Bobcats

Suns

Typically, this preview would focus on the statistical differentials between the teams in various advanced metrics — offensive rebound rate, effective field goal percentage and the other Four Factors — but this isn’t a typical game. This is a clash between a Suns team that can’t seem to find any traction in a desperate attempt to avoid being sucked to the bottom of the Western Conference by a maelstrom powered by a lack of depth, chemistry issues and overall ineffectiveness in rebounding and a Bobcats team that already lies at the bottom of the ocean floor, already victim to basketball’s Charybdis.

For the “too long; didn’t read” crowd, these teams are really bad. Charlotte is worse; they’re the worst team in the league, really, both by winning percentage and ability to lose to the Wizards multiple times. The Suns aren’t a whole lot better, though, and that’s a depressing statement. How do you make a game between these two teams interesting, other than Steve Nash to Marcin Gortat pick and rolls for 30-plus minutes?

Put Bismack Biyombo into the starting lineup for the Bobcats, that’s how!

Due to what scientists refer to as a “truckload” of injuries recently, Charlotte will start Kemba Walker, Reggie Williams, Tyrus Thomas, former Sun Boris Diaw and Biyombo. That’s two lottery picks, a player who’s gifted at appreciating French cuisine, an ex-Sun who’s really good at making passes from in and around the post* and Tyrus Thomas, whom I’m legitimately afraid might try to block a shot that Biyombo already blocked.

*You assumed I meant Boris when I mentioned an appreciation for French cuisine, didn’t you? I know, it was a trick statement (yes, that’s a thing). Reggie Williams played basketball in France.

One of two things is bound to happen with that starting lineup. Either all 18 tires on the truck will blow out, the vehicle will flip over and Paul Silas will be forced to switch to a backup truck driven by Byron Mullens and Cory Higgins, or all of that will happen in spectacular fashion — with flames everywhere, Biyombo rejecting the Gorilla’s dunks during timeouts as well as every shot attempted by Channing Frye and DaSagana Diop sneaking into the freezer at the Cold Stone Creamery inside US Airways Center.

After all, while Biyombo is foul-prone (to put it lightly), he’s also shown glimpses of being a defensive force simply due to his length. His knowledge on the defensive end is growing with every game; if he can avoid picking up early fouls, he’ll be a disruptive force against a Suns offense that needs all the help from the opposition it can get. Little went well for Phoenix on offense against the Rockets once the starters sat for the first time last night. The only positive, really, was the rest that the starters received.

Charlotte is an awful team, and things tonight will likely go very poorly for them, but the Suns are having struggles of their own. They have two losses on their record that, with a little hindsight, are pretty awful — at home to both the Hornets (now 4-19) and Nets (8-16). Phoenix is perfectly capable of laying an egg against a team like Charlotte, sadly. Starting the rookies might increase those odds for the Bobcats, especially if they come out with energy and catch the Suns off guard. In that unlikely event, something as small as forcing Biyombo (and the other starters) to the bench might have a significant impact on the game.

If there’s anyone capable of getting Biyombo into foul trouble, it’s Marcin Gortat. Gortat, as noted by Paul Coro, has become a beast since the splint came off his broken thumb. His total rebounding percentage has returned to nearly the same rate as last season (18.0% of available rebounds last year, 17.9% so far this season), and he’s scoring a career-best 17.3 points per 36 minutes, even as Phoenix’s pace plummets to lows unseen in the Nash era. His chemistry with both Nash and Ronnie Price is notable, but the combination of Gortat and Nash has few contemporary parallels in the pick and roll.

However, the Suns don’t have much to offer behind those two this season. Perhaps the Bobcats will provide the remedy for Phoenix as a whole and some of the individual players, as well. Grant Hill (41.3% effective field goal percentage, which takes into account the added value of three-pointers) and Channing Frye (41.9 eFG%) are having career-worst shooting seasons, and Markieff Morris has cooled off substantially since his hot start. In his last 10 games, Morris is 19-for-64 from the field and 4-for-12 from three. That’s a 32.8 eFG%; for context, the most minutes played by anyone shooting that poorly this season is 269, by Marquis Daniels.

Morris’s percentage will improve; he’s neither as good as his early season start made him seem nor as bad as this recent stretch appears. The Bobcats, who allow the third highest opponent eFG%, might be the perfect team against which to start that regression back to the mean, for Morris and the rest of the team.

As long as the Suns don’t go off the rails themselves, that is.

UPDATE: Dudley to miss first game since 2009 with thigh bruise, Redd to start

Jared Dudley will sit out tonight’s game after suffering a thigh bruise Wednesday in New Orleans. He played through it last night in Houston, although head coach Alvin Gentry said he probably should have missed that one as well since his thigh is “really swollen.”

Michael Redd will get his first Phoenix start in Dudley’s place. Redd has averaged 3.7 points in 9.9 minutes per game in nine contests this season.

This will be the first game Dudley misses since March 6, 2009.

And 1

• The jury’s still out on how the second night of a back-to-back is affecting the Suns. They’re 2-3 in those games, but the combined record of the teams they played in those losses is slightly higher (48.6% winning percentage) than the teams they beat (43.5%). However, the first number is buoyed by a loss to the Thunder — the other two losses were the aforementioned Nets loss and a loss to Toronto. The wins came against the Knicks and Grizzlies.
• Gentry pregame on playing the worst team in basketball: “There’s no easy games, there’s no games you can just put a checkmark by. They have trouble finishing games like we do. We’ll have to play extremely well and play with a great effort to beat them. That’s the way it’s going to be for us in a lot of situations.”

