Isaiah Thomas' Interview "I want to show them guys they made a mistake."

[The Hammer]

I've said numerous times I'm not sure what Phoenix was thinking. He just doesn't see other guards on his own team as teammates, rather they are competition. I don't see any indication that mentality has changed.

Let him shoot all he wants. The more he shoots, the more dragic fumes. Had the same effect on Rudy and Boogie. I'd rather lose tomorrow if it disrupts PHX in the long term. Playoffs won't be decided tomorrow. Let them be the ones having players only meetings. Good riddance.

Really glad it's not our problem anymore.

They actually will.

If we're on the cusp and we miss, we'll miss by one or two games. This year, every single game should be played as though it is the last game of the season and getting into the playoffs depends on it. That's how we'll get into the playoffs. I think everyone in the organization is on board with that approach. We are clearly going full bore on trying to win, win now, and win every game.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

What a mistake to take the ball away from Dragic, after the season he had. A perfect example of how to ruin chemistry.

I think they shot themselves in the foot and won't be near the team down the stretch, that they were last season

 

[Livinthedream]

I usually root for ex Kings to do well. I don't take player movement personally, so I don't have strong emotions one way or another when they return. But for some reason I'd really like to beat IT. Just to knock him down a peg and show him it's about team. Not his numbers.

 

[Chicken Chaser]

I can't say this represents the feelings of all the Suns' fanbase, but this thread on reddit /r/suns show a lot of support for IT. Interestingly, they are perplexed with "what's up with Dragic/Bledsoe?" and haven't pieced together our conclusion that IT is the culprit. I don't know, I guess we'll see. It'll probably take some video evidence to see just how IT freezes out his backcourt stars, which I hope someone makes sometime down the road.

EDIT: Here's the thread

http://www.reddit.com/r/suns/comments/2ldgbs/id_say_isaiah_thomas_is_exceeding_expectations_so/

EDIT 2: A more recent thread after losing to Memphis

http://www.reddit.com/r/suns/comments/2lg0l9/overreaction_thread_what_went_wrong_against_the/

 

[rainmaker]

I can't say this represents the feelings of all the Suns' fanbase, but this thread on reddit /r/suns show a lot of support for IT. Interestingly, they are perplexed with "what's up with Dragic/Bledsoe?" and haven't pieced together our conclusion that IT is the culprit. I don't know, I guess we'll see. It'll probably take some video evidence to see just how IT freezes out his backcourt stars, which I hope someone makes sometime down the road.

EDIT: Here's the thread

http://www.reddit.com/r/suns/comments/2ldgbs/id_say_isaiah_thomas_is_exceeding_expectations_so/

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2...score-phoenix-suns-memphis-grizzlies#comments

Read towards the bottom of that thread if interested. The IT ball dominance and Dragic/Bledsoe being moved off the ball is being discussed. Hornacek btw has noted the lack of ball movement.

 

[KingMilz]

IT's right we didn't get rid of him soon enough

 

[Iced Espresso]

Oh I'm looking forward to this game. I'm hoping they stick Ray on him off the bench, probably our best bet.

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I can't say this represents the feelings of all the Suns' fanbase, but this thread on reddit /r/suns show a lot of support for IT. Interestingly, they are perplexed with "what's up with Dragic/Bledsoe?" and haven't pieced together our conclusion that IT is the culprit. I don't know, I guess we'll see. It'll probably take some video evidence to see just how IT freezes out his backcourt stars, which I hope someone makes sometime down the road.

EDIT: Here's the thread

http://www.reddit.com/r/suns/comments/2ldgbs/id_say_isaiah_thomas_is_exceeding_expectations_so/

EDIT 2: A more recent thread after losing to Memphis

http://www.reddit.com/r/suns/comments/2lg0l9/overreaction_thread_what_went_wrong_against_the/

He doesn't make anyone else better. They'll figure it out soon, as it becomes glaringly obvious

 

[Chubbs]

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2...score-phoenix-suns-memphis-grizzlies#comments

Read towards the bottom of that thread if interested. The IT ball dominance and Dragic/Bledsoe being moved off the ball is being discussed. Hornacek btw has noted the lack of ball movement.

It brings a tear to my eye to see the Sun's struggles with chemistry and IT's ball dominance. Truly, it does.

 

[GQ_Gabriel]

Boogie was right … Thomas does dribble too much. I still love what he brings to the game, but way too many times he made the rest of the team totally superfluous by just driving into traffic. There’s a real loss of team work on offense when he’s out there, and we’re already a team that doesn’t pass enough.

by BenchSplinters on Nov 5, 2014 | 10:12 PM

Brightsideofthesun, Phoenix Forum.

 

[JLoss22]

"I try to do what is best for the team," Dragic said after the Memphis loss that dropped the Suns to 3-2 on the season. "If they need me to stand in the corner and try to space, I'm gonna do that.

