The Rules of Pacers Digest
Hello everyone,
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"
"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?"
In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*""Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?
"In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Re: Who's on the list?
Agreed. Messina's last few seasons in Europe were actually less than stellar and is a big reason he came over to the NBA.Originally posted by presto123 View Post
He's also a authoritarian type coach as many in Europe are. Maybe his time with the Spurs changed him a bit, but coaches act very, very differently when they're named as head coach vs. being an assistant.
Messina is a risky, risky hire. He's viewed favorably because he's been with the Sours/Pop and he's not an NBA retread, but I don't think people have really looked at the type of head coach he really was in Europe.Comment
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Re: Who's on the list?
goes pretty in depth into his offense
http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/20...t-its-not-jeff
Phoenix Suns offense is ugly at times, but it's not Jeff Hornacek's fault
A lotot has been made by Phoenix Suns fans that the team is just not as fun to watch this season, and the Suns themselves have not made anything easier by showing inconsistent effort and low-basketball smarts at the worst times.
Many recall the 2013-14 as revelatory, a joy to behold, as the Suns fought their way to an unexpected 48-34 finish behind a speedy two-headed point guard and a rookie coach,Jeff Hornacek, who finished 2nd in the Coach of the Year race.
This year, the shine on the Suns has worn off and the doubters are gaining momentum. The Suns are still winning more than they lose (33-30 record) but they are, so far, out of the playoff picture in 10th in the West. Basketball-Reference.com gives the Suns just a 7.9% chance of making the playoffs.
SOME OF THAT DOUBT IS NOW BEING AIMED AT HORNACEK, WHO HAS GONE FROM GENIUS TO MORON IN RECORD-SETTING TIME.
Some of that doubt is now being aimed at Hornacek, who has gone from genius to moron in record-setting time.
Hornacek himself will tell you that this season has been a lot tougher than last, by a long shot. While last year he spent much of his rookie season in good spirits on the sidelines, this year has been an exercise in frustration.
This particular Horny-face was right after Eric Bledsoe had another one of his signature back court brain fart turnovers against the Nets on Friday night.
The Nets game was a perfect composite of best player Bledsoe's season: 19 points on 5-10 shooting (8-10 on FTs), 6 assists, 10 rebounds... and 7 turnovers. In an 8-point win, they were a +27 when he was on the court versus -19 when he rested. Yet those 7 turnovers are mind-dumbingly bad in most cases. It's tough for the coach to "punish" bad turnovers by benching a guy who otherwise is the team's biggest difference-maker.
Such is coach Hornacek's season in a nutshell.
He has been handed a multi-talented roster of good basketball players, but unfortunately their basketball IQ is still a work in progress and there isn't a transcendent talent among them. The Suns starting lineup is the 4th youngest in the league, yet they are the only team of the four with a winning record.
At this point, I'll post the usual reminder that the Suns roster is missing any kind of veteran leadership. The starting lineup is one of the league's youngest, sporting no players with more than 3.5 years of NBA experience. They are learning as they go.
Hornacek is not a disciplinarian. He doesn't insist the players do everything by the book and he prefers to let them play rather than micromanage by calling every play and benching players who break from the offense.
You may like those traits or hate those traits, that's up to you. But that's who he is.
The other part of who he is: he puts his players in position to succeed. Whether they succeed or not is what's in question, even for him.
On the whole, he's gotten a team without any real offensive savants to produce the league's 8th best offensive ranking (points per possession) last year and 9th best this year. They were up to as high as 4th this season in points per possession but have gone through a long three-point shooting drought that's more likely than not to end sometime soon.
Let's dive into the offense a bit.
Fast breaks
This is the staple of the Suns offense, for better or worse. BSotS reader Greg Brannan pointed out yesterday that the Suns are the league's most prolific transition team (18.8% of their offense) but only mid-pack in terms of points per possession (1.12 points per possession, good for 12th in the league).
However, as we will show throughout this article, the Suns have to get as many simple buckets as possible. It's much harder, and uglier, for this team to score in the half court.
Some worried the Suns' fast break game would fall off after the trades of Dragic and Thomas, but in the 9 games since the trade deadline the Suns are still averaging 17.6 points per game on fast breaks, good for 3rd in the league. (Over the last 4 games, they are at 18.0, good for 2nd in the league and that even includes the Spurs debacle).
That's down 2 points per game (from 19.6) from before the trade deadline - a small drop, but not as dramatic as you might have expected. They are still the 3rd best in the league, even during this transition.
Early offense
Except for clutch situations and timeouts, Hornacek does not like to slow down the offense to call a play every time down the court. He knows his team is not very good in the half-court, so he tries to get scores before the defense has a chance to get set.
His initial desire is to create a free-flowing offense that transitions immediately into a PNR or slip screen or backdoor cut. Going right into an action (without pausing to call a play) before the defense can fully load can be effective in its unpredictability.
The Suns are 2nd in the league in pace this season because of their combination of transition offense and early offense. The sooner you can get a good look, the better the shot.
According to 82games.com, 43% of the Suns offense comes from shots taken in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock. In those situations, the Suns have a robust effective field goal percentage of 56% (compared to 51% overall, which is still 6th in the league!). For comparison sake, a year ago only 41% of the Suns offense came in the first 10 seconds of the clock. Two years ago, it was just 38%. In each year, the opponent has gotten up shots in the first 10 seconds 39% of the time.
Early offense is good offense, and the Suns get as much of that as they can.
Pick and Roll
While you may not see it, the Suns DO use pick-and-roll to start their offense most of the time. But the difference between today's Suns and yesterday's (Nash's) Suns is how it plays out from the initial pick action.
