3 reasons the Phoenix Suns are losing games right now
By Luke Duffy
3. Role players haven't stepped up
It was always going to be a tough job for the Suns' front office to build out a competent rotation with so much money being plugged into their top three players. To give them credit though, they went out and got Eric Gordon, Yuta Watanabe, Chimezie Metu and Keita Bates-Diop, while also bringing back Josh Okogie.
On top of that, they managed to nabbed the useful Jordan Goodwin in the Beal for Chris Paul deal, while trading Ayton for Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen and Nassir Little looks like a trade that the team won. No small feat given the massive question marks that existed regarding Nurkic's health once the deal became official.
But despite all of this, too many of the role players that the Suns added on the cheap have failed to live up to expectations. Watanabe is probably the best example - he was an amazing get for the organization this offseason - but the 34 percent from deep on a career high 4.2 attempts per night is not quite what the team had in mind.
He has played in only 19 games, with zero starts, and to this point has not been the elite complimentary player that was envisioned. The same is also true of Metu and Bates-Diop, while Okogie has spent some time out of the lineup with injury. Goodwin is a fine backup and an ideal ninth or tenth man, but when he's being asked to step up even more, the Suns run into trouble.
Little has been a nice surprise for the group, and both Gordon and especially Allen have been excellent. But when you're relying on Durant, Booker, Nurkic, Allen, Gordon and whatever role player is playing with the most confidence in any given moment, you're only going to go so far. The Suns need to remedy this problem, either through signing players or trade, to create more depth.