"I'm still looking for my spot," Dragic said after putting up two points against Memphis. "It's tough but at the same time I try to do what is good for the team. It's different for me this year but hopefully we are going to find that quick."

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2...ns-point-guard-rotation-bledsoe-dragic-thomas

 

[GQ_Gabriel]

There is a time for Bledsoe and Thomas to put their heads down and charge the basket, but if that’s all they do (especially like Thomas has been doing) the rest of the team becomes ineffective. The last few minutes of the Grizzlies game, where that’s ALL Thomas did, was really really ugly.

I’ll say it again … Boogie was right.

somewhere in Sacramento
Demarcus Cousins is laughing his ass off saying I told you so

BrightSideofTheSun.com

 

[Chubbs]

"When we move the ball, we're pretty good. When we don't, we're not." - Jeff Hornacek #SunsVsGrizzlies

 

[King Baller]

BEAT THE SUNS!!!!!!!

 

[Iced Espresso]

"When we move the ball, we're pretty good. When we don't, we're not." - Jeff Hornacek #SunsVsGrizzlies

That was the strength of the Suns last year too.

 

[King Baller]

OWN THE PAINT!!!!!!!!

 

[King Baller]

NO LAYUPS!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Gilles]

Right now Pho is dealing with the issue if IT's ball dominance and as of now, Dragic can't get going and Bledsoe has been hot/cold. Dragic has been moved off the ball while IT is on the floor, negating his impact almost completely. Some of their fans are rightly concerned. Same issue we had here in that he's so ball dominant it prevents others from getting into a rhythm. When IT is hot, it could work and they'll win some games. But when he isn't, he's still controlling the ball and taking Dragic/Bledsoe out of the game to an extent. Then there's the defensive issue where Dragic/Bledsoe is a clearly superior defensive backcourt than any lineup featuring IT.

Oh well, not our problem anymore.

Whether we win on Fri or not IMO has little to do with IT. If we keep our defensive intensity and move the ball, play through Rudy and Cuz, Pho can't stop us. They can't handle us inside. And with Collison running the point for us, I'm far more confident we'll stick to our game plan than I've been in years. I don't think anyone has used this term to describe our team in years but we have some veteran savvy out there now.

I'm interested to see Ben vs Bledsoe btw. Ben's quote after the game last night, basically "my goal is to be one of the top defensive SG's in the league" is promising to see from a mental standpoint. If he's going into games with the mindset to prove himself defensively and attempting to make a point with his defense every night, that gets me excited. I'm a defensive guy and that mentality fires me up, especially when I can see tangible improvement from Ben on that end.

Also, I'd put Ray on IT when DC isn't out there. Ray knows IT's game far better than Sessions does obviously.

Small sample size and everythig, but here's Suns' coexisting breakdown from a guy on RealGM:

gaspar wrote:Small sample size alert!

Markieff/Len - 117.0 OffRtg, 91.9 DefRtg, 26.1 NetRtg in 51 minutes
Markieff/Plumlee - 103.3 OffRtg, 112.9 DefRtg, -9.6 NetRtg in 78 minutes

Bledsoe/Dragic - 103.8 OffRtg, 102.5 DefRtg, 1.3 NetRtg in 114 minutes
Bledsoe/Thomas - 111.9 OffRtg, 108.7 DefRtg, 3.2 NetRtg in 51 minutes
Bledsoe/Green - 110.0 OffRtg, 101.3 DefRg, 8.7 NetRtg in 38 minutes

Dragic/Thomas - 108.6 OffRtg, 114.3 DefRtg, -5.7 NetRtg in 49 minutes
Dragic/Green - 105.2 OffRtg, 99.1 DefRtg, 6.1 NetRtg in 39 minutes

Thomas/Green - 108.0 OffRtg, 104.4 DefRtg, 3.5 NetRtg in 86 minutes

Thomas/Dragic/Bledsoe - 116.9 OffRtg, 122.7 DefRtg, -5.8 NetRtg in 14 minutes

There's two games vs Lakers in there skewing results, but I obviously don't know, which way. I guess for now, we should welcome seeing Markieff/Plumlee, Dragic/Thomas and Thomas/Dragic/Bledsoe together on the floor tomorrow.

 

[twslam07]

Small sample size and everythig, but here's Suns' coexisting breakdown from a guy on RealGM:


There's two games vs Lakers in there skewing results, but I obviously don't know, which way. I guess for now, we should welcome seeing Markieff/Plumlee, Dragic/Thomas and Thomas/Dragic/Bledsoe together on the floor tomorrow.

Very interesting to see that Green is the common denominator for the highest rating in all three pairings...

 

[ockingsfan]

IT would never had accepted the Sixth Man role with the Kings that he has in Phoenix now.

