Four veteran point guards John Gambadoro says the Phoenix Suns might target

On June 4, John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 noted four veteran point guards that he feels the Phoenix Suns might target. Let’s take a look at who, why, and what if.

I wish there was another way of saying this, but here it is: The Phoenix Suns need a point guard.

For as God-awful as the team has been over the last two seasons, there has been one non-ownership related consistency, the roster’s abject lack of a point guard, a situation that must, before all other improvements, be rectified this offseason.

While most fans have their collective hearts set on younger, less establish options like D’Angelo Russell and Lonzo Ball, it takes two parties to tango, and if the Lakers do not want what James Jones is willing to offer, and the Nets fail in their pursuit of Kyrie Irving, then the Phoenix Suns will likely have to look elsewhere, and fans will simply have to deal (or commiserate. One of the other).

Oh, and pray that they steal a superstar in the draft, because honestly, at this point, what else have we got?

Going the veteran free agent rout, however, does provide the Suns with some potentially cheap, and although not flashy, dependable and affordable options.

The players that Gambo notes are not the long-term staples that fans want, but each one of them does buy James Jones time to find that next pillar point guard, while still improving the roster now, winning more games, and developing his current young stars (and potential stars) in a stable offense.

Not exactly what Phoenix Suns fans want to hear – although it is better than one particular alternative:

There will be no improvement over 19 wins without a legitimate starting point guard.

There will be no Devin Booker in the future without winning and sincere belief that the roster will continue to develop.

There will be no Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant 2.0 unless someone can get Deandre Ayton the ball in the post and take perimeter pressure off of Booker.

There is zero hope of Josh Jackson improving into an above average wing if there isn’t a point guard who can find him slashing to the rim (and he improves his shot – but that is a different story).

None of this can happen without a decent point guard, and Gambo thinks that there are at least four who might be targets of the Phoenix Suns, any of which would be an improvement over last year, and much better than the alternative.

Cory Joseph

Cory Joseph is easily my personal least favorite option of this group.

27-years-old, a career backup, Joseph would probably relish the opportunity to be a starter for even a short time and in terms of contract would cost the Suns very little.

An unrestricted free agent, Joseph has never made more than $7.9 million (which he made last year) and probably would only be offered a 2-3 year contract built on the presumption that Phoenix would take a point guard somewhere in the upcoming draft.

The problem with Joseph as a player is that he is not the kind of point guard Suns fans want.

I do not want to use his traditional stats as he has never been a starter and they look absolutely awful. But even his per-36min stats leave much to be desired.

Last season he averaged 9.4 points (while shooting 32.2% from 3) and 5.6 assists, both per-36. Unfortunately though his assist rate was his career-high while his scoring average was his second-lowest ever.

While the Suns do not necessarily need  a scoring point guard, adding one would be beneficial to the overall opportunities that one could provide, and that 3-point shooting rate should scare the team away.

Joseph is what he is: a career backup (the last two seasons with the Indiana Pacers) who if Phoenix signed as a starter, the team will not see the kind of improvement that we want to see.

In this case, Devin Booker would almost certainly be forced into a point role for the majority of the time, solving almost nothing, and if the drafted point guard does not develop, then the next few years will have been an entire waste of time.

Darren Collison

Darren Collison is Indiana’s other point guard, their starter and the better option of the two – although with one significant drawback.

A better offensive player all the way around than Joseph, averaging double-digits in scoring every season of his career, he is a very  good 3-point shooter hitting over 40.0% in each of the last four years including a career-high and league-leading 46.8% on 3.0 attempts per game two seasons ago.

Collison’s shooting alone would make the Suns better as they are in desperate need of additional shooting (especially with the potential loss of Troy Daniels) making the offense far more potent than they have been since the end of the Steve Nash era.

What’s more is that he is a very good ball-handler, having not averaged more than 2.6 turn overs per-36min over the last eight seasons.

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Although he is not necessarily an assists-guru, he did average 6.0 per game last season with a career-average of 5.0 which places him right in the range of Eric Bledsoe (4.8) and Goran Dragic (4.8).

Here is the drawback though: he will be 32-years old at the start of the 2019-20 season.

