5 lingering concerns for Phoenix Suns in 2024-25

The Phoenix Suns feel like one of the more underrated teams in the Western Conference. The Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks have earned the benefit of the doubt, thanks to, respectfully: a recent championship and having the best player in the world; a run to the conference finals; being a young team that secured the 1-seed in the West; and having arguably the best or second-best player in the world coming off an NBA Finals run.

But the Suns are mostly left out of that upper tier, despite boasting a Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. They addressed the point guard position, they added depth, they drafted a few new rookies and they changed head coaches. On paper, they should be better than last year.

But this team still isn’t some overwhelming title favorite, and every single Sun has room for improvement. There are some things that are simply difficult — or even impossible — to fix over the course of one offseason. There’s no such thing as a perfect NBA roster, and Phoenix has its fair share of lingering concerns heading into the 2024-25 season. In no particular order, let’s take a look at the five biggest ones.

1. The health of the Big 3

We covered this earlier in the week with our reasons for optimism, but even if we choose to be optimistic that the Phoenix Suns Big 3 will play more than 41 games together this time around, we can’t ignore their recent injury history either.

Kevin Durant had the healthiest season he’s had in five years, playing in 75 games and finishing fifth in minutes per game. But as he approaches his 36th birthday, Durant playing that many games again in 2024-25 is far from guaranteed. Despite his incredible work ethic and the amount of time and attention he puts into maintaining his body for heavy NBA minutes, injury can strike at any time.

Durant has had an Achilles tear and a Jones fracture in his foot in the past, so even though it’d be amazing to watch him build on last season with another healthy year at this stage of his career, anything less than 70-plus games puts the Suns in a more vulnerable state pretty quickly.

Bradley Beal, meanwhile, had the season from hell last year. He missed 29 games, but the worst part was how fragmented his year was thanks to the timing of those injuries. Beal missed the first few weeks of the season due to back problems, came back for a few games before re-aggravating his back, missed a whole month, got hurt again in his third game back after landing on Donte DiVincenzo’s foot, missed two more weeks with that ankle injury, returned for six weeks, broke his nose and hurt his hamstring before the All-Star break, missed nearly three weeks, and then finished out the season.

As flukey as all that sounds, Washington Wizards fans are probably shaking their heads sadly at this point. Now 31 years old, Beal has had horrible injury luck just like this for years, and over the last five seasons, he’s played an average of 52 games per year. Even with 41 games under their belts together, the Big 3 needs as much time on the court together as possible in order to steel themselves — and their supporting cast — for the playoffs.

Booker stayed healthy for the most part, missing 14 games last year. But that’s still a significant chunk, and it’s been a recurring theme for Book — damn those hamstrings and ankle sprains! — over the last few years. Altogether, the Big 3’s recent injury history suggests Phoenix might not get them out there together for 60-70 games:

• Bradley Beal has missed an average of 26 games over last 5 years
• Kevin Durant has missed an average of 36 games over last 5 years*
• Devin Booker has missed an average of 13 games over last 5 years

*= Includes Durant’s 2019-20 season, where he missed all 72 games recovering from his Achilles tear

We included this in our reasons for optimism because the hope is that the Suns get their Big 3 on the court together for at least 50-60 games. But we’re also including it here as a lingering concern because we can’t feel too certain that it will actually happen.

2. Do the Phoenix Suns have enough at center?

Going through another season with Deandre Ayton would’ve been untenable. He wanted an expanded role on offense, he wasn’t going to get one on a Suns team with a new Big 3, and a parting of ways was best for both sides. But that doesn’t mean his replacement at center solved Phoenix’s problems there by any means.

The Ayton trade was more than a center-for-center swap, since it also landed the Suns Grayson Allen. But in terms of that starting center spot, Nurk comes with a noticeable set of shortcomings. He’s a tremendous teammate, elite screen-setter, and top-tier rebounder on both ends, but his finishing at the rim is subpar, he’s not much of a threat as a floor-spacing big, and he’s prone to getting beat off the dribble on switches because he’s not the most fleet-footed big.

All nuance seems to get lost in the discussion whenever Nurkic comes up, so it’s worth pointing out that, defensively, he fared a lot better than expected. Opponents shot 8.6 percent worse at the rim with Nurk contesting than they’d normally shoot, and he executed Frank Vogel’s pick-and-roll coverages as well as one could reasonably expect.

But that rim defense doesn’t account for blow-bys, and on the other end, his poor finishing around the rim made it easier for defenses to load up on whichever member of the Big 3 was handling the ball in pick-and-rolls, at which point Nurk’s lack of gravity on his rim dives cramped the spacing.

According to Cleaning the Glass, which filters out garbage time, Nurkic shot 60 percent at the rim last year. That ranked in the 15th percentile among centers. Even worse, Nurk has never shot better than 63 percent at the rim in his career, and he’s never ranked higher than the 34th percentile among centers in rim accuracy.

