3 nightmare scenarios that could ruin the Phoenix Suns’ season
By Luke Duffy
2. Most of their role players flop
On paper the Suns had a brilliant offseason. With next to no money available, they were able to fill out their roster with players that other teams would have wanted, headlined by Eric Gordon and Yuta Watanabe. They also managed to snag Chris Eubanks, Keita Bates-Diop and Chimezie Metu, and took a flyer on Bol Bol.
They brought Ish Wainright, Damion Lee and Josh Okogie back, while Saben Lee has looked like a man willing to fight for a bigger role in preseason action so far. On top of all of this, they got Grayson Allen, Keon Johnson and Nassir Little in the Ayton deal, and Jordan Goodwin in the Beal for Chris Paul trade.
That is an incredible haul, but the reality is even with the best case scenario in mind, some of these players will flop. If Bol, Little and Johnson don’t work, the Suns will survive. But if one of Allen, Gordon or Watanabe don’t pop, this becomes more concerning.
The Suns might be built on a top-heavy deck of cards with three superstars, but they will need some help, especially during the regular season. Booker, Durant and Beal can’t play all 48 minutes and expect to get to the playoffs healthy, and so it will be up to some of these role players to outperform expectations.
The maths is on their side given how many players they’ve added here, but that does not guarantee success. If the back end of the rotation is underperforming, and that creeps into their fifth to eight guys, even for a couple of weeks, the Suns are going to find themselves with too much work to do in order to even get home court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.