With new players, come new internal competitions. The Phoenix Suns stand as no stranger to this phenomenon, especially after acquiring a solid free agent class this summer.
Outside Chris Paul‘s re-signing, which actually provoked some stability for the Suns, every other move made by the Phoenix front office managed to put at least two players at odds with each other. A standard NBA roster carries 15 guys, and across that crowd, only so many minutes exist to go out.
With this considered, some serious battles for rotation positioning in Phoenix are likely to take place over the next few months and during the regular season’s early weeks. Locking down either a starting spot or just a role as a consistent bench contributor remains something not easily accomplished on any NBA team, let alone one with NBA Finals aspirations.
So with that, everyone not named Chris Paul, Devin Booker, and Deandre Ayton should be fighting tooth and nail while trying to cement their place with this team ahead the 2021-22 season.
This does not mean to encourage conflict within the Suns organization though. We know Phoenix’s culture, captained by Monty Williams, remains too strong for anything like that to every come into fruition.
Instead, it only means that some good, competitive basketball will be brewing out in the Valley this offseason, and just maybe a few rotational shuffles to go along with it.