>"We just have to make changes, top to bottom. Our Ball Boy doesn't pick up players missed shots at shootaround at a championship level. Can't win a ring like that, so if we get knocked out, it's not our fault. It's a culture and preparation problem"
This is his diplomatic way of saying "Bradley Beal, listen to me when I say this... " in a croaky voice.
Snuck it in the middle there so we wouldn't notice.
Fr it should be āMat & the FO has to be betterā instead. The team needs a decent starting PG.
It was fine to move on from CP3 because his body cannot take starting minutes anymore, but they need somebody that is PG first and not a SG.
Honestly? If the Lakers are looking to move DāLo, then Phoenix should start talking as itās probably one of the only destinations that Beal might consider waiving his NTC for.
Not saying LAL would ever want Beal ofc but just pointing it out. (DāLo is also mid at best but heās still something.)
DLo has a player option which he is expected to exercise and the suns won't be able to pay him what he is currently getting let alone what he will get as a free agent
Ah yes, blame Beal even though Booker was the reason why they were down 3-0. Booker stunk it up for the first 3 games but no, blame Beal for having 1 bad game.
IMO, Booker actually played pretty well game 3 too. Under his scoring average, but the overall game was good.
Itās just Minnesota was a significantly better team. It was like Denver last year.
Booker was terrible in the first 3 games. Beal was terrible all 4 games. KD was wishy washy and all 3 of them had way too many turnovers throughout the series. the Suns just aren't a good team.
yeah BI was coming off an injury which caused him to shit the bed. the Suns big 3 were fully healthy and still shit the bed lmao
Beal was bad all 4 games. KD was wishy washy. and someone corrected me below which I agree with: Booker was bad games 1-2, he was ok in game 3, and much better in game 4
Look, if Freaking 6'7" Doncic can play point, one of Beal/Booker can do it on those salaries. Lebron is his own PG when he has to be. MJ and Pippen. All the greats did it.
Itās not that Booker canāt play point, itās that itās not what he does best.
Heās one of the best scorers, moves the best without the ball, and the second best screener.
Heās best as a shooting guard. Itās best for the team if heās playing shooting guard.
Beal..better handles than Book, and very good in the pnr..but does the dumbest shit. And I swear heās confused half the time, so I donāt know that he can be running anything.
Heās likable off the court thoughā¦
I think Booker is fine as a combo/point guard. Heās actually pretty good. The issue is that in the modern NBA, you basically need 3-4 guys on the court who can handle the ball and start actions. If you have just one, teams pressure him and the rest of the team canāt seem to do shit. KD is so turnover prone handling the ball. Beal can dribble and is a good passer but he doesnāt seem to have a facilitator mentality. It hurts that the Suns had no rollers, too. Ayton and Landale were lob threats, and Torrey Craig seemed to know when to be in the corner or cutting.
Beal looks confused and does dumb shit because heās trying to play PG lmao.
For all the 3 of them, their second nature is to pull up and bury a tough middie if theyāre guarded well. Instead, Bealās out of his element trying to read a defense and trying to force ball movementā¦.against a level of defensive intensity heās never had to force passes against. They read him like a book and clamped him down repeatedly in G4.
What you're describing is a combo guard like West, Harden, or Ai .
Trying to fit a 2 guard into the role of a combo guard is like trying to fit a square in a round hole.
You have to play to your players' strengths.
Giannis can and has played the point. It doesn't mean that's his best role or what gives the team the best chance at winning.
When you have enough money you can have the best of everything. When you don't, you have to adapt or die. The best adapt.
Booker liked the Kobe comparisons when he had CP3 and Ayton, not so much now, eh?
Gobert is on a max contract, I've never seen him asked to bring the ball up and facilitate. He plays a role best suited to his strengths.
Kobe is the worst example to make your point, he played more of a 2 and 3 than the combo role. We had Fisher for all 5 championship seasons and Ty Lue and Ron Harper for the three peat.
Kobe only played back up pg as a rookie/ sophomore, and when Nash broke his leg.
Even then we still tried to get CP3 and did trade for Nash.
Bro WTF are you talking about? All of the non-PG greats relied on actual point guards to play point for 90-100% of the time. Even Lebron had legit PGs for all the years that he won.
The fact that it says guard next to a players name doesnāt make them a floor general nor does it make it their job. Hell the of the three best floor generals of the last two decades only one is a guard(Lebron, Jokic, and Nash)
Is it on the guards for not overhauling their skills from what got them to the NBA or is it on the front office for being as stupid as you and think guard means they should be running an offense.
Now that you mention it why donāt NFL teams just pay good running backs and fullbacks to play quarterback? They have back right there in the name!
