Phoenix Suns: 10 Takeaways From The 2014-15 Season (Part 1)

Gerald Bourguet

Feb 23, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Phoenix Suns guard Brandon Knight (3) reacts against the Boston Celtics at US Airways Center. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The Phoenix Suns’ 2014-15 season mercifully came to its conclusion Tuesday night. Closing out the season with a home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Phoenix played with only eight healthy players and finished the season with a 39-43 record.

Though that mark would’ve been good enough for the eighth playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, it placed the Suns at 10th in the brutal West, just a year after Goran Dragic led a group of young role players to 48 wins and nearly a postseason berth too.

10. T.J. Warren Shows Promise

You could apply this to Archie Goodwin as well, but anyone who’s familiar with the team has been craving for him to get minutes since last season. Rookie T.J. Warren, on the other hand, really sort of came out of nowhere. Everyone knew he could score in college, but would that nose for the basket translate to the NBA?

To spare you the suspense, yes, it did. His final season averages of 6.1 points and 2.1 rebounds per game don’t leap off the page, but considering he only played 15.4 minutes a night and shot an extremely efficient 52.8 percent from the floor, the signs are promising for this 21-year-old.

On such an iso-heavy offense (more on this in a bit), Warren was a breath of fresh air because of the simple things he did like cutting and moving without the ball. In that respect, the Suns rookie displayed more offensive know-how than half the roster, which can either be interpreted as great news for Warren’s individual potential or really disappointing news for the Suns’ offense in general.

Either way, Warren’s nose for the basket seems to be as fine-tuned as ever. His floater is lightyears ahead of players his age and he knows how to finish around and under the rim — a very helpful tool considering a lot of Warren’s cutting led him to right beneath the basket.

That’s not all Warren can do, however. Though he still struggles from time to time with help defense, as most rookies do, Warren usually held his own when it came to on-the-ball defense. He’s a smart player who knows how to read the opposition and has enough athleticism to make plays when the situation calls for one:

Warren is also showing promise with his ability to read the ball on the offensive end of the floor. Cutting to the open spot is one thing, but finding your teammates for open looks is another. On this read to Archie Goodwin, Warren draws the defense in and hits Goodwin with a spot-on bounce pass that leads to a monstrous dunk.

If you’re a Suns fan, these kinds of highlight plays, though limited, are what will get you through the disappointment of missing the playoffs again. The future is coming, and it looks good.

Next: No. 9

9. Summer Plans Hinge On Brandon Knight‘s Free Agency

The Suns have cap space heading into the offseason. They also have five free agents — Brandon Knight, Brandan Wright, Gerald Green, Marcus Thornton and Earl Barron — that theoretically could be re-signed. Barron will fill up the end of the rotation if the Suns need him to, but Thornton and possibly even Green will be moving on to new teams.

That leaves the Suns to decide what to do with Brandon and Brandan — a restricted free agent and an unrestricted free agent. Knight, 23, was the best player on the Milwaukee Bucks for the first half of the season, averaging an impressive 17.8 points, 5.4 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game while shooting nearly 41 percent from three-point range.

But after ~~panic-~~trading Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas, the Suns were putting a lot of faith in Brandon Knight — guy the Suns gave up a very valuable pick for. Unfortunately, Knight’s time in Phoenix was a bit of a disappointment. He only played 11 games, suffered an ankle injury and his numbers dropped to 13.4 points, 4.5 assists and 2.1 rebounds per game on 35.7 percent shooting (31.3 percent from downtown).

So Brandon Knight is going to finish with 11 games, 16 games missed, and an eFG% of 43%. Not quite an inspiring start to his Suns tenure
— Scott Howard (@ScottHoward42) April 6, 2015

The question is, should the Suns re-sign him? The limited sample size we saw of Knight with Bledsoe wasn’t revelatory and it could cost anywhere from $10-14 million per year to keep Knight in Phoenix.

That’s not to say there weren’t signs of potential, however. Eleven games is an extremely small sample size and Knight is still very young. The Suns desperately need the perimeter shooting he could provide and in games like Phoenix’s road contest against the Orlando Magic, Knight got out in transition and ignited a few fast breaks:

Knight’s best game, ironically enough, was against the Golden State Warriors in a home contest where he looked as comfortable as he had during his entire tenure with the Suns before rolling that ankle in the second quarter.

Both parties have said all the right things about wanting to Knight to re-sign in Phoenix. Suns general manager Ryan McDonough said the team wants to keep both Knight and Wright this summer.

“I’ll be careful what I say or how I say it about Brandon Knight given how Eric Bledsoe’s contract situation went last year, but we like him as a player, we like him as a person, we do have an interest in bringing he and Brandan Wright — both of them — back here to Phoenix,” McDonough said. “We hope they feel the same way and we think they do.”

Knight spoke similarly, saying he needed to do what’s best for him and his family but that he believes he can fit in with this team moving forward.

