Phoenix Suns Must Choose Direction in Path Back to NBA Relevancy
After failing to maintain their status as the NBA's foremost darling for the 2014-15 season, the Phoenix Suns now press on into 2015-16 looking for another shot at redemption.
This is to say they're still seeking a Western Conference playoff berth.
Thirty-nine victories dragged them six games outside the 2015 playoff picture, and the path back to above-.500 basketball won't be easy. The West, for starters, is still a categorical bloodbath. More than that, the Suns have work to do.
This undertaking will continue largely without Lon Babby, who will step down as the Suns' president of basketball operations, according to the Arizona Republic's Paul Coro. Though Babby will remain with the team in a part time advisory role, general manager Ryan McDonough will now assume his responsibilities and is thus in complete control of what happens next.
It's up to him more than anyone else to make the Suns relevant again.
Mapping out this work is a matter of tackling their biggest weaknesses, greatest needs and what it will take to hang with the rest of West. Focus will not be on the draft and the No. 13 pick the Suns are carting. Playoff squads aren't seldom dependent on incoming rookies to push them over the top. That pick is a complementary tool.
Free agency, in-house development and the Western Conference landscape will be the primary factors by which we will evaluate the Suns instead. The goal, as always, is to be realistic. This is not a guide to transforming the Suns into galloping giants who lord over everyone else.
It's a step-by-step program designed to give them a puncher's chance at doing what they could not last season.
Step 1: Sign a Proven Wing
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Small forward is going to be an issue for the Suns as of now.
Gerald Green is a free agent, and Phoenix won't clinch any playoff spots in the Western Conference trotting out some combination of Reggie Bullock, Archie Goodwin, P.J. Tucker and T.J. Warren as their primary wings.
The Suns need more established firepower—an additional weapon they can afford.
If they renounce the rights to free agents Marcus Thornton, Brandan Wright and Green, the Suns can carve out $10-plus million in cap space, per Basketball Insiders. That immediately inserts them into the conversation for some of this summer's most-coveted wings.
Restricted free agent Tobias Harris could prove too expensive outside a sign-and-trade with the Orlando Magic, but giving chase to Arron Afflalo, DeMarre Carroll, Danny Green and Wesley Matthews isn't out of the question.
Any one of those names offers potential as a swingman who can function within a high-octane offense. The Suns ranked third in pace during the regular season and cannot afford to break bread with those who won't keep up or add value as a catch-and-shoot assassin in transition.
Plus, the Suns aren't flush with three-and-D specialists. They ranked 17th in points allowed per 100 possessions last season and are now due for an upgrade over Green, lest their perimeter defense continue to crumble under the weight of running undersized lineups.
Step 2: Grab a Rim Protector
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Rim protectors don't grow on trees, which is a darn shame.
Alex Len is the only true center on the roster right now, and the Suns hovered near the bottom 10 of restricted area protection last season. Big men are good anchors for defenses in general; with the league getting away from high-scoring centers, towers have become the ultimate defensive specialists.
Finding a shot-blocker to spell Len will be difficult—doubly so if the Suns to decide to allocate most of their flexibility to filling out the wing. (Which they should.)
Still, Brandan Wright might be willing to return at a rate similar to the $5 million he earned for 2014-15. Ed Davis would also be a name to watch here. He's due for a raise from the sub-$1 million salary he collected with the Los Angeles Lakers last season, but his value isn't so high that it will price him out of Phoenix's range.
And if the Suns can sell him on a consistent backup role, he would be an instant boon for their defense. He can keep pace with players who leak out in transition, and opponents shot 5.6 percentage points below their season average when going up against him inside six feet of the hoop.
Beyond Davis, the Suns can take a look at low-end guys such as Cole Aldrich, Samuel Dalembert and Joel Anthony. Drafting a big at No. 13—Myles Turner, Trey Lyles, etc.—is also an option.
Anyone who can inject some girth into the Suns' size-starved frontcourt rotation on the cheap needs to be in play.
Step 3: Re-Sign Brandon Knight
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This is not a slight on Brandon Knight's importance to Phoenix's future. It's just business.
By holding off on re-signing Knight, the Suns do risk him inking an offer sheet with another team. But they also diminish his cap hit. He'll account for just $8.9 million of Phoenix's salary commitments until he puts pen to paper on another deal, a number that falls a good $2 to $4 million, maybe more, below what he'll actually fetch annually.
Really, though, it doesn't matter how or when the Suns do it. They need to retain Knight. Both Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas are playing elsewhere, and the Suns forfeited their rights to the Lakers' top-three protected first-round pick in 2016 to get him.
Letting him walk, then, is not an option. Especially when he, unlike a certain someone with a Slovenian accent who now plays for the Miami Heat, is intrigued by the idea of sharing a backcourt with Eric Bledsoe.