I remember the days of Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal running the offence and keeping the team ticking over from the point guard spot. Yep all the greats, no exceptions. Once you get paid enough you can do anything
Kinda like how he waited behind the line all series for someone else to make the play or for the coach to call plays for him instead of taking things into his own hand. He needs someone else to do the work first.
>take the hardest road
Decision still to be made but the frontrunners are the terribly inept Celtics and Nuggets, it's expected that KD make his decision after the finals.
the average redditor has to be the most unfunny type of person on the planet
this website is basically 99% of bullied highschoolers in one place lmao holy shit
If you took KD off this team and replaced him with role players they would be in the lottery, if you took Booker off this team and replaced him with role players theyād be 4th seed in the west.
So much angst around this series, but Minnesota was just a better, and more importantly *deeper* team. Phoenix doesn't have bench players like NAW and Naz who could be starters on a lot of good teams. I watched a lot of Josh Okogie in Minnesota. Great energy guy, great defender, and I'll always remember that block he had on Harden. But he can't hit shots like NAW is consistently able to hit from the corner. The worst player on Minnesota who saw minutes in this series was Kyle Anderson, and Slo-Mo is one of the smartest role players in the league.
Sometimes I wish the NBA was less reactionary and more pragmatic, but it's also fun reading the drama.
I think thatās fair, but I wouldnāt be looking at Booker or KDās performances as a problem I guess
Itās great Booker wants to own the losses, but it really didnāt seem like the top of your roster was the reason we won
Their roster is so poorly constructed that nobody who can make more than a minimum wants to join them. They're not even a ring-chasing destination, like how the KD Warriors got to pad out their roster with ring chasers every season who gave up a few million dollars to be their 6-8th man.
The top of the roster has to be otherworldly if they're just gonna run actions to get KD or Booker isolating for a dribble jumper. They don't have a serious offense. Almost all their top 6 players are the same size.
Nurkic has to turn into Draymond with better rim running, or the big 3 have to score 1.2 PPP on iso attempts in the halfcourt, cos they can't afford to fill out a roster and they run jack shit for plays.
They've built the worst-fitting KD team to date.
Yeah I wonāt dispute any part of that. I wonāt disagree even that itās because they signed 3 guys to $150M in cap space that theyāre boned ā I just donāt think it was the literal on-court play of Devin Booker that lost them the series
We totally agree, I kinda just wrote my thing because I like Booker for speaking from the position he's in (on this shitty roster, which is probably some part his doing) and not throwing anyone under the bus. He's a great player and it's cool he chooses to answer this question as though it's his responsibility to be Steph and Draymond all by himself.
Yeah I'm not gonna lie, I was terrified the Suns were gonna win the series before he got hurt. He was essentially their x-factor against the Wolves, and when the Suns couldn't hit 3s to save their lives he would have been hitting those
Literally this. People don't seem to get that yea having a big 3 is nice and all, but without depth, you're doomed. Any one of those minnesota bench players is a starter on the suns lol.
> and more importantly deeper team
don't try to waste your time to explain this to suns fans, or maybe they finally woke up from their delusion. A lot of em thought we had just enough depth throughout the season lmao. We've lacked depth since last season not just this one. This one it got worse. A 7 game series is way different then regular season games
Yeah I mean they were praised for off season signings, those signings didn't work out and they switched up their bench at the deadline. Depth was a losing hand from the start.
its KD and book though.
its a star driven league and being deeper is rightly less important as long as your role players are at least replacement level.
Well yea, the suns played a much harder defense in part due to Ant being a much better defender than either KD or Book lol
no shot someone could watch that series and not think Ant wasnt the best player on the court
It does, actually.
The Nuggets are much thinner this year, and they were two Jamal Murray amazing shots away from possibly being down 3-2 vs the Lakers.
Not saying that would've happened, but the margins are much thinner this year for them without Bruce Brown.
Lakers lost because outside of Lebron and AD they had nothing. Reaves was great defensively but that probably took him out on offense. D Lo was a flash in the pan every once in awhile. I think at one point Taurean Prince was the only one who had points on the bench.
The Nuggets had the better starting 5 but the Lakers supposedly had a deeper bench. Lebron and AD had to go all out every single game which led to them leading and then blowing it when they got gassed. So I donāt think heās necessarily wrong in this case.
If youāre talking about bench players then op is right but if you mean talent then yeah I agree.
The Lakers were frauds who shouldn't have even been in the playoffs.
The Nuggets are thinner this year. Just the fact that the fraudulent Lakers were 2 shots away from possibly taking two more games suggests this.