PHOENIX — Every time the Suns’ season seems to be careening toward a “wait til next year” cliff, they pull off a resounding victory over a likely playoff team.

After an uninspiring 2-4 start they whacked the Blazers. Then after five losses in a row they upset the Knicks and Celtics on the road. Now they followed up last night’s “horrendous” effort in Portland and a three-game losing streak by slipping past the Memphis Grizzlies, 86-84.

This win won’t remind anybody of the Seven Seconds or Less era, however, as the Suns managed to win just their second game in the last four seasons when shooting under 40 percent in their 36.4 percent shooting effort.

They did so by limiting the Grizzlies to 16 points in each of the first two quarters to build a 16-point halftime lead before narrowly hanging on when Jared Dudley knocked down four clutch free throws.

“We had to gut it out at the end, but I thought after last night’s embarrassment, we came out and played with a lot of heart and found a way,” said Suns guard Steve Nash. “They are a really good team and they have a lot of talent, a lot of depth, a lot of weapons, so we did a good job defensively and we just hung on offensively.”

When Dante Cunningham tied the game with a layup at the 1:24 mark this seemed to be shaping up as a game in which the Suns’ lack of a go-to player could spell doom. It turns out all the Suns needed was for Dudley to find some contact.

After a Marcin Gortat miss, the Suns’ defense forced a Cunningham 18-footer and Marc Gasol was called for a loose ball foul during the scramble for the rebound on a play Dudley thought would go down as a no-call.

Rudy Gay answered those two foul shots with a nifty bank shot, which gave the Suns the ball with the shot clock turned off and an opportunity to make one final play. After killing the clock, Memphis’ defense on a Nash-Gortat pick-and-roll forced the ball to be rotated to Dudley, who got tripped with 3.3 seconds left.

“I have cat feet,” Dudley said to defend the debatable call. “I usually land on my feet, so you know if I don’t land on my feet it is a foul.”

Those free throws proved to be the winning margin after Mike Conley’s 30-footer fell well short. Afterward JMZ joked that he hasn’t shot free throws that big since his Boston College days when he was beating Hakim Warrick’s Orangemen.

I’ve always been fascinated with the mental aspect of clutch free throws (I once wrote an entire paper on the subject for a creative writing class back in college).  Players often lie in postgame interview and say shots like that are just another free throw, but Dudley did in fact admit those shots were “definitely different.”

“This is game time,” said Dudley, the game’s star with 20 points, six boards, four assists and three steals. “Now you guys are interviewing me. If I didn’t make it you might be interviewing Steve right now.”

Nash was his usual spectacular self in his 700th game with the franchise, racking up 21 points on 8-for-14 shooting to go with six assists and five rebounds. Marcin Gortat hit just 6-of-17 in his showdown against potential All-Star center Marc Gasol (18-13) but still collected another double-double with a 13-12 game.

Meanwhile, Channing Frye’s shot continued to be off in tonight’s two-point, 1-for-9 performance. Frye has averaged 3.6 points on 21.3 percent shooting in his last seven games.

Thus Alvin Gentry’s decision to return to the starting lineup that he began the season with had a much bigger impact on Dudley than Frye. Markieff Morris continued to produce off the bench (10 points, nine rebounds) while Ronnie Price played just 6:32 as Sebastian Telfair continued as the primary backup point guard even with Price joining him on the pine.

It was a different rotation all around as Shannon Brown and Robin Lopez did not play by coach’s decision, and Josh Childress pulled down three boards (two offensive) in eight rotation minutes. Also, Telfair subbed in for Nash seven minutes into each half to allow him to return earlier than usual.

“I played the guys tonight that I thought were going to help us win,” Gentry said.

After last night’s embarrassment Gentry seems to be searching for new combinations that could be a fit. It’s obviously not an ideal situation to be in a month into the season, but at the same time since the Suns have so many potential rotation players and only two clear-cut starters it’s what needs to be done.

Dudley said he just wants to know what his role will be, whether it’s as a sixth or seventh man or a starter, although he did admit to feeling “comfortable” as a starter since he “envisioned starting this year and playing that role.”

Ideally, the Suns will eventually develop the kind of well-defined roles that catapulted the 2009-10 team to such spectacular heights, but that team was able to feature such specialization because players naturally filled particular spots on the team.

However, this season after Nash and Gortat there is so much parity between players 3-13 that Gentry may be relegated to mixing and matching and playing the hot hand or the best matchup all season long.

“It’s hard to pick the rotations,” Nash said. “It’s hard to say whether the rotation is the reason we won, you know, I don’t know. So, we’ve just got to keep working and believe in each other and hope no matter who is called upon, they’re going to go out there and play hard and try to play for each other.”

