How Should Phoenix Suns Properly Deploy Their Massive Firepower?
Locking up Eric Bledsoe is just the beginning.
After a summer of stalemates, during which time collective progression and outlook gave way to Bledsoe's ambiguous future, there's new business the Phoenix Suns must tend to: putting their contemporary mix of offensive firepower to good use.
Wrapping up the Bledsoe situation has created a host of pressing issues. The 24-year-old point man will return to Phoenix on a five-year, $70 million deal that doesn't include any player or team options, according to Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.
It's the outcome everyone was expecting months ago, long before the relationship between player and team was being tested, when Phoenix was finishing up a surprising and refreshing 48-win campaign. It's the outcome the Suns—contract value notwithstanding—wanted.
And, most importantly, it's the outcome they must cater to moving forward.
Point Guards Abound
Bledsoe's return—along with Zoran Dragic's arrival, per Sportando—furthers the Suns' backcourt-heavy attack. Isaiah Thomas is now joining Bledsoe and Goran Dragic instead of replacing the former, tightly tying Phoenix's fate to its dual-point guard movement.
That's where it all starts for the Suns. They haven't been shy about it either.
"What we ultimately decided is: This is the strength of our team," head coach Jeff Hornacek told AZCentral's Bob Young of the Suns' decision to draft Tyler Ennis and bring in Thomas. "Let's bolster it instead of going in a different direction."
Last season gave the Suns absolutely no reason to change course. Injuries limited Bledsoe to 43 appearances, but his partnership with Dragic was unquestionably effective. The Suns outscored opponents by an average of 11 points per 100 possessions when both were on the floor. Their offense was the equivalent of fourth best in the league, their defense the equivalent of second best.
All of which makes the backcourt structure too important to warp. They'll continue to run things through their point guards, rarely deviating from last year's blueprint.
Dragic and Bledsoe were first and second in usage rate for the Suns. Almost 72 percent of Dragic's made baskets came unassisted last year; more than 81 percent of Bledsoe's converted shots were self-created.
The ball was always in one of their hands. They were the offensive lifelines. Using screens and tight handles, they picked apart opposing defenses, creating space, getting into the paint, reaching the rim, shooting from everywhere and anywhere.
Thomas only makes that dynamic easier to maintain.
If minutes are distributed properly, the Suns should seldom be without two floor generals policing the hardwood simultaneously. Thomas should instantly sneak into the top three of Phoenix's individual usage rates, quarterbacking the second unit while rarely playing without one of Bledsoe or Dragic.
Balancing out the rest of the offense is where things could get difficult.
Offensive Oddities
There is no shortage of mouths to feed in Phoenix.
Markieff Morris, Marcus Morris, Gerald Green, Channing Frye and P.J. Tucker were all key offensive cogs last year. Frye's departure will lighten this option's overload somewhat, but when the Suns house three No. 1 scorers at point guard—each of whom posted usage rates north of 24 and took more than 12 shots per game last year—surrounding stagnancy is an ever-present danger.
Incorporating three ball-dominant playmakers into one rotation isn't something any other team is tasked with doing. This is a unique, borderline unheard-of situation.
Lucky for the Suns, then, last year's offense prepped them for such circumstances by being an anomaly.
Take a look at some of their offensive ranks from 2013-14:
| Offensive Efficiency | 8 |
| FG% | 8 |
| 3P% | 7 |
| APG | 29 |
| Passes Per Game | 24 |
| Pace | 8 |
Basically, the Suns were weird. They boasted one of the fastest, most efficient offenses, yet their ball movement pinned them alongside point-totaling bottom-feeders like the Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers and Utah Jazz.
What gives?
Matt Moore of CBS Sports broke down the answer nicely while dissecting Phoenix's offensive structure:
"So the Suns spaced the floor, but mostly they used pick and roll to create their shots. The interesting part of this is that it wasn't that the Suns were elite shooters overall or that they created a huge amount, comparatively, of spot-up shots. Again, they were 20th in catch-and-shoot possessions. And while they were 12th in the league in field goal percentage on those catch-and-shoot looks, it wasn't some crazy percentage.
But, they took mostly threes on spot-up shots and on their pull-up jumpers. It wasn't that the Suns created a super-high volume of threes or that they shot the lights out. It's that they hit the shots that were crucial for them to make.
"
Translation: The Suns' offensive distribution model is built to meet the demands at hand.
More than 17.3 percent of the Suns' possessions ended with spot-up opportunities last season, and more than 70 percent of their spot-up attempts were three-pointers, according to Synergy Sports (subscription required). And while they ranked eighth in isolation efficiency, their offense wasn't overrun with iso-heavy scorers.
Isolation sets were reserved for Bledsoe and Dragic. Only one of the Suns' top-five scorers after them—Morris twins, Green, Frye and Tucker—operated within isolations more than 10 percent of the time. All of them, meanwhile, saw catch-and-shoot chances at least 14.5 percent of the time.
And that's because Dragic and Bledsoe weren't dominating the ball for their own benefit.
Attacking constantly collapsed defenses, forcing them off any one of the Suns' many shooters. Once defenders were drawn in, they kicked the rock out to Frye, Green, Tucker or one of the Morris twins.
Even without Frye, that identity isn't in jeopardy. Anthony Tolliver—Frye's replacement, so to speak—is predominately a standstill shooter. Nearly 64 percent of his shot attempts were standalone field goals in 2013-14. Almost 90 percent of those came from beyond the arc, of which he hit 40 percent.
Comforting still, the Suns employ point guards who don't need the ball in their hands.
Thomas and Dragic each banged in 37 percent of their spot-up threes last year. Bledsoe put in a less impressive, though still acceptable, 34 percent.
Having that versatility in the backcourt—where at least two of your primary point men, undersized and all, can act as off-ball shooting guards—is huge. It makes sustaining offensive balance easier.
It allows the Suns to pick up right where they left off.
Familiar Change
Employing an embarrassment of riches isn't always a good thing.
Sometimes it happens inadvertently. Sometimes teams are too ambitious and invest money and time in an impulsive, faulty direction.
Nothing even remotely similar applies to the Suns.
Like Bright Side Of The Sun's Dave King points out, there's nothing—from money to contract structures to personnel—accidental or desperate about what Phoenix is building:
"Make no mistake. Goran Dragic is in the team's plans as a starter for a very long time. When Goran Dragic and Bledsoe started together last year, the Suns were 23-11, so the Suns very much want to keep Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe together. And because the two made 44 starts together, they purposefully added Isaiah Thomas as a highly paid third guard to ensure the guard rotation is fresh and strong all season long.
"
Offensive transitions like these are easy, because they're not transitions at all. The Suns have long been about guards, dating back to the late 1990s, when they (briefly) trotted out three-guard lineups consisting of Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson and Rex Chapman.
Chemistry could be an obstacle early on as Hornacek experiments with comparably wacky lineups. Size will be another conflict the Suns must battle for those stretches—however brief—when Bledsoe, Thomas and Dragic share the floor.
Can the they outrun and outgun their opponents? Are they too short? Is their assortment of guards pesky enough to adequately defend perimeter assaults and therefore just enough to help protect the paint?
Those are all points of issue the Suns must consider and potentially address.
But in terms of adjusting and adapting to the personnel and skill sets at hand, there's no need to worry.
Implosion or failure is unlikely. The Suns know what they're doing.
It's something they've already done.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com, NBA.com and Synergy Sports unless otherwise cited.
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