Have the suns built a contender?

So, as someone who was pretty vehemently anti-Bradley Beal trade when it happened, it's really difficult for me to sit here today and say that the Phoenix Suns haven't had an amazing offseason

so within the first I think week and a half of free agency the Phoenix Suns have managed to acquire

I think five new players and a second round and their second round rookie without a mid-level

exception and they got Eric Gordon in that process they got Yuta the shooter in that process they got

two backup centers who are both okay and they got Keita Bates-Diop now none of these players are

phenomenal. Eric Gordon's a pretty reliable three-point shooter. His health is always a bit

of an issue, and he's sometimes not the most efficient, but he always averages double digits

and he's a veteran, and he's a bucket. He's always been a bucket. Yuta the Shooter is, like

I think he had a month last year where he shot, like, 60% from the corners. It was crazy

He's one of the best spot-up shooters in the league in limited minutes. uh katibate's diop is apparently a really good cutter which is something this team's going to

desperately need when you have three on-ball creators i i don't really know about their

rookie but the two backup centers are obviously nice to have when you lose jock londale who wasn't

that good in the first place so the phoenix suns have managed to kind of i think the i think they

kind of have a squad i wasn't sure about i wasn't sure about the uh the depth that this team was

going to be able to build, not even having a mid-level exception. Basically, there was almost

no avenues for them to even acquire, because to me, the bar for the Suns team is acquiring

productive playoff rotation players, and if you watch the Nuggets this year, they only ran like a

seven or eight-man playoff rotation. You only need eight good NBA players, but to do that, you need

like mid-level exception level players, like even guys like Reggie Jackson or DeAndre Jordan or

Thomas Bryant, who the Nuggets, who the Suns are going to have to contend with now, signed for less

than the mid exception or around it I don really know for sure the details of their contracts Like those guys didn even crack the rotation So I wasn really sure how phoenix was going to build a squad without even having that much cap flexibility but they kind of managed to do it

with these small like minimum level contracts and i think getting eric gordon at this value is crazy

and this isn't even accounting for the fact and the reason i'm making this video um they can still

get Bull Bull, and they're rumored to get him within the next few days of free agency

which would be insane, because if they can add Bull Bull to this team, then they're going

to be balling, because that would be probably their second best, if not their best, acquisition

of the offseason. So the Phoenix Suns have sort of built themselves a pretty good supporting cast, a pretty solid

supporting cast, it's definitely still not up to snuff with a team like the Clippers or even the

Lakers in terms of depth, but they've kind of built themselves a bit of a bit of a bit of depth

here around their insane core, and I still have a lot of doubts about that core. I don't think

three on-ball shot creators, okay, hang on guys, anyway, oh god, where was I? So yeah, even though

I think they don't have the depth that like a lot of the other Western Conference contenders

have built, and I don't think this core is going to be successful. I still think that the moves

that the Suns made during the offseason are extremely impressive. But I guess let's talk

about my opinion and my thoughts on this core, now that they're kind of set in stone on their

pieces, because I don't think DeAndre Ayton's getting traded at this juncture in free agency

and it doesn't look like they'll be able to acquire a lot more players. I think Bowe will

basically max out their cap flexibility even though they've kind of been stretching it the

i think this team it's going they're going to be a good regular season team there's no doubt about

that you you have three of the 15 best scorers in the nba arguably bradley beal averaged like 35

three years ago kevin durant's arguably the greatest scorer of all time and devon booker's

a bucket as well like you're gonna have three of the best shot creators in the league this team's

going to win a lot of regular season games. They're probably going to get home court advantage in the

playoffs But my problem with this team is they don have a lot of defense None of these guys are no I don think there a single elite defender on this team And I pretty sure like unless you

have a scheme that kind of lends itself to maximizing your team, your defenders, like guys

with like length or guys who in theory can switch or like what the Nuggets did with Michael Porter

Jr. Who's usually not a plus defender. They kind of turned him into a roamer where he would kind of

help and block shots on the weak side he would help from the weak side and block shots like you

can make a scheme with limited defensive personnel work but you still need one or two like good

defensive players and i don't even know or like defensive leaders like like players who can kind

of galvanize your defense that's kind of like what the celtics have in marcus smart the difference is

you know, well, Marcus Smart's not on the Celtics anymore, and the Celtics had, like, actual, like

elite switchable defenders, but this Suns team doesn't really have a guy who can kind of, you

know, like, kind of rally the troops on the defensive end. I have no doubts that their

offense is going to be good. There might be a lot of situations, especially during the playoffs

when teams are, like, explicitly scheming for these three guys, when it'll be, like, a too many

cooks in the kitchen kind of situation and i don't know if you remember that one clip from this year

where luca and kairi kind of got stuck at the top of the key and like at the end of the game kind of

just passing back and forth trying to make something happen i feel like there's gonna be a lot of

situations like that with this team they have a full season to work it out and this core is

basically locked in for the next two three seasons i'm not really sure how long all their contracts

run um but at least for this year i think there's gonna be a lot of times where these three kind of

end up being redundant, and I think staggering their minutes is going to be really important

to the success of this team. And also, Devin Booker's playmaking taking a leap

and then Bradley Beal's three-point shot coming back is going to be a big deal as well

because really, these three all like to create in the mid-range, which, in small doses, is good

but when you have three guys who don't shoot even... I don't even think Bradley Beal's

a league-average three-point shooter anymore, or he is exactly at league average and then Kevin Durant and Devin Booker who are probably overrated three shooters it a little bit concerning though they did address this in the

offseason, obviously, with Yuta Watanabe and Eric Gordon. But I still don't feel great about this

Suns team. They make me a little bit—they am really worried about their future just because

I just don't see a world where this team, without the cohesion and without the, like

because this team is assembled like you would assemble a 2K team, where you basically trade all your draft capital

because, like, basically Matt Ishbiot, like, bought the team and was like, oh my god, we can get Kevin Durant

We can get Bradley Beal? Like, yeah, obviously those moves sound great, and, you know

but, you know, if you can't see past your nose, then you're not going to realize that there might be consequences

to picking up a player with a no-trade clause who's on a massive, super-duper max contract

and a 35-year-old who's always hurt. The upside of this team, the ceiling of this team

if this all manages to work out, and they have an average defense and an insane offense

with elite shooting and DeAndre in the pick-and-roll, and all these guys become like

you might be able to build a good, oh, they also got Jordan Goodwin, I forgot about that

Okay, so they actually have a point guard who can pass. But I don't know if he's a primary playmaker

so they might have to run basically five secondary playmakers. Because if you look at most contending teams throughout the years

I actually just watched an NBA Storyteller video which kind of touched on this idea

Most finals level teams have like one elite playmaker, one primary playmaker and then one guy who averages like three to five assists and that

basically nucleus that tandem basically makes up for like probably half the playmaking of your

roster or maybe like 40 percent of it and i don't even know if the suns can get to that bar because

they don't have that first guy but they have a lot of guys who can kind of pass you know because

bradley beal and devin booker have always been second options well i guess devin booker hasn't

but he's always been like a six-assist guy. And then Jordan Goodwin's apparently a pretty good passer

So, yeah, I think the Suns might have a squad