Much like the discussion of Phoenix acquiring Chris Paul, if Collison were younger  he might be the perfect point guard to target. But they are not getting the younger version. They are getting the perfect point guard for a team looking to win now and who believes they are only a solid PG away from potentially going over the top.

He is not the perfect PG for a team who wants to build for the future with a core designed to remain together for the long run.

A positive to his age is that (having never earned more than $10 million a year – which he did in each of the least two seasons), one could expect that he would be signed at a very comfortable rate which would not prevent further upgrades in other areas.

Phoenix would absolutely improve next year with Collison at the helm, although with the understanding that he is not the future.

If that is what the Suns want to do, fine, but at this point I think that I would prefer Collison as a second point guard rather than a primary starter as that means that the team has a younger/better point guard on the roster, and Collison running the second unit would make Phoenix’s offense far  more potent.

Patrick Beverley

Like Collison, Patrick Beverley has the kind of starting point guard experience that the Phoenix Suns should target should their next starting point guard be a veteran free agent.

Generally a starter throughout his career (last season was the first since his rookie year in 2012-13 that he did not start at least 88.7% of games he appeared in), Bev knows how to run an offense, he plays above average, hard-nosed defense, and is a very good shooter.

Phoenix Suns

He has never been a primary scorer at an point in his career, which of course he would not be in Phoenix, although his excellence from the outside would be huge for the Suns.

While not quite to Collison’s level of efficiency, Beverley has averaged no less than 38.2% from beyond the arc in his last four seasons, averaging exactly 40.0% twice in that stretch.

For the Suns, adding a legitimate outside threat at point guard would be a huge boon for a team who was worst in the league in 3-point shooting last season.

Unfortunately he has one very specific drawback: like Collison, he is much older than the Phoenix Suns’ core, and will be 31-years-old by the start of the season. Again, he is nothing more than a sort-term solution thrown into the long-term vision of the team.

He is also not a prime distributor and has averaged under 5.0 assists per-36min in five of his seven seasons in the NBA, last season breaking 5.0 for the first time since his rookie season, dishing out 5.1 per-36.

What the Suns will lose offensively via assists and longevity, they will gain in shooting and defense. The team will most certainly improve, but not to the extent that fans are clamoring for.

T.J. McConnell

T.J. McConnell is the final player mentioned by John Gambadoro, and one that has great local attraction due to his college days at the University of Arizona.

Long lost in the shuffle of point guards with the Philadelphia 76ers, McConnell has one very interesting attribute that the other three lack: he is young and fits James Jones’ target age of no older than about 27-years-old.

T.J. McConnell will be 27 for the entire 2019-20 season.

Not a offensive threat in his career, as the predominate backup with the Sixers, McConnell has averaged between 6.1 and 6.9 points per game in his four NBA seasons.

Where he lacks in scoring average he makes up for in offensive distribution, averaging a respectable 4.7 assists per game  in his career (almost all as a backup), and 6.6 per game in his second season, the only year of his career where he started a majority of games played: 51 of 81.

Offensively he is not quite the duel-threat that the Gambo recently said Phoenix is looking for as his 3-point shooting is nothing special – 33.5% on his career on only 248 career attempts.

McConnell might  be the only player that James Jones would sign to a four or five-year contract due to his age, although in my opinion, that should only be a consideration if Jones believes that there is a statistical explosion in hidden within him just waiting to burst out.

He’d certainly be cheap having been a career backup and with presumably low expectations which combined would temper an already non-competitive market for his services.

Phoenix’s consideration of signing McConnell would have to be based on the answer to some very important questions.

Is he just a career backup? Or is he a good starter who has unfortunately always played behind someone better?

His ability to run an offense should be good, but can he shoot? Sure, he once averaged 43.5% for a season, but he only attempted 62 shots. Can he take 300-400 3’s in a year? If he did, would he hit 38% of them? Or closer to the 20.0% he fired three years ago on 55 attempts.

None of these four players are the penultimate answer to the Phoenix Suns’ problems at point guard, although three of the four of them would help the team improve at least somewhat right away as they have strengths that have been serous weaknesses for some time.

Would any of these point guards only be signed if James Jones drafted a rookie sixth overall? Or might they be targeted early for their presumed affordable contract which would allow for the signing of a much bigger fish elsewhere? These questions – and more – will be answered soon, and hopefully correctly.