What do you mean when he puts his mind to it? He is up towards the top of the league right now.
You won't get any argument from me there. Amare should be a better rebounder for his size. Also, when Amare and Skinner are in there and Amare is matched up against a PF, I see his defense is much better. It's a product of him playing out of position and being an average defender trying to guard guys better suited at the center position.
Amare is a great offensive player, but I'm not so sure that he's in the top three in the league, although he has the ability to do so. The Dallas game is a good illustration of the tale of two Amares. He was non-existent in the first half, and then seemingly flipped a switch and went into beast mode. He had a run towards the beginning of the season (after he missed those games), where he was also routinely beasting teams.
For some one so gifted, he seems to have too many cold streaks, especially for a big man (you expect cold streaks for jump shooters). IMO it's because he doesn't have a great back to the basket game, and realies alot on face up drives and jumpers. He's a four (five to D'Antoni) that plays like a two. He's got the footwork and touch to be a great post player, but whether it's the coaching staff, motivation, whatever, he isn't getting it done in that area.
You're probably right in that a lot of it has to do with the coaching staff. He should be working on a jump hook rather than the three point shot.
SteelDog said:
Amare gets attacked because he often is the only big man out there. You foul Amare out and the Suns get into even more trouble in the middle. Even if Amare was a great defender, that strategy would still be the same if Amare was considered good or not.
It just gets a little easier when you have a PF playing out of position. D'Antoni has seen to that.
Agreed that the strategy would be the same, but the execution would be different. Most teams in the league try to attack down low if they have the personell, but it's way worse with Phoenix because Amare isn't a good defender.
SteelDog said:
Playing center is more then just size. It also about natural position. How many times have we seen in the NBA guys that fit the size of a given position but don't flourish until they do something else? You can't just look at how big, short, heavy etc.. a guy looks and say well he should play position X. If that was the case then Charles Barkley never would have played Power Forward in this league (before he got heavy
).
I was just pointing out that Amare is physically able to play as a center, his skill set (poor defense/rebounding, no back to the basket game, decent midrange game), does point more towards him being a forward. Kind of like how Ben Wallace is physically a four, but is skill set dictates that he play the five.
Since I doubt that Mike is going to move him to the four, maybe I should get Amare a gift card to Krispy Kreme
.
SteelDog said:
No actually it's D'Antoni's fault. Now he is starting to realize it with the announced line-up change. A Coaches job is to put his player in the best situation to succeed. Since small ball has never been successful in this league...I would say that rests squarely on the shoulder of D'Antoni.
Now if Amare plays the rest of this season at PF and gets worked by every power forward in the league then you have a point. Until then, you can't even judge Amare from that stand point.
It's both of their fault. There's a reason we always have Steve play against Bowen, because he isn't a very good defender. It's partially the players fault because he doesn't play good defense, and then it would be the coaches responsibility to adjust for that. We're stuck with a situation where it's the players fault for not playing good defense, and the coaches fault for not adjusting. That's why we're getting dumped on by most big men this season.
On a related note, do you actually think that Mike's going to make serious adjustments? He's said this a couple times about limiting guys minutes and playing the bench, but I'm sure after one game where we fail to score enough and Brian doesn't play well, he'll be back to fifteen minutes a game.
SteelDog said:
Too much Raja Bashing but not too much Amare bashing?????
I don't think he is playing good defense nor has he this season yet. I would be fine with Raja not hitting his 3's if he wasn't getting worked on "D" so much this season.
I never said that I didn't play favorites
.
But seriously, I think that most fans are harder on the star players, and take it easy on role players, especially when the role players are busting their hump every night. Stars get all the praise and they draw all the criticism, it's just the nature of the game.
SteelDog said:
Pure crap it's just Amare. D'Antoni shouldn't get a pass here.
It's not just one guys fault. It's both.
SteelDog said:
You won't get any arguments from me about Marion. He to me is much more the reason we have survived many of these games with his rebounding and defense. He to me is much more valuable then Raja Bell. We can find another Raja but I don't think we will find another Marion.
So if we do trade him, it has to be for more then just one player. Your going to need a combo of guys to do what he does for us on any given night.
The suns are in a tough spot. We can't afford to trade rebounding and defense for a shooter. However, unless Raja and Barbosa get more consistent we need another shooter.
That's why I worry about trading Marion, especially for a guy with no defense like Mike Miller. I was better with AK47, because he's one of the few guys in the league that can do what Marion does, in that he has a complete game. Ron Artest is another guy who I think that we can get who would help to offset parts of Marion's game (he's a worse rebounder, but much better defensively, and that's saying something).
The guy who I think we should be looking into moving the most is Barbosa. He doesn't bring anything to the table that we can't live without, and he actually has a lot of value due to his contract and his starting numbers.
