The Phoenix Suns have high hopes Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton will become superstars, and they’re diligently surrounding them with two-way players.
Devin Booker is a special offensive talent. He’s bound to improve as a defender over time, but it’s likely he’ll only ever be elite on the offensive end. It’s possible Deandre Ayton‘s career takes on a similar trajectory. That’s not a bad thing, but it means the Phoenix Suns need to put two-way players around them.
Luckily, the pieces are starting to come into place. Josh Jackson and Mikal Bridges both show the potential to play on both ends. They might not become superstars, but they can still be important to the team because of their ability to have a well rounded positive impact.
Bridges and Jackson will probably never make an All-Star team. And that’s okay. Booker will, and Ayton would be a flat out disappointment if he never did. The Phoenix Suns need to bank on both of them becoming top ten NBA players in their primes. Otherwise, they can never be successful.
Bringing in other stars to be as good as possible is a separate issue. But any successful team needs peripheral pieces that are above average offensively and defensively. They should also compliment the greatest skills of the team’s best players.
To put Ayton and Booker in the best place to succeed, they should focus on players who can shoot and defend the perimeter, spreading the floor offensively and matching talented wings on the other end. Those needs are already being reflected in the Suns’ rotation.
Dragan Bender is still here and Marquese Chriss isn’t, most likely because Bender is a superior three point shooter. T.J. Warren seems to be the odd man out of the wing rotation because of his inability to both shoot and defend. On the other hand, Mikal Bridges does both, and Josh Jackson is a good defender who projects to improve as a shooter. Bridges and Jackson are expected to get minutes.
New additions De’Anthony Melton and Elie Okobo are both good defenders with improving range. They take over for Brandon Knight, who isn’t particularly good at either. Free agent signing Trevor Ariza is a prototypical 3 and D wing, and recently acquired Ryan Anderson is a top stretch four with passable play on defense.
It’s clear that the Phoenix Suns are looking to put good shooters and defenders around their emerging superstars in Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton. Surrounding stars with two way players is a proven path to success, especially when those players have a skillset that makes life easier for the stars.