Let me see if I\u2019ve got this right. The Phoenix Suns (55-27 SU, 39-40-3 ATS, 45-37 O\/U), were agonizingly close to reaching the NBA Finals four straight seasons under head coach Mike D\u2019Antoni, playing an entertaining up-tempo brand of basketball that literally altered the style of play of almost every team in the league. <\/p>\n
Suddenly, after naming former NBA guard Steve Kerr as the team\u2019s first-year general manager, last season, the Suns instantly altered their style of play, trading gifted all-around forward Shawn Marion for aging center Shaquille O\u2019Neal, who fit into the team\u2019s style of play like a square peg in a round hole.<\/p>\n
Now, after greasing the skids for D\u2019Antoni\u2019s departure and subsequently hiring former NBA point guard Terry Porter as the team\u2019s head coach, the Suns will enter the 2008-09 season with an entirely new look from the one that fans and foes alike had become accustomed to.<\/p>\n
The Suns plan on cutting back all-star point guard Steve Nash\u2019s minutes this season, but Nash has already gone on record to say that he doesn\u2019t think the team\u2019s new plans are going to work.<\/p>\n
“I feel like you can always use the rest,” Nash said earlier this summer. “If you can get to the postseason well rested, it’s perfect. But you can’t always afford to do that.”<\/p>\n
After finishing out the regular season on a mediocre 7-7 mark in their last 14 games, the Suns were soundly beaten by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs, losing 4-1 and getting beaten badly in three of their four series losses.<\/p>\n
Under Porter, the Suns will play a more traditional style of basketball with less fastbreaks and more focus on defense, something many of the Suns\u2019 players are being asked to play for the first time.<\/p>\n
The Suns pulled off one of the best \u2018steals\u2019 of the entire draft by picking former Stanford Cardinal center, Robin Lopez, who will back up O\u2019Neal at center while providing the team with a more athletic presence in the middle. Lopez will need to be ready to play immediately as O\u2019Neal has not played in more than 67 games in seven straight seasons and has missed more than 20 games in six of his 16 NBA seasons.<\/p>\n
The Suns also added 6-4 point guard Goran Dragic out of Slovenia to help backup Nash along with Leandro Barbosa by buying out his contract with Spanish club Tau Ceramica.<\/p>\n
Phoenix also added underrated free agent swingman Matt Barnes and rookie point guard Sean Singletary in a trade with the Houston Rockets in exchange for guard D.J. Strawberry.<\/p>\n
With Marion gone, Phoenix plans to start either Grant Hill or Boris Diaw at the small forward spot with arnes and Louis Admundson backing up at both forward positions.<\/p>\n
Phoenix recorded an uninspiring ATS record last season, but used their prolific offense to go \u2018Over\u2019 the spread 45 times. The Suns ranked third in scoring last season, (110.1 ppg) and first in field goal and three-point shooting percentage, but gave up 105.0 points per contest, (25th). Again, BetUS NBA hoops fanatics should expect big change – and not for the better – in the desert this season.<\/p>\n
The Phoenix Suns were agonizingly close to reaching the NBA Finals four straight seasons under head coach Mike D\u2019Antoni, what do they have in store for us this year? We preview the 2008 betting chances of the Steve Nash led Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[28,37,39,492,744,745,1595,2444,751,3124,1037,1412,3122,3123],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-28","tag-2008-2009","tag-39","tag-future-odds","tag-nba-betting","tag-nba-futures","tag-nba-gambling","tag-nba-previews","tag-nba-wagering","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-preview","tag-season-preview","tag-suns-betting","tag-suns-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2495,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions\/2495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}