Isaiah Thomas willing to sacrifice minutes for playoffs

“Three-headed monster” was the most buzzed about phrase at Suns Media Day on Monday. Of course, that is referring to the Suns trifecta of point guards: Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe.

During the summer, the Suns front office decided to make the strength of the team from last year even stronger when it brought on Thomas, a 20 points per game scorer from Sacramento. Teaming Thomas with Dragic and Bledsoe just about guarantees that teams will have to face at least one starting caliber point guard for all 48 minutes of every game — and for much of them, two starting caliber points.

“You hear the three-headed monster about big guys all the time, well, maybe we got the three-headed monster in the guards,” Suns coach Jeff Hornacek said during Thomas’ introductory press conference. “When we look at it, there’s going to be two of those guys on the court at all times. Teams are going to have to plan for that.”

The potential is there to give opposing coaches nightmares. There will not be many teams that can run out a 20-point scorer off their bench, which could make the Suns the best second quarter team in basketball this season.

There is a lot of intrigue over what this three-headed monster can do for the Suns this season. One thing that is being overlooked though is the potential for one of the three players to not receive an adequate number of minutes.

Don’t forget, the Suns also have Gerald Green, Archie Goodwin, Zoran Dragic and Tyler Ennis at the guard positions. They won’t be able to just stick with those three guys all 48 minutes. Thomas knows there’s the possibility of not getting enough minutes this season.

“You can be worried, just because you never know what can happen,” Thomas said Monday. “You have never seen three talented guards on the same team, so that is coach’s problem. He has to figure out how to play us.

“At the same time I am excited about the new chapter of my life. I love competition and love competing, and at the end of the day that is what it’s going to be about, getting better and taking this team to the next step and that’s the playoffs.”

More from Valley of the Suns

Thomas averaged 34.7 minutes per game with the Kings last year, which is a minute fewer than Dragic and two minutes more than Bledsoe. Combine them and it goes over the 96 minutes allotted to the two guard positions per game. Someone’s minutes, if not the minutes of all three, will get cut this season.

Does Thomas have any regrets about his decision to sign with the Suns? His answer was honest and upfront; it is dependent on how the season flows.

“You never know until the games really start,” Thomas said. “You never know you made the right decision until the season gets going.

“It can be fun and games in the offseason, but you gotta put it all out on the floor when the games start. Once the season starts I can get a feel for if I made the right decision or not.”

What makes the former Kings guard confident that this experiment will work out is the way all three guards mesh together. The naysayers are at it again this summer, after all. The skepticism from last year’s attempt at going with Bledsoe and Dragic is popping up again this summer.

“If I go back from last year, everybody was asking how me and Eric are going to play together and nobody knew, including me,” Dragic said. “We play well together. I’m expecting it to be the same with Isaiah. I think that’s a good thing to have three guards.”

Though DeMarcus Cousins took a shot — be it playful or not — at Thomas’ ball-dominating nature, Thomas believes neither one of the three is ball dependent. He, Dragic and Bledsoe can all feed off each other.

“I can play different ways,” Thomas said. “I can have the ball, not have the ball, it doesn’t really matter to me. I can make adjustments no matter who I am on the floor with and that is the plus of this all I think.”

The success of the three-headed monster is going to be mostly dependent on the three point guards sacrifices for the team. With Thomas, that won’t be a problem. He made one thing clear over and over again on Monday. He just wants to win.

“Playing against these guys four times a year, these guys love playing with each other and they always play for each other,” Thomas said. “I just want to do anything possible to take this team to the next level, and that is the playoffs.”

Home/Suns News