An embarrassing 25-point defeat and a 12-point defeat! The ugly championship contender is not even qualified to rebuild

Lao Liang commented

2024-04-24 23:19Posted in Shandong Sports Creators

This season's NBA playoffs are in full swing, many teams ranked high in the regular season, the playoffs have also been smooth, the defending champion Nuggets, no matter how well the Lakers play, can win the Lakers in their own way, whether it is Murray's lore, or a wave in the fourth quarter, James and his Lakers, this season has a high probability of being out of the first round, and can only hope that the Lakers can win one game in the series and break the losing streak. The Celtics lack opponents in the East, even if the Knicks and Cavaliers open the series early and advance is only a matter of time, but these two teams and the Celtics are not in the same grade in terms of strength on paper and the thickness of the lineup. If Randle doesn't have a season, the Knicks may be able to play a dozen, because when it comes to critical moments, they really count on stars to play.

Looking at the 8 groups of matchups in the playoffs, the most surprising must be the series between the Suns and the Timberwolves. During the regular season, the Suns met the Timberwolves three times, won all of them, and beat the Timberwolves by 47 points in three games! In the case that the regular season confrontation is not so intense, the singles mode of the Big Three of Durant + Beal + Booker, plus the occasional outburst of Allen or Gordon, the Timberwolves really can't do much. But in the playoffs, everything changed again. In one 25-point defeat, Edwards misplaced Durant and blew Durant out; the other 12-point defeat! The Suns consciously restricted Edwards, but let the offensive blue-collar Madan and Gobert bombard inside and outside, and then lost! Two data, there are 196 teams in NBA history that fell behind 0-2 in the first round of the series, and only 13 teams turned around and advanced, with a probability of 6.6%!

In addition, according to the modeling calculations given by the American media "BR", the probability of the Suns advancing to the second round is only 9.8%! To tell the truth, since Durant came to the Suns last year, they have been pinned on high hopes, and they were once the team with the highest probability of winning the championship in the West, including last season in the playoffs, when Paul and Ayton were injured, Durant averaged 29 points per game in the playoffs + Booker averaged 33.7 points per game in the playoffs, and they are also the only team that can force the championship Nuggets to the sixth game of the series in the playoffs! Including the introduction of Beal this season, the Big Three have the ability to average 30+ per game, and are known as the strongest offensive Big Three teams in the NBA. However, the regular season exposed huge shortcomings, the net win in the final quarter was at the bottom of the league, the net efficiency value was the first, and the offensive and defensive efficiency values were around 25th in the league, which can only be described as ugly.

In addition, in order to give full play to the advantages of the Big Three, coach Vogel has repeatedly streamlined the lineup, O'Neal and Okie, who are good at defense, gradually faded out of the rotation, Diop and Bol were refrigerated, although Allen ranked first in the league in three-point shooting rate in the regular season, but his defense could not protect the Big Three, and the highest contribution value of the team's win was Nurkic who was the best in protecting the frame and defense, and the net efficiency value of the Big Three in the regular season was still -4.5! Aside from the team's lack of organizational core, the Suns played for a year and did not form an effective defensive system, Vogel naturally could not escape the blame, and the Big Three were left with standing sticks and singles, and the tandem was basically based on passing the ball between each other, and the role players could not be integrated. With the decline in physical fitness, it often collapses.

The sun is in two directions in the future. For one, it's only a matter of time before the playoffs are out, because in the history of the Suns, they have not come back from 0-14 when they were down 0-2 in the previous series. The second is the direction and thinking of the Sun's future team building. Durant turned 36 years old in the offseason, and his efficiency declined significantly as he got older, especially in the playoffs in the last two years, which was far less than the Nets period, let alone the Warriors. And when Bill is about to turn 31 years old, not counting this year's $46.74 million contract, there will be a super cap salary of 50.2 million + 53.67 million + $57.13 million in the next 3 years, and the last year with a player option and a trade with veto power, simply put, as long as Bill himself doesn't want to leave the Suns, no one can send him away!

What's even more desperate is that the Suns don't have any chips to rot or rebuild in the next 7 years! In the Durant trade, the Suns sent away 4 first-round picks + 1 first-round swap, and also took Bridges, Johnson, and Crowder; in the Beal trade, the Suns took 6 second-round picks + 4 first-round swaps, which led to the fact that the Suns only had 4 first-round swaps left in the next 7 years, and the Wizards decided the Suns' signing, and these four first-round picks must be in the 20-30 picks. There are also 2 second-round picks, the '24 Spurs, and the '28 Celtics. Beal can't move, Booker is the boss of the team, and everyone else is basically at the base salary level, except for Nurkic and Allen, who have an annual salary of tens of millions, only Durant is left. Is Durant leaving again? The key is that the Suns' salary estimate for next season will exceed $200 million!

Since Durant left the Warriors, whether in the Nets or in the Suns, it has proved that he can't carry the core of the team, and he is a good finisher, but because of his style of play, coupled with his habit of choosing a strong scorer as a partner, he is destined to achieve nothing in his later career. The Suns can trust Durant unconditionally, hollow out the family funds for the next 7 years, and even build a mercenary corps under the pressure of a huge luxury tax, but when the expected result is getting closer and closer, Durant can withdraw at any time, so what about Booker? What about the cumbersome Bill? This question is much more complicated than the Warriors' road to rebuilding, and there is no right answer at all!

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