Ed note: This comment was originally written in response to the post of watdogg10 about the Suns having problems that extend beyond Amare.

This proves once again that the best discussion of Suns basketball anywhere, happens here.

Keep it up the great effort (even if Amare doesn't).

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I agree with some of your points.

But I think there are a lot of generalizations. SSOL is beautiful and entertaining basketball but I don’t think it wins championships. Some of the points I’ve raised before.

• Reliance on a few guys (7 to 8) in the entire season and the playoffs — Stamina is obviously a problem here
• Absolute dependence on Steve Nash centered offense. When Nash is guarded well, like with Bowen, the offense shuts as well.
• “Pace-centered defense” or sucking teams into SSOL so they’d rush their shots and hope they’d get tired and miss. In every playoff game against the Spurs, we couldn’t get a stop when we needed to. The essential variable in pace-centered defense is for the teams to get follow the tempo of the Suns. If they dont follow the pace and rather play slow, like with Detroit before (albeit their team is in decline too), then the Suns offense stagnated too. It’s also hard to argue that if not for Stern or injuries, the Suns would have pass through, because counterfactuals will always be counterfactuals.
• The Suns have been running the same offense for the past four years. Teams have certainly adapted to it. That’s why it was harder for the Suns to win games last year even before the Shaq Trade.
• True that SSOL is unpredictable basketball, maybe in terms of entertainment, but not in terms of strategy. You have to rely on quick passing, fast breaks, quick drives, cuts, volume 3 point shooting, and PNR. It didn’t work with elite teams like the Lakers or Spurs last year.
• Teams that won using offense, Shaq’s Lakers and Hakeem’s Rockets were very much low post offense teams. The good thing about the low post is relying on high% shots instead of “good shooting nights”.
• The Celtics demonstrate an effective M2M and team defense basketball. Something that the Spurs were doing for the past years. Suns’ players stagnated on that aspect of the game.
• Another problem with SSOL is it’s an ego filler system. It keeps guys happy by padding their stats with production. What’s the problem here? Obviously, when the offense switched during Porter, everyone’s stats went down and complained. I think with basketball, it has to be a team effort where people are ready to sacrifice their personal gain for the good of the team. SSOL inflated the stats of players in the Suns, not to mention their “market value” (better salaries). Any protest Porter’s system is obviously related to SSOL.

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