Keef Back
Say what you want about Markieff Morris and his summer comments, but the Suns would’ve been in a real bind without him back and willing to be this team’s starting 4 in 2015-16. Phoenix wants to end its five-year playoff drought and with only Mirza Teletovic and Jon Leuer onboard, the Suns wouldn’t have been able to land a starting-caliber 4 in any potential trade.
Whether he was saying all the right things because he actually changed his mind or because he’s just trying to boost his trade value back up is irrelevant. All that matters for now is that he and the Suns are back on the same page and have the same goal: playing good basketball.
“The ultimate goal is to make the playoffs,” Morris said. “It’s not about me, it’s about my teammates and the organization and we’re looking forward to a great year and hopefully we make the playoffs this year.”
Based on what we heard from Keef this summer, it’s perfectly understandable if you need a second to pick your jaw back up off the floor. But Morris didn’t stop there, saying this was probably the best Suns team he’s been on. He mentioned his three-point shooting as an area that will improve next season and expressed his faith in his head coach.
Media Day seemed like it’d be an incredibly awkward event with Keef speaking to the Suns media for the first time since his trade demands went public, but McDonough emphasized everyone shifting their focus back to basketball.
“What he said, I think, is accurate, that he’s improved every year,” McDonough said. “So as long as he comes out and is a good teammate and is coachable and plays hard, then we’ll have no issues.”
As far as his teammates are concerned, it’s water under the bridge already.
"“Keef is a terrific guy, man,” Bledsoe said. “I guess people got misled by that [situation]. As a teammate, I played with him for two years going on three now and he’s a team guy. He’s like my brother. I can go to Keef and pretty much say anything to him and he’s not gonna take offense to it, he’s still gonna play his game. To me, he’s one of the best power forwards in this league. On some nights, he held the team down himself. Sometimes you need guys like that and he’s just a wonderful person to me. “I love playing with him, everybody on the team loves playing with him. He loves his brother, that’s enough said. You’d be mad too, you know? Like I said, I respect him 100 percent.”"
Chandler, a player who’s had experience with uncomfortable dealings involving his front office in the past, knows firsthand that it’s possible to brush the politics aside and focus on just playing basketball.
“This isn’t the first time that a player has had miscommunications with management or anything like that and it’s not going to be the last time it happens,” he said. “In our league, it seems to always work itself out and I feel like this won’t be any different.”
Before Monday, Markieff Morris represented a possible distraction with the power to derail Phoenix’s season before it even began. Luckily for the Suns, it appears that everyone has agreed to move forward for the time being.
Next: Camaraderie