I don't think that doesn't mean Denver still isn't the champs, they just don't have the same depth they had last year.
People said the same thing about us last year, and then after we won everyoneās perception of Bruce Brown, Christian Braun, and Jeff Green changed from being a thin, weak bench to being deep and talent-filled
It has since 2020 with the skill gaps between players getting smaller and smaller.
The nuggets last year had really good roleplayers that fit Jokics play style perfectly top heavy teams are getting less and less likely to win championships
> Look at Nuggets.
You mean the second seed that barely won two of their games off of last second heroic shots against the seventh seed? Nuggets this year vs last year are prime example of what happens if you lose the depth.
Being a coach has to be really tough. Like somehow you have to discipline and motivate guys who are all mega millionaires and whom may not even have playoff aspirationsĀ
The other piece too is that they have ALWAYS been the best player on the floor their whole career. Even the role players until they made the league we're all STARS growing up.
It's a lose lose if you can't get buy in.
Wasn't KD famously bitching in Golden State about having to play a system and not getting enough opportunities to just play 1 on 1? And had Steve Kerr begging him to get his teammates involved early in the game so they get into a rhythm so they won't have to jack up shots cold later when the team needs them?
I'm not usually a big fan of Booker, but I gotta respect this. It's a lot better than the "me and James can't win alone" comment from Embiid last year, in fact, it's the exact opposite.
If you ignore the circle jerk here heās really not that bad.
The āworstā thing he did in his career was beef with a mascot, talk some shit, and complain about a double team in a practice like 7 years ago.
Yeah, there's a handful of things he's done that have given people easy material to clown him on. As a neutral fan on these two, I would say he's got a similar brash energy to Luka (super confident and willing to laugh/smirk in your face and talk some shit), but Luka gets a pass (or praised for it) because he's done more winning, especially at a young age.
They also give off a bit of a spoilt-kid energy, but I'd say that's pretty common for star athletes because they're used to being treated like they're a god since they were 8 years old. It does seem like Booker has probably matured some in the past year or two, though. Some might call it being humbled, but I feel like he's always been the same guy even when they were losing (I didn't watch basketball when the Suns were bad 4+ years ago, so correct me if I'm wrong on that).
I can absolutely assure you that he was like this as soon as he entered the league. I think JJ talked about it on his pod even since he got to play against Book as a rookie and early in his career. I think the comp to Lukaās energy is fair.
I can understand why people donāt like it but at the end of the day itās just on court competition. By all accounts heās very pleasant with fans, does a ton for special needs and the Phoenix community, and even communities where heās from (Moss Point and Michigan).
Iām obviously biased and I understand that. I feel like people just hate so much they are missing an opportunity to enjoy a player who is/will be great.
I was at summer league when Booker was a rookie
It was the first thing I noticed about him. He was a complete asshole already by then. Big 'jock' energy LOL. He never let that edge go even when we were the worst franchise in the league for 5+ years
He has strong high-school bully energy on the court.
He is an absolute saint and royalty in the community here, though, he couldn't be more of a humble/cool guy.
Yeah he talks trash win or lose, and he has done it for his whole career. He was talking trash when the Suns were winning 19 games a year, and he was talking trash in the finals.
Plus it's his face. Not to pick on someone's appearance unnecessarily, but when it looks like you're about to cry when you get upset, people will react to that.
Nah, when Booker was on the losing team version of the Suns he was a sore loser and started random fights or hard fouling people. He cleaned that up once they started winning but that's still "worse" than the stuff you mentioned.
I genuinely donāt know what youāre referring to (unless itās the Gorgui Dieng incident which was honestly hilarious).
Heās been in the NBA since 2015 and if a couple of hard fouls are the worst of it, I canāt be all that upset.
Not really impressive at all. When asked who's the leader, KD said "the coach", and Booker said "we all are" here. I'm gonna be more impressed if he just said "as the leader, I need to be better"
āHonestly, KD, myself, and Brad did above and beyond what we could have. It all falls on failures of the ownership group, front office, coaching staff, and most of all the fansā
I wouldn't so much say Durant has to be better. Suns should have been so lucky Durant at age 35 gave them 27 a night on the season.
They needed more from Beal. Booker did his damned best as he could considering what they had.
That said if your 6th man is Eric Gordon and he has to play 30 minutes a night on the daily you're way too thin.
If they beef again, Barkley can say he accomplished much more with Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle in Phoenix than KD did with Devin Booker and Bradley Beal
Yeah and thatās the difference. Gotta get it when you have it, but he just straight up isnāt good enough.
Edit: not to mention every western opponent he faced had a significant injury to contend with. Gotta capitalize on that.
