Your weekly Inside the Suns analysis straight from the BSotS community who live and breathe the team.
Welcome to ‘Inside the Suns’, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.
Each week the Fantable – a round table of Bright Siders – give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.
Fantable Questions of the Week
Q1 – What is your opinion of Bradley Beal and his recent play?
GuarGuar: I think Beal has taken more of a facilitator role the past few weeks and it’s been good for the team. He’s not our best facilitator but he’s serviceable enough. We want Book and KD being our main scorers. Biggest thing for Brad come playoff time will be health and his ability to knock down the 3 ball. He’s been very streaky with his 3 point shooting and we’re going to need him to be solid come April.
OldAz: I love his energy, effort and accountability. His recent play, to me, has been characterized by more ball handling, but less shooting and more assists. This has been a welcome sight because he can also still hit the open shot and the Suns simply play worlds better when they are intentional with the ball movement. So very glad the finger issue from San Antonio did not cause him to miss more games.
Brrrberry: Beal has been decent. Obviously I can respect the reported (and displayed) aspects of him “sacrificing” for the team and focusing on distributing the ball and buckling down on defense. That said, I’d sacrifice too if I was making more than $1 mil every time I stepped on the floor at Footprint Center. So I’m not ready to bestow the proverbial flowers upon him at this point. Bottom line is whatever Beal, Book and KD have been providing as a collective whole has been subpar. The loss to the Spurs the other night was just flat out inexcusable and Beal played a stinker.
I’m glad that everyone is healthy and will be watching closely the rest of the season hoping for some type of playoff run that’s never been seen, but I’m not holding my breath. Beal really stepping up and earning his pay is going to be paramount to anything spectacular that this team would accomplish so I’ll be rooting for him.
Rod: I think he’s done a very good job of adapting to the point guard role and we’ve lately been seeing what Frank envisioned before the season started. It’s unfortunate that it’s taken so long for this to develop but that’s part of the toll of the early season injuries Beal had to deal with. To me, one of the biggest what if’s of this season is what if Beal hadn’t gotten injured early and had plenty of time early on to work out his role on the team.
Q2 – Lately NBA refs have been more lenient with defenders and called fewer shooting fouls resulting in fewer trips to the FT line. Do you believe this works more for the Suns or against them?
GuarGuar: I think this is pretty neutral on us to be honest. On one hand it allows us to compensate for our lack of elite defenders with the ability to play with more physicality. On the other hand it allows defenses to have more of a chance guarding our Big 3 every night. Overall I think it might be a slight net positive because we don’t have many foul baiters on our team.
OldAz: I think this is either neutral or a benefit, AS LONG AS the Suns don’t get caught up complaining when they feel like the refs are missing the calls. To me the only issue is that the whistle is consistent for both teams on the court. If that happens, and the Suns don’t spend too much time complaining then I think it ends up being a net positive because the Big 3 don’t hunt for fouls and contact as much as many other star players.
Brrrberry: Hard to tell, my initial inclinations are that it helps them because we’ve always been on the wrong end of ticky tack junk calls by referees. The 2021 finals was an absolute joke. That said, this iteration of the Suns had been getting to the line quite a bit earlier in the season and using the free throw line to their advantage. Ultimately I’m not all that inclined to wonder either way as simply enough I’m supportive of allowing a little defense to be played and not giving such an innate advantage to the offensive player. The ticky tack fouls destroy the integrity of the game imo so not encouraging copious amounts of fail baiting is good for the game.
Rod: Offensively, I think it works against Phoenix as Book and KD tend to look for contact and get to the FT line as part of their games – especially when their shots aren’t falling. In November, KD was averaging 8.8 free throw attempts per game, in March that’s down to just 4.5 FTAs. Book was averaging 8.2 back then but it’s now down to just 4.7 per game. As a team, the Suns were averaging 27.9 FTAs and leading the NBA in attempts in November but now they’re down to just 17.5 and 26th in March. Obviously, both Book and KD need to adjust and start hunting sure baskets before contact now but it could take a while to adjust.
Defensively, you have to consider it at least a small positive if the refs are a little more hesitant in blowing the whistle but that applies to every team.
Q3 – With most of the regular season behind us, what have been some of the most pleasant surprises you’ve observed from the Suns/Suns players?
GuarGuar: Grayson has by far been the biggest surprise for me this year. He’s having a historic shooting season and he’s bought into his role completely. He’s an enormous part of our squad. I really hope we retain him this summer.
Bol has also been a very pleasant surprise for me. I didn’t think he would pan out in the way that he has. He’s been a legit NBA rotation piece for us and has that game changing effect when he’s subbed into the games. We’re at the point where honestly I’d like to see him get a couple more minutes than he’s currently at.
OldAz: I intentionally waited till after the Nuggets game to answer this so that I was not too salty after the Spurs game. Despite the great win Wednesday it is still slim picking to find “ pleasant” surprises. Unless I am simply misremembering, I like the DA deal more than a lot of people despite my appreciation for DA. That was because I liked the edge and shooting of Allen and felt like Nurkic would make up on offense for what was lost on defense. Among these Nurkic staying mostly healthy (knock on all the wood you can find) and him being even better than I expected is a pleasant surprise.
Beyond that, the biggest pleasant surprise has to be Bol Bol. I really did believe he was just a sideshow and was not capable of playing within the team game. I am happy to be so wrong and now look forward to his minutes and even join those calling for him to get more minutes down the stretch.
Brrrberry: Nurk and GA are the only two guys that have provided pleasant amounts of surprise. They’ve both been consistent rocks night in and out and have unequivocally earned their pay from my perspective. I really hope both of them are here for a few more seasons. Both good culture guys and each of them can flat out play. I’m aware they have limitations but role players who earn their pay are super valuable and that’s obviously these team doesn’t have quite enough of, or at least our record would indicate as much.
Rod: As much as injuries have hurt the Suns this season, the fact that KD (65 games) and Nurk (68 games) have stayed so healthy and played in the majority of our games has been one of the pleasant surprises. Grayson Allen’s all around contributions has been another. I wasn’t high on the Bol Bol signing at first but he’s turned into a pretty solid rotation player. James Jones also engineered a pleasant surprise at mid-season by somehow turning 4 marginal value minimum wage players and a few 2nd round draft picks into Royce O’Neale (as well as David Roddy) who has been quite valuable to the team.
And after last night’s win in Denver, I’m adding Thad Young to this list. With Nurk out, Thad played a strong – and smart – 18 minutes as the Suns’ backup center. If he can keep playing as he did last night, I could see Vogel moving him ahead of Eubanks in the Suns’ player rotation… especially when the playoffs begin.
As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!
Last Week’s poll results
Last week’s question was, “The Suns signing IT to a 10-day contract is…”
54% – A smart gamble.
46% – A wishful thinking/desperation move.
A total of 126 votes were cast.
Suns Trivia
While turnovers have often been at least partially blamed for many of the Suns’ losses this season, the Suns average only 1 more turnover per game in losses (15.5) than in wins (14.5).
This week’s poll is…