What’s in the water in Phoenix?
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2016 10:55 pm
Coming off back-to-back 50+ win seasons, Suns fans were looking forward to the team taking the next step. Going into the season, the team was far from a finished product (they still had a gaping hole at the starting center position), but there was a lot to get excited about. The team’s entire core from the 52-30 season had returned, and Wiggins was entering their 3rd season in the league (which typically results in a nice bump in stats).
One would think that adding a guy with Wiggins’s all-star like production in addition to finally shoring up the starting center position to a 52-30 would result in an improved squad. Yet 48 games into the season and the Suns sit at a disappointing 27-21. So what gives?
Well, for one, the injury bug seems to have hit Phoenix and it has hit hard. The following players have missed games for the Suns so far this season:
- Delon Wright – 3 games (sore back)
- Brandan Wright – 7 games (sore arm)
- Hollis Thompson – 7 games (strained calf)
- Andrew Wiggins – 7 games (strained calf, sore knee and sprained toe)
- Bobby Portis – 12 games (sprained toe, strained hamstring, and sore calf)
- Isaiah Austin – 26 games (sore knee and broken nose)
- Trey Burke – 27 games (broken hand)
- Eric Atkins – 2 games (sore shoulder)
Some GMs will point out that the Suns are still in position to make the playoffs, and they haven’t suffered any season-ending injuries yet, so there’s a chance they go into the playoffs healthy, despite not being healthy at virtually any point during the season. But the frustrating part isn’t just that the Suns will have a lower seed come playoff time (which is a huge factor in the playoffs, just ask the Rockets, who needed game 7 wins at home to take both the conference and CSL finals). It’s also that the Suns coaches can’t tinker with lineups or strategies too much to determine what works best for the team (and against which type of teams). On many nights, the coaches have been forced to simply play anyone healthy enough. And the front office has no idea what to address before the trade deadline (except for some more depth). Does the projected lineup get the job done? Do players need to be exchanged? All these questions remain unanswered until a sample size of the lineup can be accumulated.
So why are the Suns so plagued by injuries this season? None of the players are especially injury prone (all players except rarely used reserve center Amir Williams are at least a 60 durability). Only one player averages over 32 mpg (Wright at 33.5). The coaches haven’t run a pace over 4 at any point this season. The team’s DI and FCP varies from game to game, but neither have been above 7 at any point this season.
A couple GMs have suggested that it might be the head coach. They’ve mentioned that some GMs routinely hit by the injury bug have changed head coaches and that seems to have worked. Honestly though, that seems like pure coincidence. If it came to light that injuries did have something to do with head coaches, then this game has some awful programming, especially considering that there is no injury-type attribute that a GM can see attached to any coach. Many teams regularly use high pace and some teams play their starters very high minutes. For the record, I think that it’s just a string of bad luck, but who knows for sure?
Wiggins has taken the league by storm this season
As expected, Wiggins’s production has taken off this season: 17.8 ppg (48.3% shooting, and 42.8% from deep on 3.5 attempts/gm), 5.0 rebs, 1.5 blks, 0.9 stls, 86.0% DSR, and 0.80 PA/SF. In addition, the Suns finally addressed their center position with a trade for Bismack Biyombo from the Clippers. Biyombo is a low-scoring center with excellent rebounding and elite rim protection skills. His biggest criticism is that he doesn’t stay on the court long enough (regularly averaging in the upper 20 mpg as a starter throughout his career thus far), but the Suns front office expected this and believed pairing him with the reigning 6th man of the year runner-up Alex Len would turn a team’s strength into a weakness. And since the trade on New Year’s day (18 games), Biyombo has not disappointed: averaging 9.2 pts (on 46% shooting), 9.4 rebs (3.2 Orebs), 2.4 blks, and 0.7 stls on 30 mpg.One would think that adding a guy with Wiggins’s all-star like production in addition to finally shoring up the starting center position to a 52-30 would result in an improved squad. Yet 48 games into the season and the Suns sit at a disappointing 27-21. So what gives?
Well, for one, the injury bug seems to have hit Phoenix and it has hit hard. The following players have missed games for the Suns so far this season:
- Delon Wright – 3 games (sore back)
- Brandan Wright – 7 games (sore arm)
- Hollis Thompson – 7 games (strained calf)
- Andrew Wiggins – 7 games (strained calf, sore knee and sprained toe)
- Bobby Portis – 12 games (sprained toe, strained hamstring, and sore calf)
- Isaiah Austin – 26 games (sore knee and broken nose)
- Trey Burke – 27 games (broken hand)
- Eric Atkins – 2 games (sore shoulder)
Burke was expected to play important minutes as a backup PG this season
That comes to a total of 91 games missed, and that’s a number that is easily going to eclipse 100 games in the next couple weeks with Portis out the next 3 days, and Burke and Wiggins out the next 12 days each. Without doing any research, we’re pretty sure this tops the league in games missed due to injury.Some GMs will point out that the Suns are still in position to make the playoffs, and they haven’t suffered any season-ending injuries yet, so there’s a chance they go into the playoffs healthy, despite not being healthy at virtually any point during the season. But the frustrating part isn’t just that the Suns will have a lower seed come playoff time (which is a huge factor in the playoffs, just ask the Rockets, who needed game 7 wins at home to take both the conference and CSL finals). It’s also that the Suns coaches can’t tinker with lineups or strategies too much to determine what works best for the team (and against which type of teams). On many nights, the coaches have been forced to simply play anyone healthy enough. And the front office has no idea what to address before the trade deadline (except for some more depth). Does the projected lineup get the job done? Do players need to be exchanged? All these questions remain unanswered until a sample size of the lineup can be accumulated.
So why are the Suns so plagued by injuries this season? None of the players are especially injury prone (all players except rarely used reserve center Amir Williams are at least a 60 durability). Only one player averages over 32 mpg (Wright at 33.5). The coaches haven’t run a pace over 4 at any point this season. The team’s DI and FCP varies from game to game, but neither have been above 7 at any point this season.
A couple GMs have suggested that it might be the head coach. They’ve mentioned that some GMs routinely hit by the injury bug have changed head coaches and that seems to have worked. Honestly though, that seems like pure coincidence. If it came to light that injuries did have something to do with head coaches, then this game has some awful programming, especially considering that there is no injury-type attribute that a GM can see attached to any coach. Many teams regularly use high pace and some teams play their starters very high minutes. For the record, I think that it’s just a string of bad luck, but who knows for sure?