And 1

• Nash suffered “another” thigh bruise on the final play of the game when he got tangled up with Gasol setting a screen for Conley’s final heave. He previously injured his other (right) thigh against Cleveland on Jan. 12, which caused him to miss a game, but Nash is “optimistic” he will be able to play Monday against Dallas. “It’s just frustrating,” he said. “Hopefully it will settle down for Monday.”
• Morris’ locker was adorned with an Iowa State logo and the words “all we do” after the Cyclones knocked off the rookie’s No. 5-ranked Kansas Jayhawks today.
• The Suns are now 4-1 when Dudley scores 15 or more. … Nash dished six assists to put him seven shy of Kevin Johnson’s franchise record. … Gortat is now averaging double-digit boards for the first time in his career. The last Suns to do so was Matrix in 2005-06.

Nash, Dudley leading Tweeter of the Year race

@SteveNash and @JaredDudley619 are leading the way in the voting for HoopsHype’s Tweeter of the Year award for 2011.

As of this writing, Nash leads with 4,676 total points; JD is just behind in second at 4,127. Dudley leads all players with 140 first-place votes whereas Two Time has 45. Fans can vote for them here at HoopsHype.

Nash won HoopsHype’s inaugural Tweeter of the Year award last season, and Dudley was recognized by the site as the league’s most valuable tweeter in December 2009.

Jared Dudley felt his squad had many chances to build a lead in the first half if the Suns would have hit their shots. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

PHOENIX — Timing is everything in basketball. Cut or screen too soon or too late, and the offensive play crumbles.

The Phoenix Suns, like every other NBA team, haven’t had much practice time — not even casual pick-up games — to construct well-timed execution, and that had a great deal of impact in their season opening loss.

Bad timing led to a poorly executed final play in the Suns’ loss to the New Orleans Hornets. It also might have thrown off the usually solid shooting percentage of Phoenix as the Suns connected on only 39.5 percent of their attempts.

“Our offense was just non-existent,” head coach Alvin Gentry said. “We just never got into any rhythm or flow, although in the first half we had a lot of really good looks that could have put us up 10 or 12 points.”

Instead,  it was the Suns’ defense that put them in position to start off the season with a victory. Even the game-winning jumper by Hornets guard Eric Gordon was a well-defended, contested shot, Gentry said.

However, Jared Dudley remained skeptical when reviewing the defensive statistics.

He believed the low-scoring affair was partially a symptom of the Hornets playing with a new roster. They dished out just 10 total assists, and much of that was due to starting point guard Jarrett Jack out due to suspension.

“Obviously we played well statistically,” Dudley said. “We played against a team that didn’t have a point guard. Jarrett Jack was suspended, they just threw trades in. I think we both were just really bad offensively.”

So as much as they’re working on a new defense, the Suns are still about offense — after all, this is a Steve Nash-led team.

Dudley agreed that there were numerous opportunities to build upon a big lead in the first half, but he and his teammates missed open jumpers. Gentry estimated that Dudley, forward Grant Hill and struggling big man Channing Frye missed at least three open looks each.

That too had to do with off-kilter rhythm and timing, though Gentry wasn’t too concerned and believes the offense will come with time and (surprise) a more frenetic pace.

“Early on we had great looks, you’ve got to knock them in,” Dudley said. “Sometimes we have to get to the basket. We want to get out more in transition.”

And Phoenix struggled to do that against the Hornets.

Last season, the Suns posted scoring outputs in the 80s just seven times and had the league’s seventh-best Pace Factor of 94.4 possessions per 48 minutes, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Against the Hornets, Phoenix posted a middle-of-the-road Pace Factor of 89, and Gentry and company think the Suns must take advantage of transition opportunities, especially when they’re having a poor shooting night.

“As I said, it doesn’t matter how they play offensively as far as stringing out possessions,” Gentry said, “we still got to be able to get out and run. If they only had 12 offensive rebounds, we had a lot of opportunities to run.”

Taking the open shot

We hear it often — sometimes coaches for the Suns have to urge players to let it fly.

Even for self-proclaimed scorers like guard Shannon Brown, it’s easier said than done. Brown, who went 1-for-8 in his Phoenix debut against New Orleans, appeared to be pressing on Monday.

Gentry said he needs to play more instinctual basketball.

“It’s just like, ‘shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot,’” Brown said of the Suns’ offensive philosophies.

“I don’t think I was trying too hard,” Brown added. “I think it’s just getting in to the rhythm of everything.”

Gentry, however, believes Brown is still in the process of shedding his old habits with the Lakers. Trying too hard or not, it appeared Brown was forcing the issue at times on Monday, going one-on-one instead of taking the open jumpers on catches off the ball.

“We don’t expect him to be an iso guy,” Gentry said. “We’ll put him in a flow and in a rhythm. It’s tough. He’s played in an offense the last few years where everything is predicated on the next move and the next move.

“He was passing up some shot opportunities, you know, that we swing the ball to him where he’s kind of in the middle of (thinking) ‘is this a good shot or is it not?’”

Rookie forward Markieff Morris was another player still getting used to the shoot now, shoot later mentality. He went 2-for-5 from the field an 1-for-3 from beyond the arc in his first NBA game.

Morris was the last player to leave Tuesday’s practice, and ended his session by working on catch-and-shoot three-pointers while on the move.

“I missed about eight in a row but that ninth one I made,” Morris said of his post-practice drill. “Coach has his faith in me to keep shooting and when I’m open I have to take the shot. He jokes about (Kansas) coach (Bill) Self telling me not to shoot.

“It’s different now.”

