3 Players who need more minutes to help Suns turn things around

The Phoenix Suns finally get back to playing basketball on Tuesday night, with the arrival of the Los Angeles Lakers into town as part of Emirates NBA Cup action. All indications are that the team will have both Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal back for the game, in what is a huge boost for head coach Mike Budenholzer.

The Suns have been awful recently, although the re-introduction of two of their three best players will surely help. The sample size was small, but Durant was playing like an MVP prior to sitting out with a calf strain. Beal also looked as comfortable as ever, and defensively was really giving this group something.

This team still needs role players to take on more responsibility though.

There's a reason that most people said the organization had a strong offseason, and that is because they got deeper across the rotation. Talk of trading center Jusuf Nurkic might begin to heat up as we enter December - but for now at least - there are zero indications he is going anywhere. The Suns need to give minutes increases to these three players, and hope it leads to better results.

3. Mason Plumlee

Sticking to Nurkic and his worrying role in Phoenix, and there's no doubt the time is now to see what playing backup big Mason Plumlee some extra minutes would bring. The Suns did start both in a recent loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves - and although that is not a long-term solution - the results were notable.

The pair capable of setting high screens for Booker to operate in some space without Durant and Beal and then react accordingly. Plumlee often rolling to the rim, with the 3.2 attempts from deep Nurkic is now hoisting up (a career high) meaning he hung around the perimeter more to create that extra space.

The Nurkic experiment looks like it is only going in one direction, which is why the time is now to up Plumlee's 17.6 minutes per game. As it is Nurkic is sitting at 24.4, and an ankle issue has given him some trouble in recent weeks. It may be that Nurkic never loses his starting spot while he's in The Valley, but pushing Plumlee towards 20 minutes should be taken seriously.

The Suns likely wouldn't even suffer much defensively - and while Plumlee does not shoot 3-pointers - splitting their minutes more evenly down the middle might be the only solution as long as Nurkic is with this team. Coach Budenholzer could go a step further and give rookie Oso Ighodaro more run at the expense of Nurkic, but that's a conversation for another day.

2. Grayson Allen

Many expected Grayson Allen to regress on the career year he had last season, but it has been even worse than predicted. His confidence in his 3-point shot - which led the entire league last season at 46.1 percent - has vanished, although his role with this team has also changed and that has not helped.

Not only did he willingly give up his starting spot for point guard Tyus Jones, but it is clear coach Budenholzer prefers Royce O'Neale in that sixth man spot. Right now O'Neale is getting 25.3 minutes each night to Allen's 21.8 - and although taking some time from O'Neale is not the answer - the Suns could do worse than turn to Allen again some more.

Last season he did an admirable job trying to replicate Beal's output while he was injured, and defensively he continues to be underrated. Allen isn't going to get his starting job back this season - and he shouldn't either - but coach Budenholzer needs to put more trust in a player who has produced for this club in the past.

Worryingly Allen is taking a career high 6.7 attempts from deep and only converting on 35 percent of them. The solution here then is to give him some more run to get back to the ridiculously efficient levels of last season. Not getting more opportunities when Durant and Beal were out is not ideal, but there's no reason he can't get back to his best playing alongside them moving forward.

1. Josh Okogie

No player on this roster has seen their fortunes change more this season than Josh Okogie. Brought back on a two-year, $16 million deal during the offseason, everybody assumed that it would be to give the Suns - a second apron team - access to players they couldn't have traded for before inking Okogie to that number.

That might still end up being the case, but Okogie has done a great job recently of rehabbing not only his trade value, but his worth to the franchise. On the ugly 1-3 road trip he scored more points than Booker on two occasions - and although that is partly why the team lost those games - it was still an unexpected output from the player.

Defensively he's been excellent as an on-ball defender, covering all manner of opponents. He's quick enough to stick with guards and while true bullies like Julius Randle give him problems, he's able to bang with some of the less powerful forwards in the league. In other words then, he's everything the Suns need and would hope to get in a trade for Okogie.

His 19.3 minutes per game - having missed some time at the start of the campaign - are actually the highest he's managed since coming to Phoenix, and he is helping them on both ends of the court. Shooting 50 percent from deep on over two attempts per game is unsustainable, but has been a massive boost. This is a win-win for the team, either Okogie helps even more or increases his value.