Simply put, a "pick and roll" is where a big man comes out and sets his feet to pick off the point guard's defender, then either rolls hard to the rim for a pass or pops out to an open spot on the floor for a jumper. What each big does depends on his skill set, the skill set of the guard from whom he set the pick, and what the defense does.
The Suns skill set since Nash left has led to the pick-and-roll being more often a pick-and-pop, where the big pops out of the screen to wait for a long jumper while the guard slashes to the rim. This change is because the coach is catering to his team's talent. He's got slashing guards who are much better driving themselves to the rim than passing to a rolling big, and he's got big men who aren't very good at rolling to the rim either (Brandon Wright aside).
This change is also because the league has realized the easiest way to beat a pick-and-roll defense is to employ a big man shooter as the pick man - hence the renaissance of the "stretch four". If the pick man can make long jumpers, there's absolutely no where for the defending big man to hide.
Channing Frye was a master at popping out to the three point line after the solid pick, forcing the defense to follow him and open the lane for an easy drive to the hoop. The Goran Dragic/Channing Frye pick and pop was deadly last year, producing 1.3 points per play. Around the league, you see Kevin Love, Ryan Anderson and the like thriving because of their ability to pick-and-pop.
But this year, Markieff Morris, Marcus Morris and Alex Len are setting the pick, and none are quite as effective in the pop action. The Morrii are much more comfortable using that action to create a midrange opportunity (which creates less space for the point guard to operate), and their shooting percentages back that up. Alex Len is not quick enough (yet) to be an effective roll man, and besides the Suns guards aren't any good at the pocket passes anyway. Brandon Wright is likewise suffering from the point guards' talent gap on the pocket pass.
Pick-and-roll becomesIsolation
More often than not, the Suns initial pick-and-roll (or pick-and-pop) evolves an isolation play or a post up. All it takes is a little hesitation on the part of either the ball handler or the popper after the pick-and-roll creates the mismatch.
Nearly every Suns half court play begins with high screen action by a big to force the defense to switch or leave Bledsoe/Knight an open driving lane. When a PF switches out on Bledsoe and Markieff posts up the PG, those possession turn into isolations for a one-on-one drive or post-up. Even when Markieff or Marcus pop out to the three point line, you often see them receive the pass only to fake the shot and drive instead.
The statistics may show the Suns don't use pick-and-roll often enough, and that they end up in isolation instead. We need to understand that's a product of the players and the execution rather than the coaching scheme.
It's the players who don't take the open three, but rather use the pop to create an isolation drive for themselves. Hornacek knows his players' most effective skill set is to create for themselves, so he doesn't stop it from happening. He just gives them the best opportunity to succeed and prays for the best once the ball is bouncing.
Clutch situations
The play calls are simple, somewhat unimaginative, especially in clutch situations. Is that on the coach, or on the players?According some scouts and coaches I've consulted, including Randy Hill of FoxSportsArizona, the Suns play calls appear to be simplified so much because the players on the court aren't good at executing more complex plays with any consistency.
It's easier to call a complex play, loaded with secondary actions based on what the defense does, when Steve Nash is running the show, or Chris Paul. But there's not many Nashes and Pauls out there. There's a reason you see a lot of the league's best coaches admitting their best clutch-time play call is saying "get me a bucket" to their superstar in the timeout huddle. The star is then put into an isolation, usually after a ball screen or two to get a desired matchup. Just like the Suns offense.
The Suns don't have a star like that, but teams gear up defensively in the clutch to stop a lot of actions and force the other team out of their play call. Most plays in the clutch end up in scrambles and/or isolations for that reason.
The Suns, on the whole, are not as bad in clutch situations as you might think. Overall, they are 16-17 in games that are within 3 points (one possession) in the final three minutes, the .485 win rate putting them 15th overall in the league. (They lead the league with 33 such games (out of 63), three more than the next closest team (the Lakers).)
Unfortunately, the Suns have to do their work early in that 3 minutes to get the win. They are 6-1 in games that got to within 3 points within the last 3 minutes but stretched out before the buzzer. In games within 3 points (one possession) in the final 10 seconds, the Suns are just 10-16. (for grins, the Suns 26 games within 3 points in the final 10 seconds are FOUR more games than any other NBA team)
Still better than you might have thought, though, huh?
Big picture
Overall, the Suns offense is quite effective.
In the ultimate measure of efficiency, the Suns have an effective field goal percentage of 51.2% (which factors in three pointers and free throws, as well as two pointers), good for 6th in the league. They are 9th in points per possession.
In terms of play type, they are top-10 in the league in points per game on fast breaks, drives, catch-and-shoot and pull-ups. But due to their size and skill sets, they are bottom-10 in close shots (those that start within 12 feet of the rim, excluding drives and fast breaks).
The offense may not be pretty to watch - what with all the broken down pick-and-rolls that turn into isolation plays - but it is quite effective.
The Suns aren't losing games because of their offense. They are losing games because of break downs in execution, failures in the clutch, and because their defense gives up too many points on the other end (22nd in the league in points-per-possession allowed).Last edited by Unclebuck; 05-14-2016, 07:02 PM.Comment
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Re: Who's on the list?
I can live with Bird swinging for the fences with Messina and failing. I can't tolerate hiring a retread coach and having them fail yet again. If you are going to replace an excellent coach when nobody else agrees with you, you swing for the ****ing fences."Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel
"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "Comment
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Re: Who's on the list?
Sorry for the self bump, but I seem to be doing well in predictions for a changeOriginally posted by wintermute View Post
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Re: Who's on the list?
I don't think Kegboy was ever that big a Skiles fan. I think he'd be O.K. with McMillian if he (Kegboy) didn't distrust Bird so much. If the Pacers get Conley there's a chance Kegboy would be back, but I can't say it makes a damn bit of difference to me.Originally posted by BillS View PostAnd I thought If we got Skiles we'd see the two best kegboys back active
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