In the playoffs, against a Wolves team that Nurk should have been able to stay on the floor against, he got played off the court entirely by Rudy Gobert. The Suns mostly went small in Game 4 with their backs against the wall, and even that necessary change felt like it came too late. Against opponents like the Mavs or Thunder who can go small and target bigs in pick-and-rolls, Nurkic may struggle to stay on the floor. But if he can’t even do so against teams with more traditional bigs like the Timberwolves or Nuggets, Phoenix will really be in trouble.

At the same time, if Nurk gets hurt, deals with foul trouble or is simply unplayable in a playoff setting, the drop-off going from him to his two backups could be significant. Mason Plumlee is an established veteran who sets sturdy screens, contests shots at the rim and brings solid playmaking to the 5-spot, but he’ll face similar limitations with his poor defensive mobility on the perimeter and lack of shooting range.

Oso Ighodaro, meanwhile, is a younger, more athletic rim-runner and mobile defender, but he’s still a rookie. He’ll need to learn the ropes and improve his rebounding, and he can’t shoot beyond a midrange push shot either. If Nurk and Plumlee are vulnerable to being targeted on switches, and if Ighodaro isn’t ready to contribute on a playoff contender in year one, the Suns may wind up in the same position as last year, where they’re forced to go small at the 5 with Kevin Durant, Royce O’Neale, Bol Bol, or another rookie in Ryan Dunn.

The Suns’ avenues for upgrading their starting center spot are limited, so like it or not, this team as constructed needs Jusuf Nurkic. Nurk seems to have slimmed down and has been working on his 3-ball this summer, but the concerns surrounding him — and the depth behind him — remain.

3. A Need for 3s

This was one of our most telling Phoenix Suns stats on where this group needs to improve next year, but it’s baffling how the Suns have been a top-10 team in 3-point percentage in each of the last four seasons…while also ranking in the bottom half of the league in attempts:

• 2023-24: 25th in 3PAs (32.6), 5th in 3P% (38.2%)
• 2022-23: 17th in 3PAs (32.6), 7th in 3P% (37.4%)
• 2021-22: 26th in 3PAs (31.9), 9th in 3P% (36.4%)
• 2020-21: 15th in 3PAs (34.6), 7th in 3P% (37.8%)

Last year’s squad ranking 25th in attempts despite being a top-five team in percentage is borderline malpractice. Part of the blame lies with Frank Vogel, Kevin Young and their offensive system. But part of the concern also stems from the innate DNA of the Suns’ Big 3 and their love for the midrange isos.

According to Cleaning The Glass, which filters out garbage time, this is how often Durant, Booker and Beal attempted shots from the midrange, as well as the long midrange (4-14 feet away from the basket):

• Kevin Durant: 56% frequency from midrange (98th percentile at his position), 26% frequency from long midrange (100th percentile)
• Devin Booker: 50% frequency from midrange (91st percentile), 23% frequency from long midrange (100th percentile)
• Bradley Beal: 40% frequency from midrange (70th percentile), 16% frequency from long midrange (88th percentile)

Over the last four years, the Suns have ranked second, first, first and sixth in the league in midrange shot frequency. During that same span, they’ve also ranked second, second, third and fourth in long midrange shot frequency.

KD and Booker were elite from those spots on the floor, and Beal was good in that respect as well. But as much as the Suns want to lean into their stars’ strengths, it’s also true that this group has to start funneling some of those midrange attempts into 3s or shots at the rim.

And it’s not like this team is lacking for capable 3-point shooters!

• Kevin Durant: 41.3 3P% last year, career 38.7 3P%
• Devin Booker: 36.4 3P% last year, career 35.7 3P%
• Bradley Beal: 43.0 3P% last year, career 37.5 3P%
• Grayson Allen: 46.1 3P% last year, career 41.2 3P%
• Royce O’Neale: 37.0 3P% last year, career 38.1 3P%
• Tyus Jones: 41.4 3P% last year, career 36.7 3P%
• Monte Morris: 38.6 3P% last year, career 39.1 3P%
• Damion Lee: 44.5 3P% last healthy season, career 37.9 3P%

To really hammer the point home about how the Suns made life more difficult for themselves, Cleaning The Glass uses a stat called “location effective field goal percentage” to show the efficiency of a team’s shot profile by measuring what their effective field goal percentage would be if every team shot a league-average percentage from every area of the floor. The Phoenix Suns have ranked 28th, 30th, 30th and 27th in that category over the last four years.

Fortunately, Mike Budenholzer’s teams have a history of getting up a healthy number of 3s during his time in Atlanta and Milwaukee. His teams ranked second, seventh, sixth, 16th, seventh, second, fourth, eighth, fifth and fourth in the NBA in 3-point attempts each season.