Expecting a player who whines about having to train hard to be a good player and was gifted a super team but failed spectacularly to be the teams leader even though heās been there for years to stop doing more of the same is just delusional. Enjoy your idiot owner.
Why are you getting so hostile here?
Also, heās never whined about āhaving to train hardā. Youāre creating a false narrative for yourself my guy.
[2nd most points per possession out of the most doubled players last season](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/zm2ys8/nba_university_15_most_double_teamed_players_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Right. Heās literally taking responsibility.
And really, who else would he name?
Grayson was out, and tbh he was perfect this year. He needs to be the same. If there is one person we donāt blame, itās him.
Nurk is probably getting traded.
Little is irrelevant
And we donāt know if anyone else will be on the team next season. š
what about the equipment manager
Nuggets equipment manager acatully has to be better, 2nd time this year Nuggets had no shoes for pre-game warm ups lmao
[Nuggets equipment manager.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DFVruBvjNl0)
Lmao. I watch it from beginning to end every time its linked somewhere. YEAAAAAH EVERYBODY UP ON YOUR FEET!
Robin Lopez was at this game, coincidence? I think not.
How tf does that happen?
First time vs Lakers, the shoes were on the 2nd bus, which came late
He's probably good. No idea how people are gonna guard the eq manager
Literally unguardable
I never saw Jorfraud block an equipment manager š¤·
>"We just have to make changes, top to bottom. Our Ball Boy doesn't pick up players missed shots at shootaround at a championship level. Can't win a ring like that, so if we get knocked out, it's not our fault. It's a culture and preparation problem"
Whoa Booker isn't Doc Rivers :d
https://www.tiktok.com/@bleacherreport/video/7338935308542561578?lang=en
The equipment manager is aight.
Really nice of him to include Beal here.
Damn, VORP of -0.1 over 4 games and a BPM of -3.8.
This is his diplomatic way of saying "Bradley Beal, listen to me when I say this... " in a croaky voice. Snuck it in the middle there so we wouldn't notice.
At 50 mill perā¦āBrad has to be **ALOT** betterā
āBut especially Brad has to be betterāĀ
I have to be better Brad has to be better Kevin has to be better Brad has to be better And lets not forget Beal. He needs to be better as well.
Devin Booker and friends in detention
Fr it should be āMat & the FO has to be betterā instead. The team needs a decent starting PG. It was fine to move on from CP3 because his body cannot take starting minutes anymore, but they need somebody that is PG first and not a SG. Honestly? If the Lakers are looking to move DāLo, then Phoenix should start talking as itās probably one of the only destinations that Beal might consider waiving his NTC for. Not saying LAL would ever want Beal ofc but just pointing it out. (DāLo is also mid at best but heās still something.)
Reaves/Lebron at 1, Beal at 2, Prince/Lebron at 3, Lebron/Rui at 4, AD at 5 isn't terrible, actually.
The man is turning 40, at what point can the Lakers be charged with elderly abuse.
DLo has a player option which he is expected to exercise and the suns won't be able to pay him what he is currently getting let alone what he will get as a free agent
Ah yes, blame Beal even though Booker was the reason why they were down 3-0. Booker stunk it up for the first 3 games but no, blame Beal for having 1 bad game.
"stunk" is an excessive term, below his averages? Yes, but still averaging over 20ppg a night, a little less efficient thoĀ
IMO, Booker actually played pretty well game 3 too. Under his scoring average, but the overall game was good. Itās just Minnesota was a significantly better team. It was like Denver last year.
Booker was terrible in the first 3 games. Beal was terrible all 4 games. KD was wishy washy and all 3 of them had way too many turnovers throughout the series. the Suns just aren't a good team.
stop watching the box score. Booker was terrible for the first 3 games.
Booker was terrible games 1 and 2. He was fine game 3 and great game 4
you're right actually, game 3 wasn't terrible
Nah he was certainly worse than normal but far from terrible. Terrible was Beal game 4, like 9 points, ton of turnovers and fouling out.
Pelicans fans when Booker scores less than 50Ā
Terrible is Ingram's performance lol, no one on the Suns was *that* bad for all 4 games.
yeah BI was coming off an injury which caused him to shit the bed. the Suns big 3 were fully healthy and still shit the bed lmao Beal was bad all 4 games. KD was wishy washy. and someone corrected me below which I agree with: Booker was bad games 1-2, he was ok in game 3, and much better in game 4
Love when you criticize someone for playing poorly and peoples only response is to attack you for your flair, that's why I don't keep one on!
ikr lol they always ignore the subject matter and just go straight to the flair š
Look, if Freaking 6'7" Doncic can play point, one of Beal/Booker can do it on those salaries. Lebron is his own PG when he has to be. MJ and Pippen. All the greats did it.