And 1

• Morris on the last play of the game and his pass: “To be my first game and Coach had faith in me to have me in that time was big. Made a bad pass at the end, but you live to play another game and it’s the first of 66. It definitely happened fast. I just was trying to get the ball to Steve. It was a bad pass, they played great ‘D’ on him.”

• Brown on how much we can take from the first game: “If ya’ll are basing (the team) off what happened yesterday, I say you’ve got to look at both preseason games and the scrimmages or whatever. Yesterday, we were a little out of sync. I don’t even know the last time the Suns scored 85 (actually 84) points.”

• Brown on keeping up with the Los Angeles Lakers: “It’s kind of hard to put it behind me. Every time I talk to somebody it’s all they talk about. Every time I’m out, it’s like, ‘Lakers, why’d you leave the Lakers? Lakers, Lakers, Lakers.’ I think there are more Lakers fans in Phoenix than Suns fans. We’ve got to convert them.”

Brown proved his worth in two seasons with the Lakers, and for a 26-year-old aiming to finally crack an NBA starting lineup, Phoenix seemed to be the perfect fit.

But although Brown is a SportsCenter Top 10 play waiting to happen, there’s an equally hungry shooting guard standing in his way of securing his first NBA starting gig.

Jared Dudley had made it clear he wants to be an NBA starter, and he’s backed that up long hours at Impact Basketball followed by a stellar training camp.

As of now, it’s Dudley’s job to lose.

“Somebody’s going to have to beat him out. Right now he’s probably had the best camp of anyone,” Gentry said of Dudley. “He’s shot the ball well and been really good defensively. He wants to be a starter and I understand that. If he earns that position it’s going to be hard not to have him out there.”

If last season’s stint as a starter is any indication, Dudley is undoubtedly the right choice at two guard. In 15 games as a starter last year Dudley averaged 16.3 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 2.1 steals, while shooting 51.8 percent from the field and 46.4 percent from three in 34.1 minutes.

He’s a proven commodity, a tireless worker, a fan favorite and player that does the little things that go beyond the box score. It’s not hard to see that the Suns are a better team with Dudley on the floor, and his career-best season last year gives Gentry no reason not to believe in JMZ.

“He’s going to be a valuable guy to our team,” Gentry said. “He’s such a versatile guy. Good things seem to happen when he’s on the floor.”

But while Dudley is established and proven, Brown gives the Suns another element that’s been missing for years. As outlined in this video, his athleticism fits perfectly in Phoenix’s uptempo system. He runs the floor well and finishes in transition with the best of them.

Brown also has a fairly polished offensive game with range out to the three. His athleticism suggests that he can turn into one of the Suns’ best perimeter defenders, which is obviously a major area of need. Add in that he brings a winning pedigree with two championship rings and it’s going to be hard to keep Brown off of the floor.

“It’s great to have him,” Steve Nash said of Brown. “He’s going to add scoring, athleticism, defense and depth to our team so it’s going to be great to have him on our squad.”

Brown said he doesn’t see his positional battle with Dudley as a competition at all. He said they simply help each other out and do what’s best for the team. But there’s no doubt that Brown is striving to cement himself as a starter in Phoenix. He’s on a one-year deal with a 66-game audition to show why he can start in the NBA.

“It’s a new beginning for me,” Brown said.  ”I think I can help this team out a whole lot with the things that I bring to the basketball court.”

Is that new beginning going to start on the pine or on the floor? Will Dudley fend off Brown or will the high-flyer take the Suns by storm and grab hold of the starting job?

The Verdict

Based solely on work ethic and maximizing talent, Dudley is as deserving of a starting spot as any guard in the NBA. He’s come into each training camp in better shape than the last, while adding new elements of his game every offseason.

Because of that work ethic and his proven production as a starter, Dudley will be in the backcourt with Nash to start the season. He’s too valuable of a player to leave on the bench because of his defense, rebounding, shooting, nose for the ball and basketball IQ.

Brown will undoubtedly play 20-plus minutes a game and give the Suns exactly what he came to Phoenix to give them, but this is Dudley’s year. This is Dudley’s time to prove that he’s more than just a role player. He’s put in the work, now he deserves the chance to make it pay off.

PHOENIX — The Suns brought US Airways Center to Grand Canyon University Arena Wednesday during the squad’s annual intrasquad scrimmage that broke up the monotony of training camp drills.

GCU looked and sounded like a typical Suns game with their game operations staff and cheerleaders entertaining the crowd in what is an extra exhibition game for them as well.

The players enjoyed playing in front of a crowd during the 40-minute contest with a running clock in which the black team (AKA Nash’s team) beat the white team, 68-61.

“It was great to play in front of fans, it was also great just to come to play,” Nash said. “I think to get a chance just to have a morning off to rest our legs and come out and play a game tonight was a lot of fun. Guys played hard and I think the work we’ve been putting in has been paying off.”

It’s often hard to tell how much progress a team is making when facing off against their teammates, but Robin Lopez, Shannon Brown and Jared Dudley were among the Suns who stood out to me.

Two Time was his usual steady self as well, but he took just three shots as you would expect from him in a game like this. He did dish a game-high six assists, including a handful of perfectly executed pick-and-rolls, so no surprises there.

I made sure to focus in on Robin because if he reverts back to 2009-10 form, that changes the entire dynamic of this team. It’s far too early to make any such statements, but I really loved his activity in this game. He just seemed to have his bounce back, whether it was aggressively posting up Marcin Gortat or pursuing rebounds with a tenacity he’s lacked, well, ever.