“I’m optimistic about the situation,” he said. “I like it here and I like the way I’ve been treated so far, it’s a top-class organization and I’m looking forward to a future with the Suns.”

As we learned last year, restricted free agency can be a tricky proposition. But it feels like things will go much smoother this time around — mostly because, for better or worse, the Suns are prepared to pay up to keep Knight as a long-term piece of the core.

Next: No. 8

8. Alex Len Could Be A Franchise Center

It seems like a lifetime ago that Miles Plumlee was an NBA starting center, but at the beginning of the 2014-15 season, he was holding down that position for the Phoenix Suns. Don’t laugh. It’s true.

In his rookie season, Len started the year recovering from offseason ankle surgeries. Then he injured his knee, and he finished the year only playing 42 games with forgettable averages of 2.0 points, 2.4 rebounds and 0.4 blocks in 8.4 minutes per game.

During the summer leading up to the 2014-15 season, it seemed like Len was the prototypical injury-prone big man that every NBA team has nightmares about drafting. He broke his pinkie finger in his first Summer League game and Suns fans braced themselves for another season of not getting the chance to see what he could do.

We were wrong.

It took longer than many thought it should have, but Len eventually overtook Plumlee for the starting spot. It was only a matter of time until that happened, but Len accelerated the process with excellent shot-blocking and a surprisingly smooth midrange touch on the offensive end.

Len finished the season averaging 6.3 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 22 minutes per game. Those numbers aren’t exactly Rudy Gobert-esque, but Len raised his field goal percentage to 50.7 percent, he shot 70 percent from the foul line and he anchored a defense that was surprisingly competent with him in the middle.

Improving his rebounding will be a focus for this 21-year-old, but Len has his own list of areas for improvement:

"“Keep building on what I have right now, develop a post game and just keep getting stronger, pay attention to the little things.”"

Len would also do well to avoid getting in foul trouble so he can actually stay on the floor. But in the injury department, other than an unfortunate ankle sprain and a broken nose — two freak incidents — Len was able to stay on the floor health-wise, playing in 69 games.

Is it possible the Suns have a franchise center on their hands here?

It’s too early to say for sure, but my inclination would be “yes.”

To be clear, by “franchise center,” I’m not talking Hakeem Olajuwon or David Robinson here. But when was the last time a contender won a title with their best player being a center anyway? Shaquille O’Neal and the Los Angeles Lakers? I guess you could argue Kevin Garnett on the Boston Celtics, but the fact remains that dominant offensive big men don’t particularly lead teams to championships anymore.

What does help a team win championships is a big man who can defend the rim, alter shots in the paint, pull down rebounds and finish near the basket. At 21 years old and 7’1″, there’s no reason to think Len can’t become that guy.

Though he’s not particularly athletic, Len makes up for it with his sheer size. And what’s scary is this kid is only going to get bigger and stronger.

Len still has a lot of areas for improvement, but as a starter this season, he averaged 6.9 points, 7.7 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game. Per NBA.com, Len held opponents to 53.1 percent shooting on shots from less than six feet. Just for reference, that narrowly edges what Anthony Davis, the NBA’s leading shot-blocker, gave up on such shots (53.2 percent).

To be fair, the Brow saw a much higher volume of shots given how many more minutes he played this season, but the point still stands: Len has the potential to be a game-changer on defense. For a young team that desperately needs to improve on that end, I’d say that makes Lensanity a huge part of this team moving forward.

Next: No. 7

7. Too Much Iso Offense

At one point in the season, the Phoenix Suns were one of the NBA’s top ranked offenses…despite being dead-last in assist percentage. How did they do it? It’s honestly baffling, but when Goran Dragic was spreading the floor with efficient shooting and Isaiah Thomas was doing his sixth man act off the bench, the Suns’ up-tempo playing style was tough to stop.

Unfortunately, once those two were sent packing, the Suns offense couldn’t sustain itself on that same playing style. The tempo slowed down, the fast break points tailed off and Phoenix went from having too many point guards to not having enough following Knight’s injury.

There were a number of factors that contributed to the death of the offense, but at the root of the problem is everyone just wanted to score. Bledsoe is a ball-dominant guard who looks to score first. Markieff Morris is an excellent face-up player with an array of one-on-one moves he can execute on just about any defender, but his shooting started to decline after the break.

Len has a decent midrange jumper, but between injuries, foul trouble and general growing pains, his offensive game was usually limited to easy dunks at the rim, which, again, didn’t come that often since the Suns didn’t move the ball well. Knight’s injury forced Marcus Morris, more of a bench scorer, into a starting spot and P.J. Tucker has never really been much of an offensive weapon.

At that point, the Suns’ best scoring options off the bench were rookie T.J. Warren, youngster Archie Goodwin and Gerald Green, who shot the damn ball every time he caught it. No wonder the Suns finished the season on a 1-10 skid and were the worst three-point shooting team after the All-Star break.

