Lowlights:
The biggest lowlight of Brandon Knight’s season came when he was first moved to the Phoenix Suns. Here was the best player on a playoff team who had suddenly been shipped away because the front office didn’t want to pay up for him this summer.
At that point, he was joining an unhappy locker room that had seen plenty of chemistry problems and was falling out of the Western Conference playoff picture. He went from being the guy in charge to the guy learning how to play off the ball. For such a young player, that trade was a nasty reminder that the NBA is a business.
But as far as his actual time with the Suns goes, it was a rocky adjustment for Knight, even if he was relatively efficient in his first couple of games. In a blowout loss against the San Antonio Spurs on Feb. 28, however, Knight couldn’t help his team shake off the offensive doldrums, going 0-for-6 from the floor.
Against the Miami Heat a few days later, Knight did little to reassure fans that the Suns had upgraded from Goran Dragic, going 3-for-12 from the floor in another blowout loss, this time in a head-to-head contest with the Dragon.
The biggest lowlight of Knight’s time with the Suns, however, was obviously his game against the Golden State Warriors on Mar. 9. It was the first time Knight actually looked comfortable in a Phoenix jersey. In fact, he was the best player on the Suns through two quarters, putting up 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 13 minutes.
But on a drive to the basket in the second quarter, Knight sprained his ankle. For the rest of the season, he logged a grand total of 22 minutes before tweaking his ankle again against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Mar. 29. Knight missed 16 of 17 games after his initial injury, and in the one game he played, he went 1-for-10 from the floor and 0-for-6 from downtown.
It’s pretty clear Knight’s confidence was hindered as he tried to adjust to his new role, and his shooting percentages suffered for it. The timing of that injury, right when Knight was finally starting to figure things out, couldn’t have been worse for him or for the Suns.
“I feel bad that he got injured, especially when he did, it wasn’t great for him, it wasn’t great for us,” general manager Ryan McDonough said. “Injuries happen, they’re a part of the game, it just stinks for him and for us when he was heading into free agency and with our team after that trade deadline.”
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