Lopez finished the game with 12 points and a team-high six boards and just carried himself differently than the he did during his disappointing campaign last season.

“I’m really happy with Robin,” Nash said. “I think Robin has taken a big step from last year. He looks physically great and he looks hungry and he’s playing hard.”

Brown scored a team-high 16 points and looked comfortable with his jumper, draining one particular three in the grill of Dudley. However, amid a hot shooting streak Brown raced down the floor on a breakaway as the crowd held its collective breath waiting for Mr. “Let Shannon Dunk” to unleash a furious slam only for him to flub it.

“That dunk was thinking too much induced,” Brown said. “I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to windmill it.’ Then I was like, ‘Which hand?’ By the time I got up in the air it was like, ‘Ahhh.’ I got stuck. It was all fun, though.”

Still, Brown enjoyed his first opportunity to run with his new teammates in this new system in a game environment.

“I’m still getting used to it, being able to get to the old, old me where I feel I can score the ball at any time without even thinking about it,” Brown said, noting he doesn’t need to worry about coming out of the game just for making a mistake. “It just feels good. It’s slowly but surely coming back.”

Dudley also stood out for his steady play that led to 16 points. He always seemed to be in the right spot, at one point sneaking away from the defense for an open layup in a halfcourt situation. All the work Dudley put in this summer certainly was apparent.

It’s scary to think the Suns’ season opener is a mere 12 days away, being that the whole team has only been practicing together since Sunday.

That means this team has no shortage of work left before that Dec. 26 season opener against New Orleans, but for now the Suns just enjoyed competing in a game environment with their teammates for the first time in eight months.

“To be out there with my teammates, it just seems like so, so long ago,” Warrick said. “A few weeks ago it just felt like this wouldn’t come, so to get back out there with my teammates, it’s just great. To finally get out there and play, even though it’s still against the same people, it’s still great to go out there in that type of atmosphere.”

And 1

• Rookie forward Markieff Morris missed the scrimmage after banging knees in Tuesday night’s practice with Ronnie Price, The Arizona Republic reported. Mickael Pietrus was the only other Sun not to play.
• Speaking of Price, he played the kind of stiff on-ball defense he’s known for. He could be a nice change of pace point guard when the Suns need him to really get after an opposing guard.
• Warrick’s shot was dropping, even drilling a three while getting fouled at one point. “Today I really, really had it going,” he said.
• Gortat scored 11 points to go with a game-high nine boards. Channing Frye contributed a game-high 17 points and seven boards for the black team as well.
• On the other end of the spectrum, Sebastian Telfair knocked down just 1-of-9 shots and Grant Hill was 1-for-6 for the white team.
• The winning black team consisted of Nash, Gortat, Frye, Dudley, Josh Childress, Price and Marcus Landry. The white team featured Brown, Hill, Lopez, Telfair, Warrick, Garret Siler, Jeremy Hazell and Dwight Buycks.

PHOENIX — Throughout his NBA career, Shannon Brown has been known as one thing: a world-class athlete and dunker.

From the early part of his career when he bounced around between four teams in three years to the past two and a half seasons when he established himself on a Lakers team that won championships it was all about the dunks.

Despite those rings, even today Brown is perhaps best known for the “Let Shannon Dunk” campaign that aimed to get him invited to last year’s slam dunk contest.

Now as a member of the Phoenix Suns, Brown has a chance to prove he’s more than just a dunker.

He tried to do that last season, when he started the season hot from behind the arc, but his three-point shooting percentage dropped precipitously every month from October until March before an April uptick as Brown went from shooting the three at a 45.6 and 39.5 percent clip in November and December to 23.1 and 22.2 percent in February and March.

“I just turned into a jump shooter,” Brown said after his first workout with the Suns. “I was stuck on proving to everyone that I wasn’t just a dunker, just an athlete that when my shots were falling I just stuck with it instead of becoming a basketball player, so that’s what I’ve got to do. Nothing happened, I just turned into a jump shooter instead of a basketball player.”

Brown will see plenty of 3-point shots in a Suns offense that traditionally relies on long balls to space the defense, but now he has his opportunity to prove he’s more than an athlete, something that did not come so easily on a Lakers squad with so many established stars.

The fit was ideal on both sides, as Brown was made to run with Steve Nash and is expected to boost the defense with his physical gifts.

“We came to a mutual agreement that I’m thankful they wanted me here and I wanted to come here,” Brown said. “Their style of play fits how I play basketball. I love everything about it and we made it happen.

“It feels good that guys wanted me here and I wanted to be here to be a part of something that’s on the rise. It just feels good.”

In turn, Suns executive Lon Babby complimented Brown for being “willing to bet on himself” by signing just a one-year deal, with the insinuation being Brown feels he will perform well enough to sign a lucrative long-term deal next offseason.

As Brown attempts to take the next step in his career, luck would have it he’s got a fellow former Charlotte Bobcat reserve standing in his way of a starting job.

That would be the Suns’ incumbent starting shooting guard Jared Dudley, who rode the pine with Brown during the 2008-09 season before the Bobcats shipped both players to the Pacific Division.

Dudley said at the end of last season he fully expected to be the Suns’ starting shooting guard so long as they did not bring in an All-Star or an established veteran at the two guard spot that would be an obvious choice to start. With a mere 16 starts under his belt in 256 career games, that Brown is not.

