Drew Eubanks, F/C
Jusuf Nurkic went into foul trouble early in the Suns’ first preseason game and his first game wearing purple and orange. Luckily, it was just a preseason game, and they had Eubanks on the bench. The two played together in Portland, which is where the funny quote came from Nurkic saying Eubanks isn’t sneaky.
But he is sneaky. He is sneakily good. Eubanks was all over the court against the Pistons on Sunday. He was their best defender, outside of maybe Josh Okogie, but even then if you argued with me that Eubanks was better, I wouldn’t think you were crazy.
We knew that he loves to block shots, as he was top 20 in that category last season as a bench player. He even showed some of that against the Pistons in the first preseason game as he had one block, where he absolutely skied for it, hanging in the air.
Eubanks also showed that he could be disciplined while the guy ahead of him was not. He knew he couldn’t be aggressive because of the foul trouble. Eubanks finished with two fouls in 17 minutes. Eubanks will be huge for this team in 2023-24.