New season, new pattern, NBA league hegemony, many teams take the championship as the ultimate goal, such as the Western Thunder, Suns, Nuggets, Mavericks, Warriors, Eastern Celtics, Cavaliers, Knicks, Bucks, 76ers. Among these teams, the Cavaliers, Celtics, and Thunder have made a strong move, and the situation is very good; the Nuggets, Mavericks, Knicks, Bucks, 76ers, and Warriors each have their own difficulties, but their strength cannot be underestimated; the worst is the Suns, who have the most expensive three giants in the NBA league, but spent the most money to get the most severe blow, and the situation is precarious!
From the time the new owner of the Suns, Ishbia, took over the team, they have been eager to take shortcuts to win the championship, at all costs to create a Durant, not, Beal three giants combination! However, the Suns are ambitious but fragile! The three giants of the Suns are plagued by injuries, one injury just healed, another falls down, and so on, which makes people feel sorry for their misfortune and angry with their struggle, and the Suns also have an empty championship dream! Especially in last year's playoffs, the Suns were swept by the Timberwolves led by Hua Zi in the first round, shamefully eliminated, that is called embarrassing! In the new season, the Suns set sail again, and they once maintained a strong competitiveness in the wild west with KD's stable and strong performance. In the 15 games played by KD, the Suns had a record of 13 wins and 2 losses, winning countless praises.
However, as the season deepened and injuries increased, the Suns fell behind again, being bullied by everyone! On December 24th against the Nuggets, the Suns suffered a 27-point defeat; on December 28th against the Mavericks, the Suns trailed by as much as 18 points and eventually lost by 9 points; on December 29th against the Warriors, the Suns lost by 4 points; on January 1st against the weakened Grizzlies, the Suns lost by 5 points; on January 5th against the Pacers, the Suns suffered an 18-point defeat! In the past eight games, the Suns have only achieved a record of 1 win and 7 losses. As a result, the Suns dropped to 12th in the West with a record of 15 wins and 18 losses, two wins behind the 10th-place Timberwolves (17 wins and 17 losses) in the West, and four wins behind the 6th-place Mavericks (20 wins and 15 losses) in the West. In other words, if the Suns don't give it their all, they may not even get a ticket to the playoffs, let alone talk about the championship dream?
In the 15 games played by KD, the Suns' record was 13 wins and 2 losses; in the past eight games, KD played all of them, and the Suns' record was only 1 win and 7 losses. Is it a problem with the Suns or KD? Let's first look at what KD did in these eight games! Against the Warriors, KD scored 37 points + 10 rebounds + 6 assists in vain; against the Pistons, KD scored 43 points + 5 rebounds + 6 assists in vain; against the Mavericks, KD scored 35 points in vain; against the Warriors, KD scored 31 points + 6 rebounds + 3 assists + 4 steals in vain; against the Grizzlies, KD scored 29 points + 10 rebounds + 6 assists in vain. Obviously, KD is still the invincible KD, scoring more than 20 points per game, but the Suns have proved a truth in their journey of 8 games and 7 losses: when many people gather firewood, the flames are high, but when one person gathers firewood, the fire is not strong; when many people can move ten thousand mountains, one person finds it difficult to carry a thousand catties!
Let's take a look at the contributions of the other two giants of the Suns in these eight games. Booker only played 3 games in the past 8 games due to injury, only scored more than 20 points in 1 game, and delivered a poor score of 4 out of 20 shots in the game against the Grizzlies. Beal has been playing with minor injuries in the past eight games, scoring more than 20 points in four games, showing the style of a giant; but the other few games are really disappointing: against the Mavericks, Beal shot 18 times and made 5, scoring only 11 points with 4 turnovers; against the Grizzlies, Beal withdrew early due to injury, shooting 1 out of 5 and scoring only 3 points; against the Pacers, Beal shot 12 times and made 3, scoring only 8 points! This is the state of the Suns' three giants: they obviously rely heavily on the three giants, but the three giants are in name only!
In a sense, the Suns should thank the Pacers, Pistons and other Eastern Conference teams with average strength, and more importantly, the Mavericks, Grizzlies, Warriors, Nuggets and other Western Conference powerhouses, who have taken turns to attack the Suns, exposing this false Western Conference powerhouse, and letting the world see the distance between this team and the championship. If we trace back to the root cause, the key is still the畸形 lineup configuration of KD, Booker, Beal's three giants plus a group of low-salary players, which lacks depth and is not enough to maintain dominance throughout the long season, let alone the injuries that plague them? It must be said that KD is too difficult, huddling for warmth to compete for the championship but gradually moving away from the championship, it's fate! Whether to give KD a way out or to transform the lineup through transactions, this is a difficult problem that the Suns must consider in the middle of the season! What do you think, basketball fans? Come and leave me a comment to discuss it.