Although JD believes he is the right guy to start, he welcomes the competition from Brown nonetheless.

“For me, first of all I never want anything handed to me,” Dudley said. “You have to work for it, and how I feel is the best person should always play. In the NBA it’s not always like that. If he deserves to start, he should start.”

Three years later both former Bobcats find themselves at similar points of their careers, although Dudley arrives with the security of a five-year deal whereas Brown has just the one season on his contract.

Both players want to prove themselves as legitimate starting NBA shooting guards, rather than just energy guys off the bench who can provide a spark as they both have mainly been throughout their careers.

Dudley in some ways is the anti-Brown, in that he has used his smarts, basketball IQ and a lethal shooting stroke to make up for his athletic shortcomings.  JMZ celebrated making 10 dunks all of last season whereas Brown routinely throws down 10 dunks in a season that could lead SportsCenter’s top plays.

The Suns would have a hell of a two guard if they could combine the strengths of Dudley and Brown, but as things stand they should deploy an effective shooting guard rotation with both players on a mission to establish themselves as starter-caliber players.

And 1

• Brown on playing with Nash: “It’s unbelievable. I played a little five-on-five with him the other day, and the way he was finding me, finding other people it was unbelievable. He was tricking me, he was tricking his teammates, everybody was getting tricked and the ball was going the other way.”
• Brown on what he brings to the Suns: “I think I bring a little bit of defense, a little bit of toughness, just going out there getting physical a little bit, awareness on the court. I do have two championship rings, so I was part of that and hopefully some of that can rub off on the guys.”
• Gentry on Brown: “I think he’s a real athletic guy. Obviously he’s been on a winner and he knows what it takes to win championships. I just think he gives us another good athlete and I think he can become a very good defensive player, which is another think that was attractive to us, and just a good guy, I think he has some toughness that will also help our situation, so we’re excited about having him.”

With the lockout all but over, those poor general managers now have a road map by which to base future decisions.

Now it’s time to make sense of the post-lockout landscape both on a team level and an individual player/executive level, as I do below by analyzing 10 important questions surrounding the Suns in light of the new labor agreement:

1.  Did the Suns benefit from the new rules imposed by the lockout?

The Suns were among the teams hoping for widespread change to the rules of the NBA system. They did not get that, but at least the stiffer luxury tax penalties should dissuade more teams from becoming tax payers or at least from going deep into the tax.

These penalties likely ensure the Suns won’t go more than a few million over the luxury tax ever, if that, but if it ends up reducing the Lakers’ payroll down the road and preventing other teams from spending wildly it could end up leveling the playing field a bit.

The rules also allows non-taxpayers to offer a more lucrative mid-level exception (starting at $5 million over four years with 3 percent raises after the first two years as opposed to a three-year deal starting at $3 million), so a Suns team that stays under the luxury tax would have another added advantage over the tax teams.

However, a hard cap or at least a tax that works as a hard cap, would have been better for Phoenix.

In addition, the shorter extend-and-trade rules won’t affect the Suns at the beginning at least since they don’t have any such player to deal nor the assets to bring home a major extend-and-trade candidate.

2.  How does the deal impact the Suns’ summer of 2012 plans?

Seth Pollack feels the the new CBA throws a wrench in the Suns’ future plans. I’m not so sure.

Yes, it is now even more difficult for the Suns to land one of the Big Three of Dwight, CP3 or D-Will, as Seth explains, but that was very unlikely to happen anyway. They always would have had to take less money to come to the desert and there always were better options for them.

Seth notes that it’s never good to have lots of cap space to spend but no big name player to use it on because teams often are “prone to overspend on lesser players” in such cases as we saw in 2010 with the Suns, but I’m optimistic the Suns will have learned that lesson.

Cap space is always valuable, and there are certainly attractive players beyond the top three, particularly in the restricted free agent realm. With teams potentially fearing the adverse affects of the new luxury tax, talent could be available in trades in return for cap space as well.

To me the plan should always have been to build through the draft and supplement with that cap space, and I don’t see this deal changing that in any significant way.

3.  What will the deal do for the Suns’ free agency plans this year?

It shouldn’t do much. Aside from re-signing Grant Hill and shopping for a wing scorer perhaps, the Suns would be wise to save their money for next year, which seems to be the plan if Hill is their top priority.

They don’t have much cap space this year, so regardless of the rules the Suns weren’t likely to be players in any system.

4. How does the new CBA affect Steve Nash’s situation?

It could make him easier to trade since non-taxpaying teams can now take on “up to the lesser of 150 percent plus $100,000, or 100 percent plus $5 million of the salaries they trade away,” as Larry Coon writes. Before teams over the cap, not the luxury tax, could only take on 125 percent plus $100,000. In theory this will open up some more options and will make it less complicated to match contracts to make a trade work.

The Suns could also theoretically take on more salary in any potential Vince Carter trade if they wanted to pick up a useful asset in return for providing that instant cap relief, although such a move could push them into the tax.

The new extension-and-trade rules aimed at preventing another Carmelo Anthony situation shouldn’t affect Nash much because although players can only sign for two additional years in an extend-and-trade, it’s doubtful a team would want to sign Nash for anything longer than that. After all, he will turn 40 during that second additional year.

