The Phoenix Suns may have made massive roster changes this offseason, yet they somehow neglected to replace the departed Tyus Jones. The floor general signing on with the Orlando Magic, with the great irony in this being that he was a better fit for this roster without Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal than when all three played together in The Valley last season.
Phoenix now enters the 2025-26 regular season in the all too familiar position of being forced to play Devin Booker as their point guard and lead creator. We saw this in the preseason win over the Los Angeles Lakers, and that was with Jalen Green out through injury. Once they are together in the backcourt, it feels like Booker is going to be tasked with doing this even more.
Booker as point guard will again end in frustration for all involved.
Sam Vecenie was speaking with Bryce Simon and Andrew Claudio on The Game Theory Podcast recently, and his concerns for Booker and the Suns were clear for all to see. Vecenie correctly pointing out that Booker - with Durant and Beal now gone from The Valley - is going to have to do "literally everything" this coming season.
At this point Vecenie is going to get some gentle pushback from us - because although he's not wrong - is that actually a bad thing? The Suns have plenty of younger players who need time to figure it out, while expectations have now fallen off a cliff. The fans seem happy to have a younger, scrappier roster to call their own again, and they're cool with an in his prime Booker doing it all.
Given he's 28-years-old and potentially advertizing himself and the Suns for the next disgruntled star down the road, this again is the best way to showcase his talents. In case you'd forgotten, Booker in the last two seasons has also posted the best assist numbers of his career on a nightly basis, and last year he reached an impressive 7.1 each night.
So it's not that Booker actually being the play-maker is the problem, but where Vecenie is correct is that it once again exposes the flaws in their roster construction. Behind Booker they have Collin Gillespie, Jared Butler and Jordan Goodwin, and only two of them are likely be on the roster full-time during the season. For the third, time will be spent in the G League.
The Suns did try and fix their center rotation - to varying degrees of success - but didn't have the cap space or roster flexibility to make it happen at the one. This will be exposed during a long regular season, while we all know that it is not the best use of Booker's incredible scoring talents either. This might not be the huge problem Vecenie thinks it is, but it is going to hurt them this season.