It's not Rocket science!

After the trade of Capela for RoCo we sacrificed size and rebounding for steals, perimeter defense and a more spread out offense. We went "small", I get it and I agree if you're already committed to this positionless philosophy where you want to hoist 50-60 threes, might as well go all-in. However, it doesn't take a smart person to realise that to compensate for losing a big man, is you have to work twice as hard on the boards, boxing out and playing perimeter defense since now when they blow by you there's little protection. RoCo might be a solid shot blocker, he's no intimidator like Capela was. Remember the play-offs against the Jazz and T-Wolves? He owned KAT and Gobert!

I say this because I know people come in saying Capela was not that great etc. It's not even the point, but is it noteworthy that with going small we have to work harder. What is my point? That having a short rotation, which was already short when we had Capela, is asinine and it is not rocket science to figure out with defense and heavy reliance on threes, you need fresh legs and more bodies given threes take way more out of your legs, especially late in the 4th, when you exert so much energy on defense.

Now given MDA's track record, countless quotes by Suns players and people who followed them, he should've learned by now. It's so unfortunate that aside from referees, Harden, Westbrook and Morey's failure to get the right personnel to run this system as well as hyperfocus on data without context, we have a stubborn dinosaur as a coach who refuses to acknowledge the obvious.

Now I'm sure people will come in here guns ready, complain about anything but our coach, and how we should stop saying things as if we're smarter than our coach and if it was so obvious then why wouldn't MDA do it. To those people: use the other threads or just accept that some things are simple truths that cannot be denied. Sure MDA could've had some better players to work with, but Carroll, McLemore or even Frazier and Luc could've been used. If even for a few minutes.

To me this reason alone is enough to fire MDA over, or let him go. Morey among others have a big part in this failure, but at least with a sense of urgency to the matter of tired legs, especially considering Rivers stinking it up, Harden breaking down each year, House situation there is just no way you can come in here arguing that MDA did the right thing by basically playing 6-8 guys. We have talent on the bench and he refused to use them.

Tired legs is no excuse for losing, let me state that just so there's no confusion. There's also for those who are not convinced the short rotations are a big enough issue to fire MDA over, the matter of adjustments. This is more broad and also incorporated short rotations, since he refused to replace Rivers, House and McLemore when they were not available or not producing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that at some point teams were going to go small against us, force Harden to deal with physical play, force Westbrook to shoot threes and force the team to move more, take midrange shots and deal with Harden double-teams.

I have seen Green bringing the ball up against OKC, and heavily involved in pick-and-roll / pop with Harden. That is the only real wrinkle we have thrown at our opponents. For the rest, I've not see a single counter to in particular Lakers' changes. MDA has been quoted himself as saying they just need to play their game, know who they are and execute when asked about dealing with adjustments.

All in all, we have a stubborn coach who will have to be held responsible and while not the sole reason for our problems, him not returning wouldn't just be the one taking the fall. Sure, Harden and Westbrook are here to stay and Morey will not just leave his position nor change his stance on analytics driven basketball, so replacing MDA is one of the few things we can do. That doesn't make it the wrong thing to do. To me it simply is the right thing to do and it is not rocket science to see that MDA is a problem at this point. Solid regular season coach, I'm sure a great guy and very fun to be around, but results matter.

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