Brandon Knight makes drafting a point guard easier

Whether or not Brandon Knight recovers well and turns to his 2015-16 form, the Phoenix Suns might be in the hunt for a point guard in the draft. Having Knight on the roster though makes selecting one a lot easier.

I need to quickly give credit to Dave Burns of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM for the genesis of this idea. While I have been defending Brandon Knight for some time and do believe that he should be expected to be the starting point guard of the Phoenix Suns when the 2018-19 season starts, I had not yet broached the idea behind still drafting a point guard of the future, even with Knight still on the roster.

And it is that term “point guard of the future” that is so intriguing to me.

Like the quarterback in football, the point guard is usually the general of the offense on a basketball team. They control the ball the most, they are the first point of physical contact on a new offensive play, and they are needed to be the most intelligent and visionary of all the players as they are the ones counted on to make the best play possible to score points.

Most importantly, they need to not only guide the offense, but react to what the other nine players are doing on the court – whereas the other nine players are all essentially reacting to the point guard.

NFL teams regularly draft “quarterbacks of the future” while they still have a veteran on the roster, a veteran who they expect to hold the position for at least the first few games of the new QB’s first season, if not longer.

The Arizona Cardinals are a perfect example of this having just drafted Josh Rosen while still expecting Sam Bradford to likely hold down the position for the upcoming season, if not two, depending on health and performance.

While the Phoenix Suns are not going to draft a point guard first overall (they will be taking center DeAndre Ayton out of the University of Arizona), there has been much talk about attempting to get back into the lottery and taking one of the top point guards, making that selection the franchise’s point guard of the future.

Having Brandon Knight still on the roster, a capable starting point guard who has shown flashes throughout his still relatively young career of being near an All-Star level, allows the Suns to draft their point guard of the future, and let him develop at a more traditional pace.

Most 19-year-old’s who come into the NBA are not ready to make an impact right away. Having only played about 30 games of college basketball, they are only one calendar year separated from high school. No matter how physically developed they are and athletically gifted, more often than not, rookies nowadays are competing against veteran players on a nightly basis who have many years of NBA experience, and who are more fully grown and developed.

Most 19 to 21-year-olds struggle while their body fills out and their maturity-level rises.

Case and point: Marquese Chriss and Dragan Bender.

The two former top-8 picks were two years away from being two years away when the Suns drafted them in 2016. As such, their first two professional seasons have had more ups and downs in their development than their are peaks in the Rocky Mountains. Had they each had approximately four years of college (or European) experience, they would have come into the Association more seasoned and better capable of impacting an NBA game right away.

Lest we forget: both Marquese Chriss and Dragan Bender should be entering their senior seasons of college basketball.

So while each have shown flashes of what their prime talent could be, overall they have still had very minimal impact on the Suns and their games; they are just not yet ready.

And yet, being that the Suns were going young and intentionally tanking for the last two seasons, they got much more playing time than their impact should have allowed.

In their second seasons with Phoenix, Bender averaged only 6.5 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 0.3 steals per game but was still sixth on the team in minutes per game at 25.2 (fourth if you don’t count Eric Bledsoe who only appeared in three games or Elfrid Payton who only appeared in 19). Chriss averaged 21.2 minutes (foul trouble and attitude problems hurt his playing time somewhat), and averaged only 7.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 1.2 assists.

These two started a total of 84 games (obviously with some overlap with each other), and were counted on to be regular players in the rotation, despite their lower positive impact.

By drafting a point guard and allowing him to play under Brandon Knight, that rookie will not be counted on nearly as much to impact the game as Bender and Chriss were. He’ll likely receive only a finite amount of minutes per game, will not be counted on to start, will probably not get off the bench for a few games based on matchups and how well Knight is playing, and will almost never be on the court to finish a game.

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Sure, he won’t be learning on the fly by gaining tough situational playing time, but he will also not learn with his feet on the fire and undue expectations that he makes veteran decisions while still on his rookie contract.

Think, Steve Nash, in this sense.

Although he appeared in a total of 141 games, Nash only started a total of 11 games in his first two seasons in Phoenix playing behind Jason Kidd and Kevin Johnson. He wasn’t counted on to be a game changing point guard even though he was drafted 15th overall, and was allowed the opportunity to sit and learn behind two hall of fame point guards. Granted Knight isn’t a hall of fame point guard, but he is still a talented veteran none-the-less with plenty to teach in terms of leadership and work ethic.

By Nash’s third season – his first in Dallas – he was the regular starting point guard, a position he never relinquished the rest of his career.

Next: Dragan Bender and DeAndre Ayton would be a helluva frontcourt pairing

Unless Brandon Knight is used in a trade to move up in the draft (which is highly unlikely), if Phoenix takes a point guard after selecting DeAndre Ayton first overall, that rookie be expected to be a counted on to be a regular point guard for at least two years – obviously unless he proves to be incredibly talented and is able to steal the starting position away in training camp (which is again, highly unlikely).

Two years is all that is left on Brandon Knight’s current contract and Knight himself is a more than capable point guard to hold down the fort while the new point guard develops his game. Like a veteran quarterback in the NFL, Brandon Knight then certainly makes drafting a project point guard easier, and his presence alone may actually make the Suns a better team down the line, by keeping an incoming rookie point guard on the bench to develop at a more methodical and deliberate pace.