1. Average 20 Minutes Per Game
Working on taking better care of the ball, improving defensively and being more efficient from three-point territory? Those would all make Archie Goodwin an exponentially superior player. But none of it matters if Goodwin doesn’t show up to training camp with a fire in his belly.
Because as soon as official Suns workouts are underway, Goodwin’s main focus should be making sure that the entire coaching staff has him ahead of Devin Booker in the rotation.
There’s going to be an inevitable logjam at the shooting guard position in Phoenix. Brandon Knight will be the team’s starting 2, Goodwin, Booker and Sonny Weems will be competing for minutes as backup shooting guards and next summer, Bogdan Bogdanovic will be joining the mix. The pressure is on for Goodwin to prove he has a long-term future here.
Step one to doing so is cementing himself ahead of Booker on the depth chart, mainly by focusing on achieving all the aforementioned goals. Booker’s three-point shooting is a skill that translates to the NBA right away, but it’s Goodwin’s job to remind the coaching staff through hard work and improved play that his two years of NBA experience make him more valuable.
If Goodwin is averaging 20 minutes per game, that means he’s a regular fixture in Hornacek’s rotation. For this backup to prove his worth in a make-or-break season, he’ll have to find a way to do something he hasn’t been able to do thus far in his NBA career: crack the Phoenix Suns’ rotation for an entire season.
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