After losing all three games in the first round to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Phoenix Suns have a lot of questions about their team this summer.
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Phoenix’s main five players are all signed up for next season, and the team is expected to have the highest payroll in the NBA next season at $209 million. This makes it very hard for the team to make trades or moves.
This means that the Suns will have to pay the second-tax apron next season, which is expected to cost $190 million.
At this point, Phoenix can only sign free agents from outside the Suns to terms that include at least one year of service. The Suns won’t be able to take in more pay than they send out, include cash in deals, join contracts together, or use a trade exception that was already in place.
This summer, the Suns will also pick 22nd overall in a draft that has been called one of the worst in a long time. The Suns can move both their No. 22 pick and their 2031 first-round pick on June 26, the day of the first round of the draft. They can’t do it before that. Until 2031, these are the only first-round picks that the Suns can trade right away.
President of basketball operations and general manager James Jones has said the team will not be moving any of the Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.So what does Jones feel the Suns’ biggest need this summer is to build around these three and new coach Mike Budenholzer? Shooting.
“Never forget the object of the game of basketball is to put the ball in the basket,” Jones said at Budenholzer’s introductory press conference last week. “If we can continue to find guys that can put it in the basket and also train every day to get our guys to be more efficient at it, that makes us a better team.”
The Suns placed fifth in the NBA in 3-point percentage last season at 38.2%, but only 25th in attempts at 32.6 per game.
However, they had plenty of shooting to support the Big 3, including the league leader in 3-point percentage, Grayson Allen. Eric Gordon, Yuta Watanabe and Damion Lee among others were all brought in or retained last season to help Phoenix in this area. On paper, Phoenix should have been one of the top 3-point hitting teams in the league. But, the Suns instead badly underperformed overall. Of these aforementioned players, Lee was out all season due to illness and Watanabe was benched and then traded at the deadline.
Budenholzer’s teams have been known to shoot a lot of threes in the past (h/t Desert Wave Media’s Trevor Booth on X).
If Mike Budenholzer becomes the next coach of the #Suns, expect them to shoot more threes.
Budenholzer’s teams by 3-pointers attempted and NBA rank:
2014: 26.4 (Second)
2015: 26.6 (Sixth)
2016: 28.8 (Fifth)2018: 31.0 (Seventh)
2019: 38.2 (Second)
2020: 38.7 (Fourth)… pic.twitter.com/84fqJY7Gye— Trevor Booth (@TrevorMBooth) May 10, 2024
With that said, Budenholzer described his method in 3-point shooting, highlighting the Big 3, who have been known to be masters of the mid-range rather than from deep.
“There’s going to be philosophical approaches to how we practice every day, how important shooting 3s is, the spacing, and all the value and things that come from being a high-volume 3-point team,” Budenholzer said. “I’m going to work with the whole group to help them embrace it and understand why it’s important to us. And when I think about Kevin and Devin being two of the greatest of all time, certainly this age, as we talk about today’s NBA, in the mid-range, I think of it as just adding to what they do.
“They’re so talented. They are so good at everything they do. I don’t want to take anything away from them; I want to add to what they do, I want to make them better. I want to push them to be their best and what’s best for our team, and to get all of us to understand, ‘How do we win?’ And there’s no doubt that these guys will know; I think 3s are a part of it. But we’re going to do it from day one. We’re going to do it starting in the gym, probably on Monday, training camp, all throughout the summer. The whole team is going to be important, including Brad and all those guys. They’re great players; I just want to add to what they do. That’s my mindset: to push them and make them their best selves. And for us to have our best team.”
There seem to be three spots on the Suns that are more important than shooters: a rim-protecting center, athletic forward and point guard. However, with today’s NBA, there’s no question the Suns need to incorporate shooting more 3s into what they do, and like most areas with the team, it starts with the Big 3.