Ideally, most people would have loved to have IT be the sixth man on the Kings and score in bunches here.

But, even if the Kings matched his contract, which they could have, I think he would have pouted his way out of Sacramento eventually and poisoned the locker room in the process, if he was given a bench role by the Kings.

IT is very good and I wished the Kings could have kept him, but for team play and buying into the program, I think he is a much better fit in Phoenix with their run and gun style.

I think Malone is trying to emulate the San Antonio Spurs style of play and for good reason and IT doesn't fit that style.

Phoenix is the perfect fit for IT and I wish him good luck there, except when he is playing the Kings.

 

[randymoss1881]

Why would we be worried about there small ball. They won't go 3 guard vs is that's idiotic malone just responds with a dc,Ben,Gay,landry lineup and gay has a field day. It's bad enough they don't have an answer for our top 2 dogs. And people say IT will go at is Boogie will show him to and at least we got ray/darren to guard IT suns answer for Boogie is Len/Plumlee.
Boogie will get 30-10 again and Gay will be above 25.

 

[Kingster]

This should be a fun game, not just because of the Isaiah Thomas storyline, but because these teams are so diametrically opposite in their strengths and weaknesses. Phoenix is built around their guards, the Kings on the other hand is built around center and sf. Which team is going to play their game?

 

[IfAt1st]

Really, I think the refs will decide this game.

If they calls fouls against the Kings (and especially DMC) like previous years, they won't be able to overpower the Suns.
If they call (and no-call) like they have so far this year, then the Kings win.

There really is little chance of winning a basketball game against good competition when you are playing 5 on 8 and your best players aren;t on the floor due to foul trouble, and the rest of your players are stopped from playing the right way due to fear of fouling.

That said, it didn't seem to me that IT was too happy, or too looking forward to this meeting.
I think he knows all the pressure is on him.
It's harder for one guy to superhero it up then it is an entire team to play together for a cause.

The situation is stacked against IT.
The only way he wins in this matchup is if he does heroic things, his team backs him up and wants to make a point that he's better with the Suns, AND the Kings don't want to collectively crush him like a bug on the court.

That's 3 occurrences that would have to break his way, all together. Not likely, IMO.

 

[Padrino]

It brings a tear to my eye to see the Sun's struggles with chemistry and IT's ball dominance. Truly, it does.

to be fair to the suns, it's really early in the season, and while i've questioned the merits of a dragic/bledsoe/thomas guard rotation, hornacek's brainy enough to figure out a way to make it work. also, a tough loss to the grizzlies is hardly some kind of indictment of team chemistry; memphis remains undefeated, and they're trotting out the league's nastiest defense out of the gate. i mean, goodness gracious, they're only allowing 86 ppg thus far!!

i don't know that IT is a great fit with the suns, and "only one ball to go around" syndrome may be a serious problem for them as the season wears on, but it's hardly time to invoke a crisis of chemistry, just as it's hardly time to invoke rallying cries about how the kings have turned the corner. i think it will be more appropriate to revisit these conversations next month, when team identities have begun to solidify...

 

[KingMilz]

Why would we be worried about there small ball. They won't go 3 guard vs is that's idiotic malone just responds with a dc,Ben,Gay,landry lineup and gay has a field day. It's bad enough they don't have an answer for our top 2 dogs. And people say IT will go at is Boogie will show him to and at least we got ray/darren to guard IT suns answer for Boogie is Len/Plumlee.
Boogie will get 30-10 again and Gay will be above 25.

Yeah playing small ball when you got post up options like Gay (even Casspi) at the 3 is borderline suicide

 

[HereWeBoogie]

He's either going to torch us or he's going to shoot his own team out of the game. Either way i'll have my popcorn ready


and i'm not sure who exactly is going to stop DeMarcus Cousins on that team

 

[IfAt1st]

And i'm not sure who exactly is going to stop DeMarcus Cousins on that team

The refs.

Only the refs.

 

[HereWeBoogie]

^Very true. But most of his fouls this year so far have been legit and some of them just dumb on his part. I haven't seen as many phantom calls per game on him as in past years. Not yet atleast

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I agree that foul trouble can really hurt us but they're gonna have to get all our bigs in trouble. I don't think just taking out DMC will do it because we're playing team defense and other bigs can step up against Phoenix's poor front line.

 

[VF21]

Why is it so important for him to show us that we made a mistake? why isnt it enough just to get the win?

Because it's all about him. He doesn't know any other way to look at things. He's in a great place doing well but it's not good enough. He was slighted and he's not going to be able to get past it. And that's sad because he's living the dream of a lot of guys who never made it to the NBA.

This isn't something IT is doing consciously, BTW. It's part of his fiber; it's in his DNA. And it's a shame...