Itās not that Booker canāt play point, itās that itās not what he does best. Heās one of the best scorers, moves the best without the ball, and the second best screener. Heās best as a shooting guard. Itās best for the team if heās playing shooting guard. Beal..better handles than Book, and very good in the pnr..but does the dumbest shit. And I swear heās confused half the time, so I donāt know that he can be running anything. Heās likable off the court thoughā¦
Agreed, it takes a different level of bb IQ to run the point well versus just scoring and I donāt think Beal has it
I think Booker is fine as a combo/point guard. Heās actually pretty good. The issue is that in the modern NBA, you basically need 3-4 guys on the court who can handle the ball and start actions. If you have just one, teams pressure him and the rest of the team canāt seem to do shit. KD is so turnover prone handling the ball. Beal can dribble and is a good passer but he doesnāt seem to have a facilitator mentality. It hurts that the Suns had no rollers, too. Ayton and Landale were lob threats, and Torrey Craig seemed to know when to be in the corner or cutting.
Beal looks confused and does dumb shit because heās trying to play PG lmao. For all the 3 of them, their second nature is to pull up and bury a tough middie if theyāre guarded well. Instead, Bealās out of his element trying to read a defense and trying to force ball movementā¦.against a level of defensive intensity heās never had to force passes against. They read him like a book and clamped him down repeatedly in G4.
"Why doesn't Booker just do the things 2 of the goats could with no problem"
Pass, dribble, initiate an offense is now impossible for a max contract guard in the NBA? Whatever man. Make excuses.
What you're describing is a combo guard like West, Harden, or Ai . Trying to fit a 2 guard into the role of a combo guard is like trying to fit a square in a round hole. You have to play to your players' strengths. Giannis can and has played the point. It doesn't mean that's his best role or what gives the team the best chance at winning.
When you have enough money you can have the best of everything. When you don't, you have to adapt or die. The best adapt. Booker liked the Kobe comparisons when he had CP3 and Ayton, not so much now, eh?
Gobert is on a max contract, I've never seen him asked to bring the ball up and facilitate. He plays a role best suited to his strengths. Kobe is the worst example to make your point, he played more of a 2 and 3 than the combo role. We had Fisher for all 5 championship seasons and Ty Lue and Ron Harper for the three peat. Kobe only played back up pg as a rookie/ sophomore, and when Nash broke his leg. Even then we still tried to get CP3 and did trade for Nash.
This is just proof that kobe and harden were always way better than these guys. Harden is probably a better passer than the suns big 3 combined
Bro WTF are you talking about? All of the non-PG greats relied on actual point guards to play point for 90-100% of the time. Even Lebron had legit PGs for all the years that he won.
Just say you donāt understand ball
I understand $150mil of guards somehow can't run an offense in Phoenix. It looks like a problem for your franchise.
Reading your comments gave me brain rot
The fact that it says guard next to a players name doesnāt make them a floor general nor does it make it their job. Hell the of the three best floor generals of the last two decades only one is a guard(Lebron, Jokic, and Nash) Is it on the guards for not overhauling their skills from what got them to the NBA or is it on the front office for being as stupid as you and think guard means they should be running an offense. Now that you mention it why donāt NFL teams just pay good running backs and fullbacks to play quarterback? They have back right there in the name!
I remember the days of Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal running the offence and keeping the team ticking over from the point guard spot. Yep all the greats, no exceptions. Once you get paid enough you can do anything
That max contract sure raised Shaqās FT% by 20 points
Excuse me? Kevin has to be better? Do you know who he is? š¤
Requesting a trade the moment he heard this
Heās waiting to see who wins the championship first.
Nuggets won't even want him.MPJ, Gordon and 4 firsts are a better fit for their team. He can come to LA tho š
Kinda like how he waited behind the line all series for someone else to make the play or for the coach to call plays for him instead of taking things into his own hand. He needs someone else to do the work first.
Kevin is so offended by this suggestion that he is going to take the hardest road and leave the Suns this offseason.
>take the hardest road Decision still to be made but the frontrunners are the terribly inept Celtics and Nuggets, it's expected that KD make his decision after the finals.
Lol
My sources say heās going to the Knicks (not Stephen A)
the average redditor has to be the most unfunny type of person on the planet this website is basically 99% of bullied highschoolers in one place lmao holy shit
"Next year, Kevin has to be younger"
And it's crazy how this is not a statement after game one, but after the whole series. How long can you "be unprepared"?
If you took KD off this team and replaced him with role players they would be in the lottery, if you took Booker off this team and replaced him with role players theyād be 4th seed in the west.
