Spending the most money and paying the highest luxury tax, the team is trying to strengthen itself, but the results are not improving, and it has even fallen out of the playoffs. This is a bit confusing.
The boss is also a basketball enthusiast. He was selected for the basketball team during his university days. Although he didn't achieve much and hardly played, he just likes it. After graduation, he even served as an assistant coach at the school. It wasn't until his father's earnest persuasion that he was unwilling to return home to take over the family business. Later, under his management, the company became the largest lending company in the United States. Just when the former owner of the Suns was willing to sell the team, he, who had money and loved basketball, immediately spent $4 billion to buy the team. He is the current owner of the Suns, Ishbia.
The first thing he did when he came to the team was to recruit players. Durant, who was still with the Nets at the time, became his first target after buying the team. For this reason, the Suns were not reluctant to send their two best top-level 3Ds, Bridges and Cameron Johnson, to the Nets.
From the current market situation, the value of Durant's trade is still on the rise. The Knicks gave four first-round picks to the Nets to get Bridges, and now the Nets are offering three first-round picks for Cameron Johnson. However, after the Suns brought Durant, they couldn't even break through the Western Conference.
Ishbia, who is a player by origin, deeply understands that championships are built by stacking superstars. For this reason, he was not reluctant to trade the aging Paul for Bradley Beal, and also got rid of Ayton, who was unable to shoulder the responsibility, and brought in Nurkic. What Ishbia didn't expect was that the Suns' three giants could never come together to form an effect greater than three 1s, and Nurkic was also plagued by injuries, causing the team's record to plummet.
Last season, they were even swept 4-0 in the first round of the playoffs by the Timberwolves. In order to connect the whole team, Beal had to do everything himself, and finally became the scapegoat for the team's losses. If it weren't for his veto power in transactions, he would have been traded away by the Suns for immediate combat effectiveness long ago.
After realizing the uneven distribution of ball rights, Ishbia went directly to the door during the offseason to convince Tyus Jones to join. You should know that Jones was the king of assists-to-turnover ratio in the league last season. According to his data, many teams would be willing to offer him a salary of tens of millions of dollars. He was purely coaxed by Ishbia.
$3.3 million is about the same as a minimum-salary player, but Jones has indeed proven his worth, averaging 6.4 assists per game this season, which is indeed a good job of distributing ball rights. However, the three giants' playing styles are incompatible, and even replacing Vogel with Budenholzer has not changed the fact that the team has fallen from first in the West to below the playoffs at the beginning of the season.
To be honest, the Suns' three giants are all offensive experts, but their offensive efficiency ranks only 15th in the league, which is average in the league, with an average score of 112.2 points. In an era where the inside players are all pulled out to shoot three-pointers, this level of offensive firepower is really hard to justify. This is equivalent to not being able to attack and not being able to defend, with an average defensive efficiency of 115.2, ranking only 22nd in the league. This is a typical case of scoring less than conceding goals, and it's no wonder that the team can't achieve good results.
When the three giants play together, there is not enough ball rights to distribute. At least from now, Beal scores the least among the three giants, averaging only 19 points. He plays the role of the third scorer in the Suns, and has not played up to his top-paid player status at all. However, his outside shooting is actually better than Booker's, with a hit rate of 38.9%, while Booker's three-point hit rate so far this season is only 34.5%, but he occupies the second most ball rights. Booker bears a great deal of responsibility for the Suns' lack of offensive power.
To be honest, if you want to maximize the Suns' offensive firepower, one of Booker and Beal needs to go to the bench to lead the bench lineup to attack and capture cities. Over the years, the most successful combination of the three giants includes Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker during the Spurs period, Garnett, Pierce, and Allen of the Celtics, and the Heat's three giants during their time. These players' functions do not overlap, and each has their own responsibilities. The only overlap is Wade and James during the Heat period, and later their performance improved under Wade's initiative to give up power.
Now, if the Suns want to fully unleash the firepower of the three giants, someone will have to sacrifice their ball rights. Otherwise, if all three are on the court at the same time, there won't be enough ball rights to distribute, and the offensive firepower of the bench lineup won't be enough either. In terms of interior defense, Nurkic has already proven that he is not the answer the Suns want.
The Suns' top priority is to find a player who can guard the interior and share the defensive pressure on Durant in the interior, reducing his consumption in defense. Only then will he have sufficient energy to deliver the final blow at the decisive moment. If both sides are deadlocked at the decisive moment, it would be disrespectful to basketball if the historically gifted scorer can't get the ball.
In the Suns' last six games, they lost five, including losses to the Pacers and Pistons. You should know that the Pistons are a team that often ranks at the bottom. How could they lose? This proves that it's really time for the Suns' core lineup to make changes. Now the team's record has reached 15 wins and 16 losses, and they can't even reach a 50% win rate. This is Ishbia. If it were any other owner, they would have dismantled the team and rebuilt it long ago.
Of course, there must be a bottom line for losing. If they continue to lose like this, the three giants are really going to break up. After all, the team's salary has already exceeded the second richest line, and there are already many restrictions on transactions. It is very difficult to strengthen the team unless a big transaction is made to reduce the salary space below the second richest line. Only then will the team have room to strengthen. Also, Durant is getting older, and if they don't seize the tail of his peak, it will be even harder for the team to win championships in the future.
If you were the owner of the Suns, Ishbia, how would you solve the team's current dilemma? Welcome to leave your comments and discuss this topic.