When it comes time to crown the Phoenix Suns' Player of the Season, point guard Collin Gillespie is rightly going to get a lot of love.
He's been a revelation for the franchise in 2025-26, and his play during the regular season played a large part in the Suns making the playoffs.
Nuggets knew Gillespie would struggle in playoffs as Suns are learning
With how over-qualified Gillespie looked at times as a backup, it would make you wonder why the Denver Nuggets ever got rid of him at all.
After all, any time the Nuggets can find a legitimate playmaker to take some of the load off Nikola Jokic, you would think they want to keep that around.
But these playoffs are highlighting exactly why the Nuggets were cool with Gillespie landing in The Valley initially on a two-way deal, before signing on full-time for this season.
The Nuggets are in the midst of a window of contention, and Gillespie has shown in the playoffs to this point that he is having less of an impact.
To be clear, the Suns should bring Gillespie back this offseason and he absolutely has a long-term role on this roster. You can't hate on effort like this.
Collin Gillespie's Q1 last night was as much as you could ask for in helping set a tone.
— Stephen PridGeon-Garner 🏁 (@StephenPG3) April 23, 2026
He was forced to start due to injuries, & was — again — up to the task.
Took the SGA matchup defensively & had multiple moments of impact, while productive offensively.
7p | 4a | 2r | 1s pic.twitter.com/TzNBIQxDJ0
But the Suns are also not true contenders now in the way the Nuggets are, so they can afford to live with Gillespie's shortcomings and hope he continues rounding into the final product it looks like he can be.
Denver did not have that luxury, and when you're competing to win it all then you have to be ruthless in your roster building.
Two realities can be true for different organizations at the same time however, and this is one of those occasions in which everybody won.
The Suns getting a backup floor general who is capable of starting and in general can be a regular season rockstar, while the Nuggets went in a different direction in search of depth.
If there is one regret they may have with this however, it is the player they currently have occupying the spot that Gillespie would have had in Denver.
Former Sun Tyus Jones glued to the bench as a result of being a liability defensively, which is also a problem for Gillespie against the Oklahoma City Thunder but which is not true of every opponent.
Both the Nuggets and Suns would rather have Gillespie over Jones, but that doesn't mean Collin would be the answer over there either. He's not ready to contribute for a contender, and that is alright.
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