Wow! Suns coach Alvin Gentry says he has a roster with 11 viable rotation candidates. The probable starters are Steve Nash, Jason Richardson, Grant Hill, Amaré Stoudemire and Channing Frye. The bench includes Leandro Barbosa, Jared Dudley, Robin Lopez, Louis Amundson, Goran Dragic and rookie Earl Clark. The last two are Alando Tucker and second-round draft pick Taylor Griffin. "I don't mind having that (depth) problem," Gentry told The Arizona Republic. "That's the best you could possibly hope for. I do think there'll be a battle for playing time, and that should make camp very interesting. "I wish we could play 10 guys, so that we have enough confidence and have Steve, Grant and Amaré fresh down the stretch, where they're not asked to play the last 11 minutes of the game."
The probable starters are Steve Nash, Jason Richardson, Grant Hill, Amaré Stoudemire and Channing Frye. Wow, that looks a really old team that won't play defense. PHX looks fairly terrible right now outside of Stoudemire.
Channing's gonna have a good season. He was a beast during his rookie season with New York and I don't think he really fit in here, basketball wise. It's a damn shame too because he's such a "Portland" kind of guy. Oh well, glad to hear he'll have a nice role in Phoenix.
My bold prediction is that Channing will have a productive season as a small center who draws guys out to the perimeter. The Suns don't really play defense anyway, so it won't really hurt him that he can't contain or control the paint. Channing is also on an "odd" year in his pattern of good-bad-good-bad seasons and he's much more of a rhythm player who seems to play better the longer he's on the court but was utterly miscast as an energy guy as the backup 4 for the Blazers. I say he gets 15 pts per game, 8 rebounds and about 35 minutes a night in Gentry's system.
there's a reason the knicks traded him. theres a reason why we didnt resign him. vs Boston last year... the guy on espn called fryes 23 seconds in the game "the worst 23 seconds he has ever seen by an nba player." Harsh... yes... but frye sucks. I dont even know why hes being brought up. It basically means 4 monster games for LA when we play the suns. Its also means prob 4 wins. When you start Channing Frye at PF... you have a pretty bad team.
Frye did very well as a starter at center two years ago when Joel went out. I think his biggest problem here was never getting a defined role from his coach.