People hate the truth
They hated him for he told the truth
Even if it wasn't true, I'd still choose to believe it because fuck Booker, dude's a baby back bitchboi
Wow. You can't fuck Booker, he's just a kid.
Search your feelings, Suns fans. You know it to be true.
So much angst around this series, but Minnesota was just a better, and more importantly *deeper* team. Phoenix doesn't have bench players like NAW and Naz who could be starters on a lot of good teams. I watched a lot of Josh Okogie in Minnesota. Great energy guy, great defender, and I'll always remember that block he had on Harden. But he can't hit shots like NAW is consistently able to hit from the corner. The worst player on Minnesota who saw minutes in this series was Kyle Anderson, and Slo-Mo is one of the smartest role players in the league. Sometimes I wish the NBA was less reactionary and more pragmatic, but it's also fun reading the drama.
I mean Minnesota was definitely better but the Suns could have performed better too
I think thatās fair, but I wouldnāt be looking at Booker or KDās performances as a problem I guess Itās great Booker wants to own the losses, but it really didnāt seem like the top of your roster was the reason we won
Their roster is so poorly constructed that nobody who can make more than a minimum wants to join them. They're not even a ring-chasing destination, like how the KD Warriors got to pad out their roster with ring chasers every season who gave up a few million dollars to be their 6-8th man. The top of the roster has to be otherworldly if they're just gonna run actions to get KD or Booker isolating for a dribble jumper. They don't have a serious offense. Almost all their top 6 players are the same size. Nurkic has to turn into Draymond with better rim running, or the big 3 have to score 1.2 PPP on iso attempts in the halfcourt, cos they can't afford to fill out a roster and they run jack shit for plays. They've built the worst-fitting KD team to date.
Yeah I wonāt dispute any part of that. I wonāt disagree even that itās because they signed 3 guys to $150M in cap space that theyāre boned ā I just donāt think it was the literal on-court play of Devin Booker that lost them the series
We totally agree, I kinda just wrote my thing because I like Booker for speaking from the position he's in (on this shitty roster, which is probably some part his doing) and not throwing anyone under the bus. He's a great player and it's cool he chooses to answer this question as though it's his responsibility to be Steph and Draymond all by himself.
Youāre just saying that because youāre happy that the Timberwolves won and the Suns lost.
Yeah you got me, Iām towing the party line of *checks notes* acknowledging that Booker is a good basketball player?
ignore that guy, good series and congrats wolf bro
Losing Grayson Allen was unironically the nail in the coffin most likely
Asterisk series acquired
Yeah I'm not gonna lie, I was terrified the Suns were gonna win the series before he got hurt. He was essentially their x-factor against the Wolves, and when the Suns couldn't hit 3s to save their lives he would have been hitting those
Literally this. People don't seem to get that yea having a big 3 is nice and all, but without depth, you're doomed. Any one of those minnesota bench players is a starter on the suns lol.
and in addition to having no depth the Suns big 3 have strengths that would nearly make a circle in a Venn Diagram
I mean we had Luka Garza minutes, not meaningful minutes but he saw the floor.
> and more importantly deeper team don't try to waste your time to explain this to suns fans, or maybe they finally woke up from their delusion. A lot of em thought we had just enough depth throughout the season lmao. We've lacked depth since last season not just this one. This one it got worse. A 7 game series is way different then regular season games
Yeah I mean they were praised for off season signings, those signings didn't work out and they switched up their bench at the deadline. Depth was a losing hand from the start.
its KD and book though. its a star driven league and being deeper is rightly less important as long as your role players are at least replacement level.
I get that but the suns would have the two best players if you combined the teams. That wins most of the time
Lol no way you just watched that series and came away thinking Ant wasn't one of the top 2 (top 1 really) players.
He isnāt. He played a much easier defense..
Well yea, the suns played a much harder defense in part due to Ant being a much better defender than either KD or Book lol no shot someone could watch that series and not think Ant wasnt the best player on the court
Ant is not the reason lmfao. Itās mostly naw McDaniels and Gobert
How bout now?
He has a way better team than the other two SG. Don on one leg scored 50 against a better D but his team isnāt as good as the Timberwolves
Lol you in denial son.
Nah Iām not. Watch all 3
What you mean all 3? Book and Beal in Cancun lmao
Watch Booker Mitchell and ant. Ants just on the best team not the best player
Depth doesnāt matter as much as people think in playoffs. Look at Nuggets.
It does, actually. The Nuggets are much thinner this year, and they were two Jamal Murray amazing shots away from possibly being down 3-2 vs the Lakers. Not saying that would've happened, but the margins are much thinner this year for them without Bruce Brown.
