Dear Phoenix Suns,
I beg you to please forgive the ignorant basketball fans who are up in arms about the Phoenix Suns recent losing ways and are blaming it on Shaquille O’Neal and the ‘apparent’ slow it down, half court game he is bringing. They clearly are not watching the Suns games, but only jumping on the bandwagon assumption that because Mr. O’Neal is one of the largest men to ever play this sport, that he forces the team to play the game solely in the half-court.
If I can speak frankly, your Coach Terry Porter has good intentions with his offensive scheme, but he has failed miserably about teaching his perimeter players how to feed Shaquille O’Neal the ball in the post. He has failed miserably at making the perimeter players understand that if they learn to feed the Big Fella properly they will get more open shots from the perimeter than they have had their entire careers, and those shots will be more wide open than they could imagine in their wildest dreams. Do they not know that when Shaq gets the ball in the post he is a vacuum for the opposing players on the perimeter, especially once the opposing big men get into foul trouble?
Terry Porter has failed miserably at teaching Amare Stoudemire how to cut to open space when Shaq has the ball in the post. He has not explained to Amare that Shaq is one of the better passing big men in the game, and is one of the most unselfish players in the game when it comes to droppin’ dimes. Porter has also failed miserably at teaching Stoudemire to heed his own words, and drop the odd dime to the wide open O’Neal with little dump passes when Amare gets triple teamed on hard drives to the bucket.
Does your Coach Terry Porter, or the other Phoenix Suns players not realize that Shaquille O’Neal is shooting almost 60% from the field? Since Shaq shoots the best field goal percentage of any Suns player, it doesn’t take a mathematical wizard to figure out from a pure percentages standpoint here that if Shaq had more shots per game than everyone else on the team the Suns would score more points and ultimately win more games. Does Terry Porter realize that Shaq is actually shooting less shots per game than every player in the starting lineup? Wait a second, did your team not realize that if you look at your team’s win’s thus far this season Shaq is averaging over 10 shots taken per game, and if you look at your losses Shaq is averaging under 8 shots per game? Imagine if Shaq averaged 15-20 shots per game? You would probably win 90% of your games!
For your other Suns players that are complaining about the new slower system, you should ask them to try actually playing the slower game properly first and learning how to get Shaq the ball in the low post without turning the ball over at an alarmingly high rate. Then once Shaq gets the ball, the odd cut to open space may even allow them to reap the rewards of the attention the Big Fella draws and thus allow them to get their personal stats up again that they are so concerned about lately.
Since Shaq is the best defensive player (no offense Raja Bell or Matt Barnes) on the court at all times for your team, don’t you think you should ensure your team shows some appreciation for the big fella and maybe even run the floor when he blocks shots or gobbles up defensive rebound after defensive rebound, instead of standing around waiting for Nash to get the ball and dribble it up the court. At what age is it that they teach you passing the ball up the court is more than twice as fast as dribbling the ball up the court? 6 or 7 years old? Hmmm….
Shaquille O’Neal may be older, he may be a tad slower, but he’s more a victim of bad coaching and misconceptions from teammates than he is of his actual on court play. Please accept this letter as friendly advice concerning your misuse of your $20 million dollar a year man, and feel free to share it with your personnel to possibly make a valiant attempt at winning a championship this season. Shaq has earned it, and Suns fans are patiently waiting….
Dr. Anklesnap
The Hoop Doctors
