The most revealing moment when speaking with a player or coach as a member of the media is when a question asked is somewhere in the realm of “a layup,” and that person does not take the easy bucket, instead trailing off toward something more negative after the open invitation to be positive.
Towards the end of the 2022-23 Phoenix Suns season, recently acquired star forward Kevin Durant sustained a freak accident in pregame warmups that forced him to play in only eight games with Phoenix before the postseason. In the middle of a seven-game winning streak Phoenix would roll off that partially included Durant, point guard Chris Paul was asked if this was the type of momentum the Suns needed to accelerate the process of building camaraderie on the floor for a totally new unit.
Paul, as a guy who will almost create his own layup answer to any question, paused briefly before shrugging at the notion with his words and reemphasizing how important it was for the Suns to stay healthy so they can keep jelling. A.k.a., Paul’s answer was a defiant no, because they did not have enough time to figure out the team dynamics.
That wound up holding true. Phoenix was lucky Kawhi Leonard got hurt in the first round before it got by the Los Angeles Clippers, and then it lost to the Denver Nuggets.
That moment really resonates with the 2025-26 Suns, who have soared far above any realistic expectations for what they could achieve, and have done so through numerous injuries not allowing their full team to see the floor together.
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That could change as early as Tuesday with the potential return of Dillon Brooks from a broken hand, but that same question pops back up if seven games and two weeks is enough time for complex elements to synchronize.
After Jalen Green essentially missed over three months to begin the year, he and Brooks (the primary return for Durant in last summer’s blockbuster deal) have hardly played together in purple and orange. It’s a total of 61 minutes played over seven games the pair have been together. All of those came while Green was still bothered by his right hamstring and getting back in the swing of things.
The team is different since Brooks last played in mid-February.
He’s only logged 30 minutes with rookie Rasheer Fleming, who has the best on-off court splits in the month of March. Fellow rookie Khaman Maluach has been solid while Mark Williams (right foot stress reaction) has missed time, with the Maluach and Devin Booker pairing logging one of Phoenix’s best net ratings for duos with 100-plus minutes in March.
Brooks has played one single minute with Maluach.
There are tons of other lineup combinations, such as the Suns’ potential starting lineup when everyone is healthy, that have hardly been explored or haven’t been entirely.
What is that lineup?
We know Booker is in there, and so is Brooks. With Green shooting more efficiently the last few weeks and his standing, he’s going to be the third. Is the center still Williams when he comes back, given that Oso Ighodaro has taken his game up another level since starting? How about the last perimeter spot? Only one of Collin Gillespie or Royce O’Neale can squeeze in there. Should, uh, should it be Fleming anyway?
Beyond that, how this all functions together on both ends will take time to settle in.
Offensively, Brooks’ emergence as a reliable primary scoring option means the Suns now have three of those on the perimeter. And two don’t pass the ball all that much.
This season, there are 26 perimeter players who have logged a usage percentage of 28% or higher with at least 30 games played, per Stathead. When sorting the group by assist percentage, Brooks’ 9.6% is far and away the lowest number. Not far behind him (at least in leaderboard placement) with the sixth-worst mark is Jalen Green’s 19.1%, sandwiched by Brandon Miller and Cam Thomas. Booker is also on this list, sporting the 12th-best assist percentage at 29.9%.
Anything under 25% is a serious issue, considering how much you have to shoot the ball to get a usage percentage that high. There are fewer players with that 28% or above usage percentage than teams in the league. Phoenix is obviously the only team with three guys qualifying, because it’s pretty much statistically impossible without injuries. Only the Charlotte Hornets with Miller (18.5 AST%) and LaMelo Ball (42.3 AST%) and Portland Trail Blazers with Shaedon Sharpe (15.1 AST%) and Deni Avdija (32.1 AST%) have a pair that played together for most of the year.
Define it as simply as the tired adage of “there’s only one ball to go around,” or be more precise in your thinking while dissecting how Brooks and Green balance their touches between the team’s star, Booker, still initiating offense as much as he should. The bottom line is it would be a basketball miracle if this clicked into place right away, even with the decent-sized foundation Phoenix has for its style of play coming in. And there are two weeks left in the regular season.
Defensively, that puts Booker or Green in a position where they have to defend someone of significance. Think about the San Antonio Spurs, and not even about Victor Wembanyama. Who defends De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle? Teams like the Thunder and Lakers pose this issue as well. Brooks, who hasn’t been at the standard you’d expect him to be as a defender, can only perform his usual bread-and-butter irritant tactics on one key player.
The positive for the Suns is that even though their record in March indicates they’ve been slumping as they did in February, the metrics tell another tale. Tons of key numbers are back in a healthy spot, including an offense and defense that grades in the top half of the league. They avoided seriously sliding after losing their balance for a bit.
And just as they do, the Suns have to traverse across a greased-up floor two weeks away from postseason basketball.
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