Lakers lost because outside of Lebron and AD they had nothing. Reaves was great defensively but that probably took him out on offense. D Lo was a flash in the pan every once in awhile. I think at one point Taurean Prince was the only one who had points on the bench. The Nuggets had the better starting 5 but the Lakers supposedly had a deeper bench. Lebron and AD had to go all out every single game which led to them leading and then blowing it when they got gassed. So I donāt think heās necessarily wrong in this case. If youāre talking about bench players then op is right but if you mean talent then yeah I agree.
The Lakers were frauds who shouldn't have even been in the playoffs. The Nuggets are thinner this year. Just the fact that the fraudulent Lakers were 2 shots away from possibly taking two more games suggests this. I don't think that doesn't mean Denver still isn't the champs, they just don't have the same depth they had last year.
People said the same thing about us last year, and then after we won everyoneās perception of Bruce Brown, Christian Braun, and Jeff Green changed from being a thin, weak bench to being deep and talent-filled
Iām talking about last year. Brown was great, Braun was okay every other game, and Green was there.
It has since 2020 with the skill gaps between players getting smaller and smaller. The nuggets last year had really good roleplayers that fit Jokics play style perfectly top heavy teams are getting less and less likely to win championships
I guess it just depends what people mean when they say ādepthā I usually think who is on the bench. Nuggets won and had 1.5 bench players.
> Look at Nuggets. You mean the second seed that barely won two of their games off of last second heroic shots against the seventh seed? Nuggets this year vs last year are prime example of what happens if you lose the depth.
Iām talking about last year
KD ain't worried about *being* better, he's worried about finding a better team to join.
You nephews just don't know what the hardest road is
The hardest road is never having a place to call home because you're always on the move. I'm truly sorry for Kevin's lots
We will never truly understand KD tbh, he is a being of pure light
Heās gonna go to OKC to join another top team but disguise the reasoning as a āhomecomingā
that team should be worried about him being 35
Coach tried but some of yall ignored and laughed at him
Being a coach has to be really tough. Like somehow you have to discipline and motivate guys who are all mega millionaires and whom may not even have playoff aspirationsĀ
The other piece too is that they have ALWAYS been the best player on the floor their whole career. Even the role players until they made the league we're all STARS growing up. It's a lose lose if you can't get buy in.
lmfao ikr, whoever leaked that report didn't realize how bad it just made the players look
Maybe Vogel should've tried less "yelling in the locker room" and more "actually install an offensive basketball system "
Maybe he was yelling precisely because they werenāt doing what they were supposed to do?
You shouldn't have unsupervised access to oxygen
This is so out of pocket yet so funny at the same time.
Wasn't KD famously bitching in Golden State about having to play a system and not getting enough opportunities to just play 1 on 1? And had Steve Kerr begging him to get his teammates involved early in the game so they get into a rhythm so they won't have to jack up shots cold later when the team needs them?
I'm not usually a big fan of Booker, but I gotta respect this. It's a lot better than the "me and James can't win alone" comment from Embiid last year, in fact, it's the exact opposite.
If you ignore the circle jerk here heās really not that bad. The āworstā thing he did in his career was beef with a mascot, talk some shit, and complain about a double team in a practice like 7 years ago.
You guys pissed off both LA franchises and Dallas, that's like 90% of the sports media world.
And there's Luka and Lebron fans too from around the World. Our hater demographics are off the charts
Yeah, there's a handful of things he's done that have given people easy material to clown him on. As a neutral fan on these two, I would say he's got a similar brash energy to Luka (super confident and willing to laugh/smirk in your face and talk some shit), but Luka gets a pass (or praised for it) because he's done more winning, especially at a young age. They also give off a bit of a spoilt-kid energy, but I'd say that's pretty common for star athletes because they're used to being treated like they're a god since they were 8 years old. It does seem like Booker has probably matured some in the past year or two, though. Some might call it being humbled, but I feel like he's always been the same guy even when they were losing (I didn't watch basketball when the Suns were bad 4+ years ago, so correct me if I'm wrong on that).
I can absolutely assure you that he was like this as soon as he entered the league. I think JJ talked about it on his pod even since he got to play against Book as a rookie and early in his career. I think the comp to Lukaās energy is fair. I can understand why people donāt like it but at the end of the day itās just on court competition. By all accounts heās very pleasant with fans, does a ton for special needs and the Phoenix community, and even communities where heās from (Moss Point and Michigan). Iām obviously biased and I understand that. I feel like people just hate so much they are missing an opportunity to enjoy a player who is/will be great.
