After Brandon Knight was traded away from the Milwaukee Bucks in the middle of his breakout season, the young restricted free agent was looking for a long-term home. As quite possibly the final offseason move for general manager Ryan McDonough this summer, the Phoenix Suns officially announced that Knight had found that home in a press conference at US Airways Center Monday afternoon.
“It’s been a terrific summer, we’ve filled a lot of needs both on the court, in the locker room, off the court,” said Lon Babby, vice president of basketball operations. “But nothing that we have done has been more important than re-signing Brandon Knight.”
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At 23 years old, Knight chose his third team in four NBA seasons to be his permanent location for the next half decade, signing a five-year, $70 million contract extension with the Suns — the exact same figure that Eric Bledsoe got as a restricted free agent last summer.
But even though Knight’s contract was the last to be signed among new acquisitions like Tyson Chandler, Mirza Teletovic, Sonny Weems and Ronnie Price, agreeing to a contract was the first thing the Suns accomplished at midnight the morning of Jul. 1 when free agency officially began.
“I wasn’t here for long, but once I got here, from Day 1 the organization showed me first class how they do things,” he said. “They really did things the right way, asked my opinion on things, welcomed me with open arms and showed how much they wanted me. I think that’s a big reason why I wanted to commit so early in the process instead of dragging it out and being wined and dined by certain teams. I just really knew after being here for a couple months where my heart was at.”
After playing for Pistons and Bucks, Knight said he could tell everything about Phoenix felt right to commit despite playing only 11 games.
— Paul Coro (@paulcoro) July 20, 2015
The front office contingent of McDonough, Babby, head coach Jeff Hornacek and owner Robert Sarver met with Knight and his agent in Los Angeles as soon at the clock struck 9 p.m. (12 a.m. EST) on Jun. 30. McDonough said Knight, a southern Florida native, was a team player in agreeing to meet with the Suns right away, wherever it was convenient for them, in order to sign other free agents.
After the Suns agreed to what Knight called a “very fair offer,” Phoenix was able to meet with Tyson Chandler and quickly reach terms on his four-year, $52 million deal. McDonough said Knight was fully onboard with the Chandler meeting and the LaMarcus Aldridge pitch, asking what he could do to help the Suns lure them in.
Phoenix missed out on Aldridge, but his selflessness to sign his contract last and preserve cap space for other free agents impressed the front office and Knight is still confident in the direction the Suns are heading in after a busy offseason:
"“As we continue to grow together I think we’ll be very good, even in the West. When you have a guy like Tyson, I think he’s such a game-changer because he’s been there, he’s done it. That’s one of the biggest things I think we were missing, a veteran we can kind of look up to and respect and can kind of show us the ropes. “Especially defensively, I think we have a lot of firepower offensively but I knew we needed to improve defensively, and I think our management did a great job going out and finding a guy that’s going to help us not only defensively, but offensively as well. Tyson sets a lot of good screens that some of us call illegal, but he’s a big part of the reason I’m confident we’ll do well in the West.”"
Now that the Suns have their young backcourt locked in for at least the next four years, it’ll be on Knight and Eric Bledsoe to learn how to play together. After acquiring Knight at the trade deadline last year, Phoenix got a very limited look at how the two will co-exist for the long-term.
In Milwaukee, Knight averaged 17.8 points, 5.4 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game while shooting 43.5 percent from the floor and 40.9 percent from three-point range, narrowly missing out on an All-Star selection. In 11 appearances with the Suns, those numbers dropped to 13.4 points, 4.5 assists and 2.1 rebounds per game on 35.7 percent shooting from the floor and 31.3 percent from downtown.
An ankle injury limited Knight just when he was starting to find his groove, and many questioned how much money he’d be worth after such an underwhelming start to his Suns tenure.
“He only played 11 games, but we really liked what we saw,” Hornacek said. “I think there was a lot of talk out there about, ‘How do you commit to a guy when you only saw him for 11 games?’ Well, we saw him for four years prior to that, the way he plays, the leadership capabilities, the shooting, just playing the right way.”
Knight said the injury was frustrating as he tried to mesh with his new team, but it gave him a chance to take a step back and appreciate Phoenix as his new potential home for the long-term, especially after the “whirlwind” of Milwaukee’s business decision that both hurt his feelings and played a part in his desire to sign a long-term deal.