5. What was Sarver’s involvement in the lockout?

This is a question I cannot wait to have answered by the Suns’ owner himself.

At Brad Casper’s introductory news conference, Sarver said, “I can say that eventually when it’s over the facts of my role and my involvement will come out, and I look forward to that happening. I’m prohibited from commenting about it, but as you know don’t believe everything you read.”

Sarver was vilified for being among the most hardline of the hardliners and reportedly made the strange comment of saying his “wife had asked him to bring back the middle level exception in a designer bag.”

But in recent weeks we learned that Sarver and Gilbert “have not been as hawkish in the negotiations as they have been portrayed,” courtesy of CBS Sports’ Ken Berger, and then ESPN’s Marc Stein wrote a couple days before the lockout was resolved that Phoenix along with win-now teams like the Lakers, Heat, Magic and Celtics were among the teams pushing hardest for a deal in principle.

That just doesn’t jibe with the image of Sarver that has been drawn throughout the negotiations, as one would think the Suns would be among the last teams pushing for a deal alongside big money teams like that based on Sarver’s prior portrayal.

It will be interesting to find out if the villainous reports were exaggerated or if the Suns’ owner merely experienced a change of heart near the end.

6. How will the Suns use the amnesty clause?

I have already publicized my thoughts on the amnesty clause, and they remain largely the same after we learned that the amnesty clause will remove 100 percent of a salary from a team’s cap (although of course it must still be paid in full) and that the player must currently be on that team’s roster with a contract signed under the prior CBA.

In essence it lets a team wipe out one mistake made before the current rules were put into place, and it can be pocketed for later use as well. This is too bad for teams that have managed their caps well (although I’m glad it can only be used on current players so a big market team can’t buy talent in return for wiping out a small market team’s mistake), but should eventually be put into play by the Suns, who have three potential candidates.

Mickael Pietrus seems like a poor choice unless some compelling immediate benefit can be derived from waiving his $5.3 million expiring contract. Otherwise, he could be traded for an asset to a team needing cap space or just play out this season before providing that cap space to Phoenix.

For me, therefore, it comes down to Hakim Warrick and Josh Childress. Warrick has two years and $8 million of guaranteed money left (and a team option for $4 mil the year after), and Childress four years and $27 million.

It makes sense to keep both guys this season and make the decision next year when every cent of cap space will be at a premium. If Childress proves to be an effective rotation player, then you shave off $4 million of Warrick’s money. If Childress is a bust, then you kiss his final three years and $21 million goodbye. Either way the Suns will be able to reverse one of their 2010 mistakes (if Childress indeed ends up being a mistake), to accrue more cap space for their big summer of 2012.

The other interesting aspect of the amnesty rule that is that any team with salary cap (not luxury tax) space can submit an offer consisting of as much room as they have under the cap for a waived amnesty player. The winning bidder will then take on the player’s contract for the amount bid, and the waiving team will be on the hook for remainder of the contract.

This likely won’t be an option for Phoenix this season, but it definitely will be next offseason. That could be a time the Suns could nab an overpaid but productive player at an affordable price with some of their cap space.

7. Will Lon Babby find any loopholes?

One of the reasons the Suns hired Lon Babby as their president of basketball operations is because he is a long-time lawyer and agent adept at analyzing complicated contracts, which is exactly what this new CBA is.

Babby has now had a year on the job to get his feet wet, and the Suns will expect him to take advantage of some of these new rules to give them some sort of a competitive advantage. We will soon find out if this lawyer can help the Suns see something that the average GM glosses over.

8.  What happens to Aaron Brooks now?

Aaron Brooks could not have worse timing. A week after signing a one-year deal with a Chinese team that includes no escape clause, the league is back in action.

What we know is that Brooks is likely gone until at least March, when the CBA playoffs end.

I’m not quite sure what will happen at that point. For now the Suns have a $5,041,730 cap hold on their cap for Brooks, which is 250 percent of his previous salary, and have extended a $2,976,636 qualifying offer. The Suns could always renounce his rights if they needed the cap space (which they won’t if they indeed are not players).

To me the most logical scenario would be for Brooks to re-sign with the Suns for the rest of the year when he returns to the States and then for the Suns to make any long-term determination on him next summer.

For now Brooks can lament his lost shot at restricted free agency for the time being as he will toil away in China for a few months instead of playing in the NBA.

9. How does Dudley’s extension look in light of the new CBA?

Jared Dudley signed a five-year, $21.25 million extension that could be worth as much as $22.5 mil with incentives at the start of last season, a contract that seemed like a sweetheart deal for the Suns at the time.

But JD was cognizant of the changing labor landscape and the fact that role players like him just weren’t going to get paid like they used to.

If Dudley was going to test the restricted free agency market this offseason instead of awaiting the first year of that extension he could have taken a four-year deal for $20.45 mil from a non-taxpayer or a three-year deal for $9.27 million from a taxpayer (or more if a team felt he deserved better than a mid-level salary).

Dudley may have left a few dollars on the table in terms of average salary, but if he was concerned with long-term security he could not have done any better. With teams likely to be cautious when spending on role players anyway, perhaps Dudley took one look at this potential new labor landscape, considered his happiness in Phoenix and then decided to sign on the bottom line on a deal that looks as fair as ever now.

