How the Phoenix Suns can make Devin Booker’s Superteam dreams come true
By Adam Maynes
Draft Well One More Time
Step Two is centered around scouting: DRAFT WELL AND DO NOT BLOW ANYMORE TOP PICKS.
The best way, of course, for an NBA franchise to both grab and sustain success is by drafting well. Drafted players come very cheap and are controllable for many years. Adding a star player to an already good team helps that good team stay so for a very long time (just ask the San Antonio Spurs), and drafting really good players when is a team is really bad can help that team become great (just ask the San Antonio Spurs – and the Oklahoma City Thunder).
The Phoenix Suns have been in the lottery for eight (going on nine) years now and they have selected in the top-five for the past four (going on five) seasons as well.
And yet they have not always drafted all that well. Notable busts are, of course Alex Len, Dragan Bender, and Marquese Chriss, although Josh Jackson isn’t trending in a positive direction either.
The Suns obviously hit on Devin Booker and T.J. Warren who were each drafted outside of the top-ten, and have hopefully hit on Deandre Ayton number one overall as well (presuming that he eventually brings to his game a level of intensity and energy that seems to be totally lost on him to this point in his career).
Regardless of the superteam concept through, the prevailing hope and expectation is that this is the last summer that the Suns are drafting in the top-five for a very long time, and hopefully out of the lottery all-together as well.
But to best guarantee such a supposition, Phoenix needs to draft well one more time: this summer when they will almost certainly have a very high pick in the 2019 Draft.
Whoever Phoenix picks, whether Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett, or anyone else, for the Suns to be able to develop a superteam, that player needs to not only not be a bust, but he probably needs to develop into a star very quickly – preferably right away if not within two years.
If that player does become a star and well outplay his rookie contract, then the franchise will have a minimum of four years of him making far less than his statistics would require a veteran to be paid, allowing management to afford additional veteran role players to fill out the roster and make the Suns the deep, and unbeatable team, that a superteam should be.
If that player busts out though, it will only be that much tougher for Booker’s dream to become a reality.