“There’s gonna be philosophical approaches to how we practice every day, how important shooting 3s is, and the spacing and all the value and all the things that come from being a high-volume 3-point team,” Budenholzer said. “I’m gonna work with the whole group to help them embrace it, understand why it’s important to us.”

4. Point of attack/wing defense

This one’s pretty simple: Kevin Durant is still probably the Suns’ designated lockdown defender on the wing. That’s a problem, considering how much they need him to do on the other end, and it could become an even bigger issue if Phoenix can’t rely on its center rotation and has to lean on small-ball lineups with KD at the 5 again.

The hope here is that Ryan Dunn — one of the greatest defensive prospects that several NBA Draft experts claim they’ve ever evaluated — can immediately step in and help alleviate some of that burden. It’s highly unlikely the rookie out of Virginia will start or close games in that role, but simply having any other plus-sized wings to tackle primary defensive assignments will take some of that responsibility off Durant’s plate.

The question here is whether Dunn can do enough on the offensive end to stay on the court, or whether he’ll wind up being a larger version of Josh Okogie. Dunn’s 3-point shot was the biggest thing that held him back as a prospect, as he shot 12-for-51 (23.5 percent) from deep in his two college seasons. His poor free-throw shooting (52.5 percent) didn’t inspire much confidence either.

However, the Suns felt comfortable enough with what he showed in private workouts to make him and Ighodaro their two main targets in the draft. Offseason videos are offseason videos, and Dunn didn’t exactly shoot well in NBA Summer League, but the stroke does look better than one would expect based on the percentages.

Dunn understands he needs to make 3s at a somewhat passable clip to earn minutes, and it’s clearly been a point of emphasis for him this summer. If he can fill that role, the Suns are in good shape for the short-term and great shape for the long-term. But if he can’t, Phoenix’s options behind KD in the “playable wing stopper” category suddenly shrink down to an undersized, 31-year-old Royce O’Neale, a better-suited-as-a-4 Bol Bol, and…a two-way contract rookie in Jalen Bridges?

The Suns’ potential defensive issues extend to the point of attack as well. The advanced metrics paint Tyus Jones as a better-than-expected isolation defender, but he’s still undersized at 6-foot-1 and 196 pounds. He will be targeted on mismatches, and the Suns will need one (or both) of Beal and Booker to step up defensively to compensate for some of that.

Behind Jones, Monte Morris showed how committed a defender he can be with the Timberwolves last year, but he’s also undersized at 6-foot-2 and 183 pounds. If he brings that same tremendous effort the Suns will be in better shape, but he’ll still be targeted because of his size. Next to Morris, Grayson Allen was miscast last year as a defensive stopper in the backcourt.

The best answer to this question is Josh Okogie, but the questions that dominate the Ryan Dunn conversation are the same ones that Okogie has been dealing with for years now. He’s an imposing point-of-attack hound on the defensive end, but if he can’t be a passable 3-point shooter, if he’s unwilling to let open looks fly, and if he can’t finish at the rim, it gets harder to play 5-on-4 against teams leaving him open.

Perhaps Budenholzer’s motion offense will help unlock Okogie so the Suns can capitalize on his much-needed defensive playmaking. But if Okogie isn’t able to stick in the rotation, they’re going to need Jones and/or Morris to be a lot peskier on defense to make up for that size discrepancy.

5. Deficiencies in size and rebounding

The Phoenix Suns’ starting lineup will feature the 6-foot-1 Jones, 6-foot-4 Beal and 6-foot-6 Booker. Their backups are a 6-foot-2 Morris, 6-foot-4 Allen and 6-foot-6 O’Neale, who typically plays the 3 or the 4. That’s a fair amount of size to be giving up, and it’s similar to last year’s situation.

Dunn’s size and length could help if he cracks the rotation, and Plumlee/Ighodaro will be an upgrade over Drew Eubanks by simply not being abject disasters. But even if those new guys prove themselves quickly, the starting five will face an inherent size disadvantage on most nights.

That often led to rebounding concerns last year. Although the Suns were technically a top-10 team in rebounds per game, Nurk did most of the heavy lifting there, and even his 11.0 boards on a nightly basis couldn’t prevent Phoenix from falling to 20th in defensive rebounding percentage.

Because of their elite shot-makers and top-five field goal percentage, Suns opponents actually recorded fewer defensive rebounds on a nightly basis than they did against any other team in the league. But those opponents also pulled down 11.0 offensive boards a night against Phoenix (22nd in the NBA), leading to 14.0 second-chance points per game (19th).

Size can’t be helped, and that will matter on some possessions, but effort and focus on this potential problem area can’t become a recurring issue. Having Plumlee behind Nurkic should help, but everyone outside of Nurk has to be more active in helping out on the glass next year.