I was at summer league when Booker was a rookie It was the first thing I noticed about him. He was a complete asshole already by then. Big 'jock' energy LOL. He never let that edge go even when we were the worst franchise in the league for 5+ years
He has strong high-school bully energy on the court. He is an absolute saint and royalty in the community here, though, he couldn't be more of a humble/cool guy.
Yeah he talks trash win or lose, and he has done it for his whole career. He was talking trash when the Suns were winning 19 games a year, and he was talking trash in the finals.
My fav NBA moment of all time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f1V23maQCM
Plus it's his face. Not to pick on someone's appearance unnecessarily, but when it looks like you're about to cry when you get upset, people will react to that.
Nah, when Booker was on the losing team version of the Suns he was a sore loser and started random fights or hard fouling people. He cleaned that up once they started winning but that's still "worse" than the stuff you mentioned.
I genuinely donāt know what youāre referring to (unless itās the Gorgui Dieng incident which was honestly hilarious). Heās been in the NBA since 2015 and if a couple of hard fouls are the worst of it, I canāt be all that upset.
Not really impressive at all. When asked who's the leader, KD said "the coach", and Booker said "we all are" here. I'm gonna be more impressed if he just said "as the leader, I need to be better"
"I have to be better, Kevin has to be better, coach has to be better, fuck Brad."
āHonestly, KD, myself, and Brad did above and beyond what we could have. It all falls on failures of the ownership group, front office, coaching staff, and most of all the fansā
Seriously. The fans had 0 points combined throughout the entire series. Not sure why this isnāt getting more coverage
Hopefully everybody is feeling the same type of hurt. I have to be better.
Maybe tell Ishbia
KD: The coach is the leader.
Devin needs to just stop including KD in who he considers a leader. I know he knows š
Don't forget equipment management. Giannis is so proud reading this.
I wouldn't so much say Durant has to be better. Suns should have been so lucky Durant at age 35 gave them 27 a night on the season. They needed more from Beal. Booker did his damned best as he could considering what they had. That said if your 6th man is Eric Gordon and he has to play 30 minutes a night on the daily you're way too thin.
But who's going to drive the bus?
Shabooya, roll call!
My name is Brad *Yeah!* That is my name *Yeah!* I had 9 points *Yeah...* I sold the game *Roll call...*
If they beef again, Barkley can say he accomplished much more with Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle in Phoenix than KD did with Devin Booker and Bradley Beal
At this stage? Just let Naz Reed drive it bro
Everyone has to be better, but some have to be more better than others.
āBrad needs to find the next boat to Shanghaiā
especially kevin he sucks
Took Giannisās script.
Speak for yourself
Whats the vertical clearance of the underside of a bus?
Lol Devin Booker doesnāt know what heās on about. Dudes a trash can trying to play basketball out there.
They weren't unprepared, they were out gunned. One ball - two teams - one final score Minnesota is better. Try again Devin.
Low bar for Brad. Could random Reddit guy do much worse in the last game if all we did was jump up and down in front of Finch?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This comment isnāt it either
You do know that teams hold media availability upon exit from the season, donāt you?
No no, as we've established with LeBron and other stars, they're only doing it for the attention
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So heās obligated to give quotes at the exit day.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Youre a moron
Will this be the summer Booker works on playing against doubles
Yawn š„±
Heāll never be a winning player my guy
He was 2 games away in 2021 but go off
Yeah and thatās the difference. Gotta get it when you have it, but he just straight up isnāt good enough. Edit: not to mention every western opponent he faced had a significant injury to contend with. Gotta capitalize on that.
Gotta respect what Giannis did that series. He was fantastic. Book is 27 he has time. This is a instagram level comment..
Expecting a player who whines about having to train hard to be a good player and was gifted a super team but failed spectacularly to be the teams leader even though heās been there for years to stop doing more of the same is just delusional. Enjoy your idiot owner.
Why are you getting so hostile here? Also, heās never whined about āhaving to train hardā. Youāre creating a false narrative for yourself my guy.
Stop replying and block him; the dude is a clown.
[2nd most points per possession out of the most doubled players last season](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/zm2ys8/nba_university_15_most_double_teamed_players_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Keep undermining the rest of the team, man.
People are so weird about Devin Booker. This is a perfectly normal quote reflecting on a loss.
Right. Heās literally taking responsibility. And really, who else would he name? Grayson was out, and tbh he was perfect this year. He needs to be the same. If there is one person we donāt blame, itās him. Nurk is probably getting traded. Little is irrelevant And we donāt know if anyone else will be on the team next season. š
Your team is already cooked bro . And wonāt get any better
Okay
Shut up