The Suns are 3-5, and it is obvious to anyone either watching the games or looking at the statistics that this simply isn’t working. The Suns’ starting lineup is a mess: the talent is there, but the “chemistry” isn’t. Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, and Devin Booker, the “Big 3” in salary, have the worst net +/- differentials per 48 on the team.
Booker tends to change his play to fit alongside the other players on the court, and he proved last year he can play alongside Brooks, leaving Green as the prime
culprit for the starting lineup’s woeful start. We know Booker isn’t the worst player on the team. The Suns’ best game of the season, a three-point win at home over the Rockets, saw Green register a team-worst -12 point differential.
The pieces on the court don’t fit for basically the same reasons Gerald Bourguet and I called out before the start of the season: lack of three-point shooting / poor spacing, lack of size, lack of rebounding, not enough defense, turnover-prone players, lack of a true PG among the starters, and lack of a true PF. Worse, Dillon Brooks has seemingly forgotten how to play defense, Miles Bridges isn’t really holding down the PF spot, Khaman Maluach isn’t ready to be a starter, and Mark Williams is out until March.
In short, the whole thing is a mess, and there’s not a lot of good solutions to the problem. It’s not as if the Suns can tank the regular season for a great draft pick: they don’t own their own pick until 2033. While it may seem like it’s too early to make major changes, the Suns have done it in the past when it wasn’t working. After a disastrous 0-8 start during the 96-97 season, the Suns fired coach Cotton Fitzsimmons, installed Danny Ainge, and traded for Jason Kidd. They went to the playoffs and pushed the number one-seeded Sonics to the brink.
So, here are the Suns’ options ranked from least to most radical.
Stand Pat
Senator John McCain once remarked that hope is not a plan. Last year’s team started 1-4 and eventually figured it out. While this year’s team started with a 40-point loss, they’ve sort of been improving if you squint really hard. They’re moving the ball around well, getting assists at a good rate. They’re getting chippy with opponents, not each other (yet). Given how bad options three and four are, this might be their best plan.
But probably not.
Change the starting lineup
This one recognizes the problem and tries to adapt without making any permanent decisions. Bourguet wrote about the options available in detail over at Arizona 360, but it boils down to some combination of replacing Green, Bridges, and Maluach in the starting lineup with Gillespie, Dunn, and Ighodaro. Replacing Maluach with Ighodaro isn’t an issue. However, replacing Green and/or Bridges creates a whole new set of problems.
I discussed these problems in detail last summer, knowing that the starting lineup was likely to be unbalanced. The TL;DR is that putting either Green or Bridges on the bench means $36 million or $22 million in salary cap and talent spending extra time on the bench. That means zero productivity for a lot of money, and probably some hurt feelings and discontent. Considering the Suns gave up Durant, Allen, O’Neale, and a first for two guys they’re benching (one of whom is an expiring contract), that’s a very ugly outcome.
It might be better to trade them, but that’s option 3.
Trade Green and/or Bridges
The Suns don’t have a starting-caliber power forward on the roster. Everyone on the roster is either not ready (Fleming), undersized (Dunn, Bridges), or both (Peat). There is also a push for better PG play, but Gillespie is likely an average-ish starter on most NBA teams. The problem is, Booker is at his best next to very good, defensive-minded, pass-first PGs like Rubio and Chris Paul.
The problem here is what can the Suns get for either Green or Bridges. Green’s contract is considered a relatively bad one at $36 million for only a starting-caliber SG with a sub-par three-point stroke. Bridges is an expiring (that the Suns gave up a first-round pick for) who is producing at roughly his salary level (17.3 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 2.8 APG), but most teams around the league really aren’t that interested in a player best known for his horrific domestic abuse history.
This is a really long way of saying that there isn’t a ton of market for either player, and that the Suns aren’t likely to get as much talent coming back as they send out. There are also the issues of salary matching, and that many players aren’t trade-eligible until later in the year. There are some possibilities at point guard, nothing jumps out at power forward, other teams have to say yes to trade proposals, and pickings are slim to begin with. Which is to say, the Suns are in a world of hurt if they try to salvage their season with a trade, and what they get back is likely to be less than they paid.
Nuke the site from orbit: It’s the only way to be sure
One of the problems the Suns have is that they signed a bunch of players to extensions, meaning that they cannot be traded until later in the season. If the Suns continue to lose at this rate, by the time January rolls around, no trade could get them into the playoffs. In particular, Gillespie, Goodwin, Williams, Brooks, and Ighodaro aren’t trade-eligible for several more months.
Then there’s Devin Booker, whose trade value is likely plummeting as he passes 30 along with his shooting percentages. The Suns don’t control their own picks, so clearing house and tanking isn’t an ideal option either. Additionally, owner Matt Ishbia has ruled out dismantling the club and starting over. Realistically, the Suns only have three pieces for a blockbuster trade right now (Green, Booker, Bridges). The rest require the club to wait until after the season is effectively over.
Conclusion
The Suns are, for lack of a better PG-13 word, screwed. Standing pat is unlikely to produce wins or make anyone in the locker room happy. Messing with the starting lineup probably won’t save the season and will cause some problems that are just as bad. Trading Bridges and Green is a classic case of buying high and selling low. A complete tear-down is both unlikely, and if it did happen it probably wouldn’t bring back a ton of draft capital.
Realistically, probably the best option on the board is seeing what they can get for Green at the PG or PF spot. If they get a PF, Gillespie starts, and either Bridges or Brooks goes to the bench (I’d suggest Brooks). If they trade for a PG, he’s likely to start. As for the eye test, watching Green on offense makes my teeth hurt the instant the ball touches his hands. It’s either going to be a turnover or 1 v. 5 hero ball most of the time. He’s slow at making reads and really can’t run the point. The data suggests he’s the root cause of the Suns’ woes as well: DataBallr shows pretty conclusively that playing next to Green is dragging Booker down across the board, and is most likely the root cause of the Suns’ early-season woes.
About the only solace Suns fans can take in any of this is that at least they’re not the Kings.