“Once I got hurt I was able to sit down and really think things through and really see what was going on with the Phoenix Suns,” he said. “Everything that I saw from top to bottom, starting with Robert all the way down to the last guy on the bench and the trainers, everything that I saw from the Suns was different. It felt good, it felt right, so when you have that feeling you kind of just go with it.”
The move brings stability to an improved roster that’s been in a constant state of flux ever since McDonough took over two years ago. With Bledsoe, Knight, Chandler and Markieff Morris all locked in on long-term deals, not to mention Alex Len, Archie Goodwin, T.J. Warren and Devin Booker all on rookie-scale deals, the Suns have a good mix of youth and experience and will also have considerable cap space moving forward.
Hornacek: "We have a lot of guys under long contracts. I think thing will be pretty stable from now on." PHX moved 8 guys last season
— Matt Petersen (@TheMattPetersen) July 20, 2015
“When you’re a coach, you want your guys to be here for several years so they can get to know each other, grow at the same time and coming in two years ago, Ryan’s made a lot of changes,” Hornacek said. “When you go from a 25-win team, you kind of have to turn things over. Now we’re at the point where we have a lot of guys under long contracts so now I think we’ll be pretty stable from this point on.”
Sir Charles In Charge
Hornacek also mentioned that the team’s core is fully focused on winning with pretty much everyone’s contract situation taken care of. In the brutal Western Conference, being on the same page in that respect will be important, especially now that Hornacek will get to work with a player he’s been high on ever since he was an assistant coach for the Utah Jazz.
Back in 2011, when Knight entered the NBA Draft alongside top prospects like Kyrie Irving, Derrick Williams and Enes Kanter, Hornacek said he was impressed by Knight when the Jazz brought him in for a pre-draft workout.
“He came in on his own for an individual workout, it was about an hour and 10 minutes,” he said. “Just by yourself, that’s awfully hard to go through that workout. I think I asked him twice, ‘Do you want some water?’ and he said, ‘Nah, I’m good’ and just kept going. We saw that work ethic back then.”
Hornacek said that before the draft lottery, he lobbied for the Jazz to select Knight if they dropped to No. 4. Utah wound up with the third pick and selected Enes Kanter instead.
Luckily for Phoenix, Knight fell to No. 8 in the draft and his rocky road through the unpleasant business side of the NBA eventually led him to the Suns. Hornacek said he continued to be impressed with Knight once he saw his leadership potential following the trade deadline deal brought him to Phoenix.
“When you get traded from a team and all of the sudden you’re thrown into a team that’s maybe more together, it’s very difficult to go right off the bat and try to be that leader,” he said. “Brandon tried it and guys started to listen. From there it was a sign for me that if these guys are listening to Brandon right off the bat, they’re looking for that leader. It was an easy decision for me in talking with Ryan that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to have Brandon back.'”
There are some concerns about how Knight and Bledsoe will fit together, especially since Knight has been open in the past about his desire to run a team with the ball in his hands. But Knight is confident that his relationship with Bledsoe will help the two overcome those concerns with time and a full training camp together.
“I’ve definitely wanted to play on the ball,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and say I didn’t want to or that that wasn’t a concern of mine, but throughout my career I’ve always played with another guy that can handle the ball. Me having such a great relationship with Eric, it made that decision kind of easy for me, you know, we’re going to make it work. It’s not about who’s on the ball and who’s off the ball, it’s about making the right play.”
Knight: "[Bledsoe] does a lot of things I know I can complement and he can complement me...we're going to work together." #TheKnightReturns
— Matt Petersen (@TheMattPetersen) July 20, 2015
With both players capable of handling the ball, not to mention the shooting component that Knight brings to the table, Phoenix is confident this new duo can replicate the success of that Bledsoe-Goran Dragic tandem that nearly carried the 2013-14 Suns to the playoffs.
In the loaded Western Conference, the Suns won’t be contending for a title this season. But McDonough believes the added stability of acquisitions like Knight and Chandler should help Phoenix regroup from last year’s turbulent season.
"“The fact that he has four years of NBA experience under his belt, the fact that he’s played at an extremely high level and the fact that we think that his best days and his best basketball are ahead of him made us very confident that we wanted to commit to him and we were able to it for the longest term possible for five years.“That’s something that we felt strongly about doing with the guys we identified as our core guys. I think the good teams have continuity and stability and we started to build toward that over the past couple of years.”"
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