"I enjoy playing with Eric because he's such a great talent, and he's not a selfish player," Knight said while on SiriusXM Radio, per Bright Side Of The Sun's Dave King. "'He's very, very unselfish. He's just trying to make the right play, trying to win."
Knight is an ideal partner for Bledsoe as far as point guard dyads go. He can get up and down the floor in a hurry and doesn't need the ball in his hands to be effective; he found nylon on 39.3 percent of his spot-up missiles last season.
Keeping him will cost north of $10 million annually, and his dip in offensive production through the 11 games he played for the Suns could be permanent. But the Suns need someone with his talent and off-ball potential to help Bledsoe pilot what has to be a top-flight offense.
Step 4: Unleash Alex Len
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Suns head honcho Jeff Hornacek turned to Alex Len more and more as the 2014-15 campaign progressed, a trend he cannot afford to buck now.
Len is admittedly still a project. He can be uncoordinated on the offensive end, and his propensity to camp out under the basket, remaining idle, often gums up the Suns' dribble penetration and drive-and-kick opportunities.
But he's still learning, and there's a plan in place for him to expand his offensive range so that Phoenix has more room to operate. As Suns.com's Matt Petersen writes:
"Len shows a remarkably feathery touch on his jump shot, but his accuracy was far more inconsistent than his form indicates. Per NBA.com, Len shot just 31.9 percent from mid-range this season.
That number could skyrocket with some confidence, which Hornacek is trying to instill in his young big man. He wants him to shoot the open jumper, especially if Markieff Morris is drawing a lot of low-post attention.
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The polish that Len lacks on the offensive end is something he makes up for defensively. Although opposing centers posted a player efficiency rating of 18.2 against him last season, according to 82games.com, he remains the team's lone rim protector.
Rival scorers shot 5.3 percentage points below their season average inside 10 feet of the hoop when he was in the vicinity. They were an even worse minus-6.4 when testing him within six feet.
That's fortitude the Suns can look to build around. Len is deceptively quick for a 7'1" behemoth and makes nice reads on dribble drivers when he's not forced outside the paint to guard a fellow center with perimeter chops.
Promising still, Len has shown he can fill up the box score. He was one of only four qualified players to average at least 10 points, 10 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per 36 minutes. The other three: Anthony Davis, Tim Duncan and Rudy Gobert.
More growing pains are on the horizon, to be sure. Len isn't yet 22 years old and has never averaged more than 22 minutes per game. He won't enter next season to All-Star candidacy, and the Suns cannot expect him to have the interior impact of a Gobert.
Even so, he's their best and only chance at fielding a defense stingy enough to remain in the playoff hunt.
Step 5: Remain Patient, Accept Reality and Manage Expectations
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It's time to get super real: The Suns are trying to scale a mountain.
Surviving in the Western Conference is no easy task. Likewise, clinching a playoff berth is no easy feat. The Suns may have, in fact, already squandered their best chance at nabbing a postseason berth.
Last season saw the Oklahoma City Thunder falter amid injuries, opening the door to that brutal race for the No. 8 seed. There will be no such luxury, no such open door, in 2015-16.
Next season will see the Thunder at full strength. It will feature a New Orleans Pelicans squad headlined by an alien life form in Davis, one who will be another year older, wiser and better equipped to obliterate mankind as we know it.
And then there are the pesky Utah Jazz. They posted the league's—not just the West's, but the league's—fourth-best net rating between the trade deadline and season's end. They'll be competing for a playoff bid too.
Meanwhile, the top-seven teams aren't going anywhere, and the Lakers themselves could strike free-agency gold. The Denver Nuggets could even do that thing where they get good despite everyone else believing they're bad.
At most, the Suns will be left competing for a low-end, seventh- or eighth-seeded playoff spot. And that's something they'll need to not only understand, but embrace.
As King underscored for Bright Side of the Sun:
"These Suns are basically the Rockets of three years ago, just before acquiring James Harden to break the treadmill. I know we've used the Rockets as example before, but every month that goes by is more and more like that Rockets progression. They refused to tank, with three straight just-about-500 seasons after Yao Ming got hurt, while Morey accumulated enough first round picks on the roster to trade away a few while still keeping the team quite young.
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Until that big break comes, either via the trade market or by way of in-house development, the Suns have to manage expectations. They won't be contending for any championships next season. They're looking at finishing third in their division once again.
Grabbing one of those last two playoff spots has to be enough motivation for them to find that balance between rebuilding and playing for now without blowing up the roster and reversing course as they did last season.
Otherwise, an encore of last season, and the failed playoff bid it included, is what they'll get.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
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