Overview:
The 2014-15 season came with high expectations for the Phoenix Suns, a young team on the rise that had won 48 games the year prior. But with the trade deadline departures of Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas and three other players, the Suns lost one-third of their roster and fell apart soon after.
Still, the season was not a complete waste. Young players who needed more minutes finally got them, the core is intact moving forward and Phoenix will look to regroup in the offseason. But in order to put the season in context, it’s time to take a look back on 2014-15 and examine how everyone performed and how they fit in for the long-term.
Today, we continue our daily 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades with Brandon Knight, the biggest question mark heading into the offseason for the Suns.
Though Knight mostly struggled during his time with the Suns, was that due to a small sample size and an unavoidable adjustment period, or should the front office be concerned about how he pairs with Eric Bledsoe in the backcourt? Just how much did that ankle injury deprive us of seeing? And how should fans feel when the Suns re-sign him to a big contract this summer?
In order to find some answers, here’s a look back on his limited time with the Suns during the 2014-15 season.
Next: Weaknesses
Weaknesses:
Like many of the players we’ve covered in Phoenix Suns Player Grades so far, it’s hard to gauge Knight’s season because his time in Phoenix was so limited. He also deserves a bit more leeway because of the adjustment period that comes any time you trade a player, especially when you’re talking about a point guard who ran the show before joining a team where he had to adapt to playing off the ball.
That being said, the small sample size (11 games, nine as a starter) sure wasn’t pretty.
With the Milwaukee Bucks, Knight was nearly an All-Star. He averaged 17.8 points, 5.4 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game while shooting 43.5 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from downtown. In a Suns jersey, his numbers plummeted to 13.4 points, 4.5 assists, 2.1 rebounds and 0.5 steals per game while shooting 35.7 percent from the floor and 31.3 percent from deep.
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
Knight is well aware that it was a bit of a bumpy adjustment.
“I am a competitor and enjoy being on the court and enjoy playing,” he said. “Being new to this team I wanted to help make a playoff push, and not being able to contribute the way I know I can based on not being comfortable and being hurt was kind of unfortunate.”
When grading Knight’s time with the Suns, we can only be so harsh on a player who was reeling from a shocking trade while also trying to conform to a whole new role with a new set of teammates. The ankle injury threw his comfort levels even further out of whack.
But we can only be too lenient, at least for handing out a grade for this season, since the Suns went 4-7 in the 11 games he played. It’s slightly bothersome that he struggled so heavily, particularly with his shot, playing off the ball. Shouldn’t a 41 percent three-point shooter thrive in that kind of role?
Brandon Knight had 10 catch-and-shoot 3PAs last night (six of those were off passes from Bledsoe).
— Michael Gallagher (@MikeSGallagher) February 24, 2015
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The good news, however, is that even though Knight failed to adjust to playing off the ball, he’s not ready to give up on it just yet:
“It is about making the right play,” he said. “I don’t have an issue with it. Whoever’s hands the ball needs to be in, I am just about winning games.”
Next: Strengths
Strengths:
Knight mostly looked out of place in Phoenix, but that’s not to say he didn’t give the Suns anything positive to work with. In his four wins with the Suns, he averaged 18.5 points, 5.5 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game while getting to the line 4.5 times. When he was aggressive and not so concerned about stepping on anybody’s toes, the Suns were better off for it — 7.8 points better than their opponent, to be exact.
But in the games where he took a backseat in losses, Knight only averaged 10.4 points, 3.9 assists and 1.3 rebounds per game while getting to the line 1.6 times. The Suns were outscored by 9.3 points per game in those seven losses. For Knight to be a good fit in Phoenix, he will need to be more assertive and become a vocal leader.
McDonough said current #Suns w/most leadership potential are some of the youngest guys. Named Len and Knight specifically.
— Matt Petersen (@TheMattPetersen) April 15, 2015
The good news is that at the age of 23, this intelligent restricted free agent is perfectly cognizant of the role he’ll need to play.
“When you start from summer and move forward it is easier to be vocal versus coming into game 60 when guys have a set rotation and set everything pretty much,” he said. “So it is tough to come in and be vocal and you have to pick your spots. When you start in the trenches with these guys it is easier to communicate with them because you’ve been there from the jump.”
By dealing Goran Dragic away at the trade deadline and bringing in Knight, the Suns avoided paying the Dragon a max contract this summer, but they also swapped a point guard who will turn 29 in a few weeks for a 23-year-old floor general to pair with Bledsoe for the future.
Dragic is better now, but the front office likes what it sees in Knight for the long-term, even if restricted free agency is a tricky proposition.
