Suns end up even after busy offseason

Matt Schaeffer

The tip-off to the NBA season is fast approaching.With the preseason underway teams are working on their chemistry as they adjust to playing with new faces and without old ones.

The Phoenix Suns are no exception as they try to mesh with Josh Childress and Hedo Turkoglu and cope with the loss of all-star Amare Stoudemire.

Stoudemire has been a big presence in the middle, but lacked the consistency and leadership of a top paid player.

With other teams willing to pay the high price tag for him, Stoudemire has moved to the abysmal Knicks.

In an effort to compensate for the loss of Stoudemire, the Suns have hired the talents of free agents Turkoglu and Childress.

Turkoglu brings in another scorer to a team that loves to score points in bunches. His biggest downfalls are his shot selection and defense.

There is no shot that he doesn’t like and that can be disastrous.

Nash will to try and keep the poor choices to a minimum, but Turkoglu has been around a while and it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

The acquisition of Childress is an interesting pick-up. His career scoring average is a respectable 11 points per game and he’ll bring some height to the back court when playing shooting guard.

The tricky thing will be seeing how Childress re-acclimates to the NBA game as he has spent the last two seasons playing across seas.

Center Channing Frye exploded last season from behind the arc.

In Frye’s first four years he hit a total of 20 three-pointers.

Last year he sank 172. That’s not a typo. 172.

With this new found range, Frye can help spread the defense out and help open up the paint.

Phoenix’s other big man, Robin Lopez, is poised for a break out year of his own.

Entering his third season, Lopez has seen increasing playtime and production.

The Stanford product also brings a lot of energy to the court and that’s never a bad thing.

Shooting guard Jason Richardson brings a consistent 15 points and five rebounds a game and should continue to bring solid play to the position

The 15 points is below his career average, but that can also be contributed to a career low in attempts.

Like Lopez, Richardson plays with a lot of good energy and can get the crowd going with an array of spectacular dunks.

There has to be concern about veterans Nash and Grant Hill.

Hopefully they can still play at the high level at witch they’ve been playing.

Nash led the NBA in assists per game last year, but the fact still remains that in basketball years these guys are old, and at some point we’re going to see a drop off in production. While it might not be this season, It wouldn’t be surprising if it occurred sooner rather than later.

All in all, the Suns should be somewhere around the same as last year. They will likely make the playoffs and could make it to the second round again.

They are not a title contender, but fans should be happy with another trip to the post season. Any higher expectations will leave them disappointed.

  • Mesa Legend Staff

    These are archived stories from Mesa Legend editions before Fall 2018. See article for corresponding author.

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