Channing Frye starts at center for the 2nd straight game: 22 points on 8-12 shooting, including 6-7 from down town. 8 Rebounds 3 Steals That is a very good night. Even if he has a great year, I'm not going to complain that we let him go. He showed nothing here in Portland last year, but I hope for the best for him as long as it doesn't impede us, and just wish he could have found that confidence coming off the bench.
Getting out of Nate's system has done wonders for Channing. Phoenix has great spacing that allows Frye to hit extremely wide open jumpers.
I'm happy as well for Channing. The guy can play if he was in the right system, and got consistent minutes like many people thought. He was just plain terrible here in the backup minutes behind LA. But he's someone I'd root for to succeed in the league.
People didn't want him here because he didn't play the role we wanted him to play correctly. He's a good player, no doubt. Boy can put up points. But all of us were expecting/wanting a tough bruiser at that backup PF position, not Aldridge-lite.
I don't think that's completely true. Yes, we would have liked to see him more physical on the defensive end, but he didn't hit wide open jumpers at all last year. Had he done that, he would have been valuable to us. Not ideal, but valuable.