That’s because the deal looks good from the Suns side as well, assuming Dudley continues to produce at the clip he has the past few years. Locking up players long term is only bad if they underperform, and Dudley should be able to outproduce the $4 million plus he’s owed on a contract that gives the Suns an important piece of their future at less than the average annual (non tax) mid-level price.

10. Would the new max rules have kept Amare in Phoenix?

It certainly won’t help the Suns now, but they would have had a better shot at keeping Amare Stoudemire last summer because the New York Knicks would have only been able to offer him a four-year deal with 4.5 percent raises rather than a five-year deal with eight percent raises as was the case under the old CBA, according to Coon’s breakdown.

The Suns were only comfortable guaranteeing the first three seasons of Stoudemire’s contract, but they could have offered a more lucrative first three years than the Knicks. Perhaps at that point they could have gotten creative with that fourth year and STAT would have been more amenable to it since there wouldn’t have been $100 million sitting on the table in front of him in the Big Apple. That is, assuming he was genuinely interested in returning in the first place.

It won’t help the Suns now with nobody even close to worthy of a max deal, but if the Suns luck into a star in the draft down the road the new rules should make him easier to re-sign than Amare was.

And 1

ESPN’s Chad Ford and John Hollinger broke down how the new CBA affects each and every NBA team. Their analysis of the Suns is below:

How it helps: The amnesty rule will give Lon Babby a chance to undo a disastrous summer that saw owner Robert Sarver throwing away money on free agents like Josh Childress and Hakim Warrick.

How it hurts: The Suns were another team pushing hard for major changes to the CBA. They didn’t get them, and now it looks like there will be a long rebuilding process ahead in Phoenix.

The lockout also cost them Aaron Brooks, who inexplicably signed a deal in China with no NBA out just a week before players and owners reached a tentative agreement.

Immediate impact (this season): No CBA can undo the damage Sarver has done to the team in the past few years. In an attempt to save money, he gutted one of the most exciting teams in the league and is left with a roster of middling, overpaid players and Steve Nash. Nash is leaving sooner or later and the Suns will have to seriously consider moving him now if they want anything back.

Long-term impact (future seasons): Ehhhh. The Suns have Marcin Gortat going forward. But the rest of the team? It’s going to be a frustrating few years for fans.

The game was the creation of Warrick, with the idea being to pit the best players from Philly against the best from Baltimore, where Carmelo grew up. Carmelo’s team also included stars such as LeBron James and Chris Paul.

“I know how passionate the city of Philadelphia is about basketball,” Warrick told the USA Today. “Me and Melo been having the argument, who has the best city for basketball, Baltimore or Philadelphia, since we were in college.”

According to Sports Illustrated, “A sellout crowd of 8,722 packed the corners of the gym on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania — with dozens more lining the doorways and plunking down in the aisles” to watch this star-studded exhibition.

Warrick scored 19 points and grabbed 12 boards for the Philly squad, which also got a team-high 34 from Kyle Lowry and 31 from Lou Williams. LeBron went for 43 and Carmelo 31 for the losing squad.

Philly native and Suns rookie Markieff Morris, originally slated to play, ended up missing out due to a alumni game in Kansas.

Players from both teams wore warmup shirts stating “Basketball never stops,” which is true although games likes this do little to make anyone forget about actual NBA play.

For now, Warrick can relish playing for the best team of the summer circuit, at least in his mind.

“After beating that team, I mean we’ve got to be the champs,” Warrick told The Associated Press. “We’re taking on all challengers, but they’ve got to come through Philly. So whoever’s next, they’ve got to come through us.”

Two Time vs. Hope Solo

Steve Nash takes on US women’s soccer star in FIFA Soccer 12 in another EA Sports promo that goes much like all of Two Time’s EA Sports spots.

Also, I missed this when it was first published, but The Toronto Sun’s Steve Buffery took Nash to task for not playing for Team Canada in Olympic qualifying games this summer, which must be why the Suns’ star recently tweeted that he chose to give up playing for the national team after coming to the Suns to stay healthy.

I’ve got to disagree with Buffery on this one since Nash gave so many good years to Team Canada when he was younger and since playing extra games without the Suns’ training staff at his age sounds like a recipe for disaster for the Suns.

NBA cancels first round of preseason games

As you most surely know by now, the NBA has postponed training camps that were scheduled to open on Oct. 3 and cancelled all preseason games from Oct. 9-15.

For the Suns, that means they will miss a home game against the Clippers and a road game against the Blazers.

“We have regretfully reached the point on the calendar where we are not able to open training camps on time and need to cancel the first week of preseason games,” NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said in a release.  “We will make further decisions as warranted.”

As ESPN’s Marc Stein wrote, we still have another week or so before we must worry about regular season games being missed.

Sports Illustrated misses the Suns’ social consciousness

Sports Illustrated revealed the top 20 things its writers will and won’t miss about the NBA with the lockout still in effect, and the social consciousness of the Suns made the miss list at No. 20.

“With so many athletes and teams content to retreat into their bubbles, the Phoenix Suns take bold, sometimes risky stands, individually and collectively,” Alexander Wolff writes. “… The Suns go far beyond merely adopting the movement of the moment. They’re out front, leading.”

Dudley chats on SportsNation

Suns guard Jared Dudley took some questions from fans on SportsNation last week.

He discusses the lockout, why he won’t play overseas and what the Suns need to do to become a championship contender, among other topics.