The three-point attacks of teams like the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks are deadly not only because they have so many good shooters, but also because their offense is predicated on ball movement that provides quality looks. The Suns didn’t get many of those this season, especially after the trade deadline.

Some of the blame has to go to head coach Jeff Hornacek, but things like moving without the ball and making the extra pass are things he emphasized all season long. It’s not exactly Hornacek’s fault his players failed to execute, and when they did, good things happened. Why do you think he singled out Warren’s movement off the ball so many times this year?

With Dragic gone and the ball in Bledsoe’s hand more often, the Suns pushed the tempo less frequently and committed a higher number of turnovers, something Bledsoe himself acknowledged as an area of improvement for his game. For the offense to find its groove again next season, that ball needs to move far more than it did in 2014-15.

Next: No. 6

6. Suns Could’t Close Out Games

One of the first things McDonough acknowledged about the season was the Suns didn’t take advantage of their schedule early in the season, losing games at home to teams under .500 that just never should have happened. Once the schedule heated up in the home stretch, the roster drastically changed and the injury plague rained down from above. It’s no wonder the final weeks were so brutal.

In games decided by three points or fewer, the Suns tied the Indiana Pacers with the most losses in the NBA (12). Both teams were 4-12 in such contests, but the Suns also recorded four losses in overtime. Every night, it seemed like this team found new ways to blow close games, but every time it was just as painful to watch.

If you’re looking for the real playoff killers, you can point to all the heartbreaking buzzer-beaters as well. It started with a Blake Griffin step-back three in overtime. The Suns had hung tough and needed one stop to close the game. Despite P.J. Tucker’s best efforts, the Flyin’ Lion made the ugliest buzzer-beater you’ll ever see:

I mean, come on. That ball was on a straight line to the rim, hit it head on, bounced straight up, grazed the backboard and somehow fell in. That thing was ugly up until the moment it wasn’t. But only a week later, the Suns were burned by yet another buzzer-beater that left everyone shaking their heads:

Khris Middleton and the Milwaukee Bucks went on to have quite a nice season, but really? A leaning three-pointer out of a spin move? Off the backboard and rolling around the rim before dropping in?

The defense on that possession wasn’t great, and Middleton hit another game-winner from that very position against Dragic and the Miami Heat later in the season, but at least that one was pure. This one was just plain unlucky.

Luck had nothing to do with the third buzzer-beater drained in Phoenix’s mug, though. We’ll get to this team’s areas of need in Part 2, but it’s no secret the Suns don’t have a superstar who can carry the load when his team needs it. The Houston Rockets do, and the Suns got a good look at what one looks like when James Harden broke Tucker’s ankles and calmly drilled a step-back jumper over Isaiah Thomas:

That’s three winnable games the Suns dropped because they couldn’t close out the game with a stop, but there’s still more! And unfortunately, this one might have been the most brutal, one of the final nails in Phoenix’s playoff coffin.

For whatever reason, DeMarcus Cousins and the Sacramento Kings have been crap-team kryptonite to the Suns over the last few years, and this season was no different. Needing a road win to keep their postseason hopes afloat, the Suns went home empty-handed and broken-hearted after Boogie got a lucky bounce to sink them at the horn:

To be fair, that was a brilliant shot fake to get Markieff Morris up into the air and clear enough separation for the game-winner, but…wow. That ball hit the back of the iron, bounced up, hit the front of the rim, bounced backwards on the iron and somehow found the net. Unreal. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

At this point in the season, the Suns were only playing for pride. They fought hard against the Golden State Warriors — the league’s best team — in a building where only two visiting teams won in 41 tries this year. In a back-and-forth final minute, Bledsoe’s reverse layup out of an inbounds play gave Phoenix the lead with 4.5 seconds to go.

That’s when Harrison Barnes put the icing on the cake for this depressing Suns season, as yet another bounce failed to go the Suns’ way.

But hey, since he made that shot with 0.4 seconds left on the clock, at least this one wasn’t a buzzer-beater, right?

Buzzer-beaters and game-winners are a part of what makes the game of basketball so wonderful and exciting. But nobody had five losses on go-ahead shots in the final five seconds of regulation or overtime like the Suns did (the next closest was three).

You can only complain so much. The Suns need to be mentally tougher and make plays happen on the defensive end to close out games. You can also argue that those games never should have come down to one possession. But close games are inevitable, and Phoenix usually failed to finish them on an encouraging note.

For such a young team, that’s to be expected. But to this degree, it was just plain demoralizing, and with all those unlucky bounces, you’ve got to cut this team a little bit of slack. Not many teams can say five game-winners kept them out of the playoffs, after all.

Look for Part 2 tomorrow. Until then, try to avoid slipping back into depression by watching those buzzer-beaters too many times.

Next: Phoenix Suns: 10 Takeaways From The 2014-15 Season (Part 2)

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Gerald Bourguet