A lot of fans bringing up concern of Knight being RFA after year. But even his "max" would be just the starting point of new Dragic contract
— Sean Sullivan (@SeanSullivanNBA) February 19, 2015
“We like him [Brandon] a lot,” said president of basketball operations Lon Babby. “We just finished our exit interviews with him and he’s a very intelligent, bright guy who I think will conduct a fair, reasonable process and that’s all we ask for.”
Knight’s potential backcourt mate wasn’t shy about his feelings on the possible pairing either.
“I love playing with B. Knight, he’s one of the great young players in this league,” Bledsoe said. “I thought he should have been an All-Star last year in Milwaukee. He just had a great year.”
Maybe not with the Suns, but his three-point percentage (38.9 percent, 20th in the league) and free throw percentage (87.4 percent, 14th in the league) for the season show that he has the perimeter touch this team needs moving forward, especially to make defense pay when Bledsoe penetrates.
His impressive wing span and his intelligence are also common points of praise when Brandon Knight’s name comes up. As a combo guard, that wing span will help him defend both positions in the backcourt. And since Bledsoe isn’t quite the vocal leader this team needs, Knight’s leadership in that regard would certainly help this team’s young core grow together.
Next: Lowlights
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.”
Next: Highlights
Highlights:
There weren’t many Brandon Knight highlights from his time in Phoenix (or “Knightlights,” if you will), but he did show flashes of potential every now and then, even in such a limited sample size.
In his first game with the Suns, Knight only scored 13 points, but he went 6-for-12 from the field and dished out five assists. Two nights later in Boston, he dropped 20 points and four dimes. Sure, it took him 19 shots to get his 20, and yeah, maybe he fouled out of the game with four turnovers in a loss, but it wasn’t a terrible performance considering he still hadn’t had a practice with the team at that point.
Knight mostly struggled from then on, but his best game with the Suns came in a road win over the Orlando Magic. Finishing with 28 points, seven assists and three steals, Knight played a big role in a game Phoenix couldn’t afford to lose. He went 7-for-15 from the floor, 4-for-9 from downtown and looked good in transition as well:
Other than that, the pickings are pretty slim are far as Brandon Knight Suns highlights are concerned. But since the guy only played 11 games for Phoenix and spent most of his time just trying to blend in, that’s to be expected.
“It has been a process since I got here from start to finish,” Knight said. “I started to get comfortable but things went how they went. That’s what the offseason is for to get better and prepared and having a full summer and training camp we have some special things to look forward to next year.”
Next: Final Grade
Grade: C-
To be honest, an “Incomplete” is probably a more accurate grade here, but for the sake of avoiding a copout, we’ll go with a C-. It’s not Knight’s fault he got hurt and we have to take into account that he was adjusting to playing a new position…on the fly…for a team still competing for a playoff spot.
But even bearing all that in mind, Knight’s limited time with the Suns was undeniably underwhelming.
Knight posted a Player Efficiency Rating of 10.5 with the Suns (the league average is 15.0). He put up a grand total of 0.1 win shares in 11 games. He struggled to put himself in position for good shots on the perimeter and even when he was open, he just couldn’t knock them down (22.0 percent on shots where his closest defender was 4-6 feet away, per NBA.com).
Simply put, he just wasn’t very good in his short stint in Phoenix.
That being said, it’d be completely unfair to judge his future with the Suns based solely on that small window. Knight was having a career year in Milwaukee before being uprooted by a midseason trade, he’s only 23 years old and although Phoenix will have to pay anywhere from $10-15 million per season to keep him around, the salary cap is about to jump through the roof soon.
Knight is capable of becoming a nice complementary combo guard to Bledsoe and even better, he seems fully committed to being a part of a two-guard backcourt:
“I enjoyed playing with Eric, he is a great player,” Knight said. “I think we can be very dynamic and very tough to guard in the backcourt. We both have the ability to guard the ball as well. We can play off each other and are very young, with the young team we have we can be a very dangerous group.”
Restricted free agency isn’t a given, as the Suns found out with Eric Bledsoe last summer. But as mediocre as Knight seemed during his limited action here, Phoenix shouldn’t expect that to be the standard moving forward.
More 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades:
Jerel McNeal
Danny Granger
Brandan Wright
Earl Barron
Marcus Thornton
T.J. Warren
Archie Goodwin
Alex Len
Marcus Morris
Gerald Green
Reggie Bullock
P.J. Tucker
Next: Phoenix Suns: 10 Worst Moments Of 2014-15