The NBA Season is ready to start on Christmas Day, the last couple of preseason games are being played as I write this up, and it's time for me to cater to every serious NBA fans love of season previews! The 2011 Geektastic Preview is going to be way too large for one article, so I'm dividing it up into divisions (and even so, it's going to be long, so get a cup of coffee!). In this article I'm going to preview the Phoenix Suns.
Back to the Pacific Division Previews
Note that this article is using the new formula for calculating Wins Produced. If you don't understand the WP metric, see the FAQ.
Lost: Vince Carter, Aaron Brooks, Zabian Dowdell, Gani Lawal, Jason Richardson
Added: Markieff Morris, Shannon Brown, Ronnie Price, Sebastian Telfair
Outlook: Not good. Steve Nash is still one of those players that keeps a team from being complete bottom dwellers, but the Suns have been trading away or letting go of good players for years, and it's finally catching up to them.
| NAME | GP | MIN | WP48 | PTS | REB | AST | TO | BLK | STL | PF |
| Josh Childress | 54 | 895 | .202 | 14.6 | 8.3 | 2.3 | 1.2 | 1.8 | 2.4 | 3.6 |
| Jared Dudley | 82 | 2136 | .187 | 19.5 | 7.1 | 2.4 | 0.4 | 2.0 | 1.7 | 3.1 |
| Channing Frye | 77 | 2541 | -.007 | 18.4 | 9.7 | 1.8 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 1.4 | 5.1 |
| Marcin Gortat | 55 | 1637 | .174 | 21.0 | 15.0 | 1.6 | 2.1 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 4.0 |
| Grant Hill | 80 | 2408 | .092 | 21.0 | 6.7 | 4.0 | 0.7 | 1.3 | 2.7 | 3.7 |
| Robin Lopez | 67 | 993 | -.031 | 20.9 | 10.4 | 0.4 | 2.2 | 0.9 | 2.3 | 6.9 |
| Steve Nash | 75 | 2497 | .244 | 21.3 | 5.0 | 16.4 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 5.1 | 1.7 |
| Garret Siler | 21 | 103 | -.016 | 21.0 | 13.0 | 1.4 | 1.9 | 0.5 | 4.7 | 9.3 |
| Hakim Warrick | 80 | 1415 | .091 | 22.7 | 10.0 | 2.3 | 0.3 | 1.1 | 2.7 | 3.4 |
| WP48 | PTS | REB | AST | TO | BLK | STL | PF | |
| Price | -.035 | 19.4 | 4.3 | 6.7 | 3.2 | 0.1 | 1.7 | 3.7 |
| Brown | .025 | 21.8 | 4.8 | 2.9 | 2.3 | 0.5 | 2.1 | 3.8 |
| Telfair | -.039 | 18.0 | 3.6 | 7.5 | 4.3 | 0.2 | 1.6 | 4.3 |
Sigh. How logn before #FreeSteveNash is trending on twitter? The Suns sort of have a "big three" of Steve Nash, Josh Childress and Macin Gortat (the latter two have, of course, always been under-appreciated), but they don't have a lot of depth and Telfair and Price are both horrible additions. Markieff is, in my opinion, the "good" Morris, a good rebounder and efficient shooter; he'll fit in great with Steve Nash, but he'd have to make a rookie-of-the-year impact to push this team into contention.
I don't know what to think about the Suns. I'm really torn about whether the Warriors will be better them (if Biedrins and Lee return to form), but I think the Suns will flirt with the 8th seed in the West, but Lopez, like his brother in New Jersey, is simply not the answer under the basket. He doesn't rebound well enough, isn't a very good defender (note the fouls) and isn't a ver efficient shooter either. What is he good at? Why do these two brothers get so much respect?
Mostly, I'm just playing the "how bad can any team with Steve Nash on the roster ever really be?" card, and I'm not sure that will be enough to keep them out of the lottery.