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Originally Posted by afobisme
they don't have any players to develop because he traded many of them away while he was the team's GM. grant can still play decent defense. shaq can be decent too. nash sucks.
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No. He was the GM in the summer of 2006. That's it. He gave Barbosa a contract extension, Diaw a contract extension, and traded Rondo for Boston's pick last year (which Kerr sold). Sarver ordered that. He also refused to pay Johnson $60 million for 5 years. Then he was going to begrudgingly pay him $70 million when JJ said, "Nah man, I don't like you and I don't like Amare." Hill can play great defense, so can Bell. Amare is probably one of the worst team defenders in the NBA and a mediocre/bad one on one defender. He misses defensive rotations like Shaq misses fts (i.e. you celebrate when he remembers to rotate) Not only that, but many times he isn't even looking in the direction of the ball! Multiple times Parker got a layup over Amare's back! He didn't even see the play! Nash is a good team defender but is very limited in his mobility and therefore a bad one on one defender. Shaq can't switch and is not good at flashing out on the pick and rolls. Barbosa is useless on defense. No, it's not the coaching, they will never be great defenders. I don't care if you bring in a zombified Red Auerbach, you won't get great defense from them!
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but you're talking about individual defense, while im talking about team defense (rotating). im also not saying they should be a good defensive team, only a decent one. if amare and barbosa learned how to play defense, they would definitely move from "sucky" defense to "decent" defense.
besides, d'antoni wasn't in phoenix just this year.. he was there for what, 3 more seasons? and yet they couldn't play a lick of defense.
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They were actually a really good defensive team for the time he was with the Suns. They held opponents to less than 1.2 pps which is really good (top 5 in the league). The problem was that their offense stuttered because they didn't have any 3pt shooting and Hill's injury really hampered the Suns in that series. The biggest part of having Hill on the court is that he directs the defense beautifully. He tells his team what to do which really helped Amare. However, without him on the court, you saw the results.
Don't judge a team based on opponent FG% and PPG. The Suns limited FTs and turnovers which is what made them so dangerous. Also, they had Marion stealing the ball and wreaking havoc on the defensive end.