At 8-2, the Phoenix Suns have been one of the most surprising teams in the NBA, thanks to strong offseason moves around the margins. However, Sunday’s loss to the Sacramento Kings showed the roster still has some major flaws that could derail their pursuit of an NBA title.
Tyus Jones: The Double-Edged Sword
One of the Suns’ biggest flaws last season was their lack of reliable ball-handling and creation, evidenced by their 27th-place finish in turnover percentage.
To remedy this concern, the Suns brought in Tyus Jones – the God of assist-to-turnover ratio – on a minimum deal. At a rate of just 1.48 percent of the league salary cap, Jones has proven to be one of the best signings of the offseason in the early going. Under his guidance, the Suns have climbed to 12th in turnover percentage this year.
More than his knack for being responsible with the basketball, Jones gives the Suns someone who can keep the ball moving and keep defenses on their feet.
Prior to his arrival, the Suns struggled to maintain healthy ball movement. Possessions stalled out with sticky isolation sequences. According to NBA.com tracking data, the team was just 17th in passes made per game last year. With Jones, the offense now operates with much more flow and side-to-side action, climbing all the way to sixth in this category.
This next play is subtle, and it ends in a miss (I’m focused on process more than the results), but it typifies the positive impact Jones has on this team.
Devin Booker momentarily draws two defenders and wisely bounces the Spalding over to Jones. The veteran guard already knows where the ball needs to go before it touches his fingertips, and he immediately flips it in that direction — all before the Kings can rotate and recover on defense.
Along with his passing and ball security skills, Jones — who’s hitting 42.6 percent of his threes — plays the spacer role when Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal grab the attention of multiple defenders.
Unfortunately, the Suns may have developed a detrimental reliance on Jones. They need him to act as the lubricant on the chain of their offensive bike, but he also represents a massive moving target defensively.
Sacramento dominated overtime to run away with the game by mercilessly hunting Jones with DeMar DeRozan or De’Aaron Fox. That duo was a combined 7-of-8 from the floor for 16 points in the extra period.
The Kings hunted Tyus Jones relentlessly in overtime, either going at him on a switch or using the pocket of space created by his hedges to attack.
Suns have a conundrum here. Jones is an easy target on defense but he's also very valuable to their offense. pic.twitter.com/okN9enF13A
— Mat Issa (@matissa15) November 11, 2024
The Larger Issue At Hand
After Fox’s bucket to push Sacramento’s lead to seven with 1:12 remaining, head coach Mike Budenholzer decided he’d seen enough and subbed Jones out for the defensive-minded Josh Okogie. The Kings countered by shifting their focus over to Grayson Allen. Normally, Kevin Durant (who was sidelined with a left calf strain) would close, and the Suns wouldn’t have to worry about Allen’s defensive shortcomings. But even then, they still have a much larger problem on their hands.
In basketball, no matter how deep your team is, you can only put five people on the court at once. When teams hunt Jones, the Suns do have defense-first role players they can swap in his place. Ryan Dunn, the rookie sensation, is a particularly strong candidate for these situations (one that Budenholzer curiously didn’t turn to down the stretch).
For all his strengths, though, Dunn is a 3-and-D chess piece rather than a floor general like Jones. So, when you put Dunn in (or Okogie, or Royce O’Neale) for Jones, you lose the offensive benefits we outlined above. To combat this, you could (when everyone is healthy) move Durant to center and play both Dunn and Jones, along with Booker and Beal. But in that scenario, you sacrifice a great deal of rim protection, and teams can still attack Jones, too.
This leaves the Suns in a real pickle. In theory, they have all the tools you need to seriously compete for a championship: On-ball scoring, spacing, defense, size and rim protection. They just struggle to find a five-man lineup that can evenly distribute all these tools.
The most simple solution is if one (or more) of Booker, Beal and Durant could take a sizable leap in playmaking and decision-making speed. That way, you get the pros of Jones without his defensive tradeoffs.
The most likely candidate to don this mantle is Booker. Over the years, he’s managed to demonstrate consistent growth in his Passer Rating (an estimate of a player’s passing ability on an ‘approximately’ 1-10 scale).
Booker even flashed his chops in this loss to the Kings. Look how easily he identifies the availability of a skip pass and how accurately he hits his receiver.
Still, there’s a big difference between displaying incremental strides and being able to quarterback a high-level offense down after down. The last time we saw Booker thrown under the fire, the Suns had their faucet shut off by the Minnesota Timberwolves in a 4-0, first-round sweep.
The Bottom Line
The Suns may be 8-2, but they’re only 14th in the NBA in net rating. As a general rule, great teams tout high net ratings because they blow out their opponents. The fact that the Suns aren’t doing that speaks to their roster imbalances.
Phoenix is very good. But when you’re chasing a championship — a clear objective of this Suns team — the margins are razor thin. Each team has questions they must answer if they plan on legitimately contending.
These are the Suns’ questions. Let’s see if they can answer them correctly.
