The Phoenix Suns are becoming the Houston Rockets West

With the trade of Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss for Ryan Anderson and De’Anthony Melton, the Phoenix Suns are becoming the Houston Rockets West.

This summer the Phoenix Suns have made two notable moves: the free agency signing of Trevor Ariza, and the trade of Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss that netted Ryan Anderson.

Both moves involved the Houston Rockets.

Both moves brought regular Rockets starters of the past two (Anderson) and four (Ariza) years.

But more than just the acquisition of two former Rockets starting forwards, the Suns might also be moving in the direction of the Rockets’ offensive system.

While no one can perfectly replicate Mike D’Antoni‘s system, if there is a head coach that might be able to pull it off at least fairly closely, it is Igor Kokoskov.

Igor’s offense has widely been shown to be very fluid and full of motion. The ball moves constantly and sets players up for open shots, and presumably a number of 3-pointers.

We’ll have to wait and see what it becomes, but at least at first blush, the two systems come from the same ideology – run-and-gun, not plod-and-blob.

Then there is point guard effect.

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James Harden came to Houston a shooting guard, and nothing else. He was a scorer first and foremost and hadn’t ever ran the offense with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

His assist number immediately went up from Houston because he had control of the offense more than he did in OKC, but it didn’t spike until D’Antoni decided that as the best player on the roster he needed to have the ball in his hands more than anybody else.

Thus the birth of point Harden.

Of course Houston’s acquisition of Chris Paul last season muddled up that idea somewhat, but there was no denying that the point Harden experiment worked as Harden led the league in assists in 2016-17 with 11.2, while also averaging 29.1 points per game. Houston too won 55 games, although they lost in the Semifinals to the San Antonio Spurs, a generally honorable outcome.

Until Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough makes another roster change, at the moment, the Suns’ best point guard isn’t a point guard at all, but Devin Booker, the team’s shooting guard.

Booker has ran point guard for the team in each of the last three seasons, each time to considerable acclaim.

In 2017-18 Booker even recorded 7 or more assists 12 times in only 54 games.

As the team’s best player, and now with the loss of the team’s best point guard (as poor as he might have actually been), in an offense that is set to be predicated on passing and shooting, getting the ball in Booker’s hands as often as possible, similar to the Houston Rockets and Harden, could very well be the intended direction of Ryan McDonough and the coaching staff.

Moving back though to the summer acquisitions of both Ariza and now Anderson, what had been a staple of the Houston offense – stretch-fours hovering around the 3-point line – is now going to be a staple of the Phoenix Suns’ roster.

Over the last two seasons, Ariza and Anderson have combined for 696-1862 from beyond the arc.

To put that into perspective, the Phoenix Suns as a team shot 763-2286.

Last season.

(If the Houston Rockets think they’re going to get anything near that from Marquese Chriss, they are going to be sorely mistaken.)

For a team that for several years has struggled mightily to find a way to get 3-point shots off, this season they will actually have the talent to launch them with much greater consistency, hopefully with Devin Booker and Dragan Bender as well, making them with a greater consistency as well.

Of course the two teams are not identical.

As noted, the Suns do not have a traditional point guard, which the Rockets now do with Chris Paul. Sure, maybe at some point Phoenix finds a way to acquire Damian Lillard, but unless that happens, they’ll have to run with lesser point guards with Booker, whomever they are.

Also, Phoenix has Deandre Ayton while the Rockets have Clint Capela. Ayton is a much more offensive-centric center than Capela is, while the Rocket is more defensive-minded than the rookie.

This could of course mean that the Suns are bound to continue to struggle defensively as they have the past few years, but that said, Ayton isn’t a turnstile defensively, and where Phoenix lacks defensively, Houston does too on the offensive end (take that thought in context as obviously I am strictly speaking of Ayton and Capela. The Rockets’ offense is, of course, insanely good).

Much like the Arizona Cardinals of the mid-to-late 2000’s they were often called The Pittsburgh Steelers West, as you might recall – hopefully if the Suns really are becoming the Houston Rockets West that they too begin to win (Houston won 65 games last season, 44 more than the Suns).

Granted Ariza and Anderson are not pieces of the Phoenix Suns’ future, but they just might help to train those players that are presumed to be, most notably Josh Jackson and Mikal Bridges.

At the moment, outside of maybe Golden State and Boston, there really isn’t a better team to emulate if you are Ryan McDonough and company. To become the Houston Rockets West would mean that the Suns are once again a fun and exciting team, that which they were when D’Antoni called Phoenix home.

The Phoenix Suns’ moniker for 2018-19 is Time to Rise. If they really are attempting to emulate the Houston Rockets, much like a Rocket rises in the sky, so too does the Sun.