and more
Marcin Gortat has long been known as the best backup center in the NBA, and he’s finally starting to show that he would not be a bad option as a starting center either.
Yet although his situation has completely changed from his time in Orlando, in actuality it would still be accurate to refer to Gortat as the best backup center in the league.
Despite rebounding everything in sight the last three games, averaging 13.0 boards per game during that stretch and putting up a double-double in each, head coach Alvin Gentry continues to start Robin Lopez. The Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro recently reported no immediate changes are in store even if Gortat’s production leaves Lopez playing the Jarron Collins role of just the first six or so minutes of each half.
To me, and as Gortat has said himself, it doesn’t really matter who starts so long as the better guy is getting the majority of the minutes and playing during crunch time. That has been the case of late with Gortat playing heavy minutes over Lopez, who has not outrebounded Steve Nash since 2010 (a span of 11 games in which he has averaged 16.1 minutes per contest).
Gortat really seems to be finally getting it, snatching up every rebound in his path, playing solid post defense and adding an offensive element as well.
It was debated in the comments section of a recent preview whether he can be the Suns’ center of the future, and I don’t think there’s any question that he is.
But that doesn’t mean I’m forgetting about Robin. He’s still so young (only 22) and has flashed enough potential at times that there’s a place for him at the table as well.
Perhaps at some point the Suns will need to part with one of them to make a run at a stud, but the center position is one of the best parts of this team’s future as things currently stand.
That doesn’t even count Channing Frye, who logged the most minutes at the center position last season and is doing a solid job offensively (aside from Saturday) with some improved rebounding to boot.
If Lopez can find a way to produce the way he did during the second half of last season before his injury and Gortat can continue to provide a voracious presence on the boards, center will for once be a position of strength the rest of the season for a Suns franchise that may have two true centers of the future (and present) on their roster.
Revisiting the Detroit collapse
The Suns’ fourth-quarter meltdown last night against Detroit was sickening to watch, but no more sickening than the collapses against the Kings, Bulls and Grizzlies earlier this season.
You just have to wonder if the Suns will look back on these games in which they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as the reason they miss out on the postseason.
It’s disgusting to think the Suns lost for the first time IN FRANCHISE HISTORY when holding an opponent to fewer than 80 points — spanning 62 previous games over 43 years of being a franchise. To make matter worse, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, three starters shot under 30 percent (Frye, Grant Hill and Vince Carter) for the first time for this franchise since KJ, Michael Finley and Rex Chapman did so in 1996.
With the Suns trailing by two with eight seconds left you have to wonder about going to Channing Frye, who had missed 10 of his 12 shots at the time. The Suns didn’t need a three at that point and we know Frye is immeasurably better catching the ball in rhythm rather than trying to make something happen on his own in a desperation situation like that.
The Pistons were doubling the pick-and-roll hard all quarter so you knew they wouldn’t get something off that, but there had to be a better option.
Speaking of Frye, he’s trying to prove the academics wrong who say the hot hand theory doesn’t exist. One night he’s unconscious and drills seven threes and the next night he misses 11 shots. When he’s shooting in rhythm and with confidence he’s a huge asset who can change a game on his own like he did in Washington, but when he doesn’t have it he can shoot you out of one like he did in Detroit.
To do one more bit of second guessing, you have to wonder why Goran Dragic wasn’t playing alongside Nash in crunch time to give the Suns a little bit more of a ball-handling threat when Nash was pressured so hard by Bynum, especially since Carter wasn’t doing much of anything productive anyway.
Gentry summed up the night by saying, “We have to finish games, that’s the bottom line. We have to play for 48 minutes, even though it may be the oldest cliché in the book, you can see what happens when you don’t. We had complete control of the game and we just let it slip away.”
A 4-1 road trip would still be fantastic if the Suns can win in Philly, but you just have to wonder how many gut-punch losses the Suns can take where they “just let it slip away.”
No regrets with Hickson
In Marc Stein’s Weekend Dime, he quoted NBA advanced scouts on a variety of issues, including the rapid demise of the Cleveland Cavaliers. I was intrigued by one point in particular:
"My biggest concern would be J.J. Hickson. He doesn’t fit into Byron’s scheme. If it’s true that they could have traded him for Amare Stoudemire, that’s one they may regret forever, because I don’t think he’s a starter on a good team. On a team as bad as that, [Hickson] should be 20 and 10 every night. He should be David West. But he doesn’t seem to be a self-disciplined player. He’s not in good shape. He’s [a] once-every-five-games guy, to me.”"
I have rehashed the Amare Stoudemire situation many times, including last weekend before the Suns visited Amare’s Knicks, and I feel more and more confident that the Suns did the right thing not pursuing that deal to completion last year at this time.
J-Rich’s heralded ‘D’
I watched the end of the Boston-Orlando game last Monday and found it funny the way the Celtics continually went at Jason Richardson. Be it Paul Pierce taking him one on one for an And 1, Ray Allen running him off a screen before draining a three, or Kevin Garnett drawing a foul when Richardson ran him over on a screen, his lack of defensive prowess really hurt the Magic.
J-Rich and Turkoglu have obviously sparked the Magic and that trade has turned out great for them thus far, but I do wonder if teams like the Celtics will continue to go at J-Rich when these squads meet up in the playoffs.
And 1
I found it interesting that the Suns took a team visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., during this road trip. My own grandparents survived the Holocaust and are still living today and thus I hope the Suns found meaning from what’s always a tough visit. … Watching the UA-Washington basketball game Thursday night, I couldn’t help but notice the startling difference in the level of play from the NBA. Perhaps that’s an obvious observation, but quite the difference nonetheless.