2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Phoenix Suns
Welcome to theScore's preview of the 2014-15 Phoenix Suns. Visit our preseason hub for previews of all 30 NBA teams.
Phoenix Suns
2013-14
| Record | Division | West | Playoffs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 48-34 | 3rd | 9th | DNQ |
The Phoenix Suns of 2013-14 were a lot of things. The feel-good story of the NBA season; the most improved team in the league; the surprise darlings of the League Pass community; and one of the fastest, most kinetic, most entertaining squads we've seen since this same franchise ran wild with their "seven seconds or less" mantra in the mid-aughts. Most unfortunately, though, they were also a casualty of the brutally competitive Western Conference.
After clinging to a top-eight seed for nearly the entire second half, the Suns were passed in the final week of the season by the Memphis Girzzlies and Dallas Mavericks, and their Cinderella campaign ended just short of the postseason. 48 wins would've landed them a 3-seed in the East. In the West, all it earned them was a 0.5% chance of winning the draft lottery.
Almost uniformly projected to finish at the bottom of the conference before the season, the Suns were propelled to relevance by point guard Goran Dragic, whose out-of-nowhere leap earned him the league's Most Improved Player award and a spot on the All-NBA third team. With controlled aggression, a slippery sleight-of-hand dribble, 50-40 shooting splits, and dynamic playmaking, Dragic galvanized a unique and diverse roster that fit together better than it had any right to.
He was complemented by a rangy, uber-athlete in Gerald Green, a bulldog of a wing defender in P.J. Tucker, a versatile inside-out forward in Markieff Morris, a sweet-shooting, pick-and-pop monster in big man Channing Frye, and a fleet, long-armed, two-way terror in backcourt mate Eric Bledsoe.
All these pieces and others were fused and molded into the cracked vision of rookie head coach Jeff Hornacek, and though it may not have translated into a playoff appearance, the Suns were some kinda fun to watch. With plenty of young pieces in place, and a terrific young GM in Ryan McDonough at the reins, the future in the desert looks bright.
Offseason Roundup
It was a strange, up-and-down, but not altogether unproductive offseason for the Suns, who briefly fostered a LeBron James pipe dream before spending virtually the entire summer waiting out restricted free agent Bledsoe. Their signing of former Sacramento Kings point guard Isaiah Thomas could have been seen as either a contingency plan or a leverage play (or both), but any way you sliced it, Bledsoe's future with the team looked foggy at best.
And then they signed him. Just days before camp opened, after which he would have signed a one-year qualifying offer to become an unrestricted free agent in 2015. The deal is for five years and $70 million, a steep price given Bledsoe's injury history (he's had two major knee surgeries in four years and was limited to just 43 games last season), but not out of line with his talent.
The Suns also signed the Morris twins to four-year extensions, and completed their second fraternal tandem by bringing in Dragic's younger brother, Zoran, who impressed with the Slovenian national team at this year's FIBA World Cup.
Their biggest loss was Frye, who bolted for Orlando in free agency, and whose size, dead-eye shooting, and post defense made up the foundational ingredients of the Suns' secret sauce last season. It'll be difficult to replicate the spacing Frye engendered on offense, but the Suns made a game attempt to do so by signing stretch-four Anthony Tolliver, who shot 41.3 percent on threes last season and could theoretically approximate Frye's function in the pick-and-roll game.
Additions
*PG Eric Bledsoe (5/$70M)
SG/SF Zoran Dragic (2/$3.5M)
PG Isaiah Thomas (4/$27M)
PF Anthony Tolliver (2/$6M)
*SF P.J. Tucker (3/$16.5M)
*Re-signed
Departures
SG Leandro Barbosa (free agency)
SF Dionte Christmas (waived)
PF Channing Frye (free agency)
PG Ish Smith (waived)
2014 Draft
SF T.J. Warren (1st round, 14th overall)
PG Tyler Ennis (1st round, 18th overall)
SG Bogdan Bogdanovic (1st round, 27th overall)
C Alec Brown (2nd round, 50th overall)
On top of their surprising season, the Suns led the league in first-round draft picks, getting the chance to add three young pieces to their budding roster.
In Warren, they nabbed yet another swift, malleable hybrid forward, a consensus second-team All-American who led the ACC in scoring (24.9 PPG). Warren may not possess the range the Suns cherish but he can score in a variety of ways and has the length and mobility to be a disruptive defender at multiple positions.
Ennis had a fine freshman year running the point for Syracuse, but he'll be hard-pressed to eke out elbow room in Phoenix's clown car of a backcourt. Like the the Isaiah Thomas signing, the Suns drafted Ennis while Bledsoe's status was still in limbo. Now that Bledsoe is back in the fold, it's unclear where Ennis - who is good at many things but not great at anything - will fit in.
Bogdanovic flashed plenty of potential - and wowed the Suns front office - at the FIBA World Cup with Serbia. He could be a tantalizing piece down the road, but for the time being he's been stashed in Turkey, where he signed a four-year deal (with a buyout clause after year two).
Starting 5
- PG Goran Dragic
- SG Eric Bledsoe
- SF P.J. Tucker
- PF Markieff Morris
- C Miles Plumlee
Breakout Player: Markieff Morris
Morris is one of those guys who's already taken a big step forward but could be primed for an even bigger one. He didn't flash much potential as a shooter or post scorer in his first two NBA seasons, but out of nowhere last year he morphed into both. Morris hiked his true shooting percentage more than 90 points, doubled his free throw rate, set career highs in every meaningful category, and finished fourth in Sixth Man of the Year voting.
The big question facing him this year is whether that production can translate to an expanded role, because the burden of filling the Channing Frye void is largely going to fall on Morris' shoulders. The Suns showed they believe he's up to the challenge, giving him a four-year, $32 million extension (identical to the deal Frye signed with Orlando), and if they're right, Morris' numbers should jump across the board once again.
He's slated to start and power forward, and he's been told by Hornacek that he’ll be frequently slotted in as a small-ball center in uptempo lineups. While that will leave him vulnerable defensively, it will also put him in position to score. A lot. He won't be an All-Star, but his numbers may well look good enough to get him into the conversation.
Season Expectations
With so many guys coming off career years (Dragic, Bledsoe, Green, Morris, Tucker, Plumlee - the entire roster, basically), the Suns are a bit of an unknown. Some of those guys likely established new sustainable standards. Others will regress. And whether or not the Suns can crack the top eight in the Western Conference torture chamber will depend on how they negotiate that balance.
Getting a full season out of Bledsoe would make up for regression elsewhere, but that's not a small if, and it would still leave the Suns with some ostensible roster redundancies. That's particularly relevant to Thomas, their most interesting addition and biggest wild card, who enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2013-14 that saw him finish fourth among all point guards in PER (20.5) and seventh in true shooting (57.4 percent).
It's unclear how Phoenix, with their point guard logjam, will deploy him. The Suns showed a willingness last season to experiment with radical lineups, particularly small ones, but Bledsoe's defense allowed those units to function and Thomas' shortcomings on that end could make using him in multi-point guard rotations untenable. But a surplus of backcourt depth isn't a bad problem to have, and there's no reason to think Hornacek won't be able to sort it out.
It seemed like a lot had to go right for the Suns to compete for a playoff spot last season. This year they'll be out to prove it was no flash in the pan.
1 to Follow on Social Media
The Suns franchise has always been about excelling on the margins. On top of having the league's most celebrated medical staff, the Suns have arguably its most inspired and entertaining YouTube channel. You should probably subscribe.