Stephen’s Notebook, Vol. 4: The Suns are in desperate need of a Spark and versatility

It’s been a rough few weeks for the Phoenix Suns, with the team plummeting on the defensive end of the floor, some of which stem from flaws in their offensive process.

The Suns are 15-17, with an Offensive Rating of 114.4 (10th), a Defensive Rating of 116.3 (24th), and a non-garbage time Net of -1.9 (20th).

They’ve been in need of a spark and a half, and it needs to surface internally before expecting any external entity (or entities) to come in and assist in either helping to solve their woes or helping better mask them from opponents’ attempts to poke at them.

Here’s what has caught my attention recently.

Dire Straits

At the the drop of this article, the Suns still have yet to play in 2025, and that’s a good thing.

They’ve (sorely) needed time to (re)assess, correct, heal, and do some identity searching.

They’re entering a “dire straits” portion of their season where they can either make themselves new in resetting their sails relative to the direction they’ve been trending, or further align with this cascading flow they’ve operated in the last month.

We’ve all noticed plenty and witnessed a lot of things about this team already this season, and the negatives here have so loudly drowned out the few positives that it feels as though they’re in need of change to spark and assist the team’s desire to “get right.”

These will be very revealing times in the early 2025 portion of their calendar as they are hamstrung on creativity for transactions due to their second tax apron constraints, have minimal assets in tow and the market hasn’t quite warmed up yet.

Nonetheless, even with that in mind, this team is nowhere near where they desired or have been expected to be, and change in some capacity is all but imminent.

I will say though, it is unfair to expect any one change to be what flips the switch for this team. I’ve maintained since our PHNX Suns season preview podcast that this team is about two-ish moves away from really being where I deem their ceiling is — in the contending realm.

They need size and an infusion of versatility both on the wing and in the center room.

There is also a need for an enforcing dynamic, from either or both of those positions.

Opponents have been entirely too comfortable operating in the paint against the Suns.

Part of that is because their point-of-attack defense has been porous of late at best, part of it has been breakdowns in scheme and miscommunication (especially in switching or not switching scenarios).

Most have been, however, that teams feel there’s zero resistance they’re met with after a paint touch against.

Whether it be opponents getting there via post-ups (like against a Jokić), via drives (like the Magic team), or via cuts, the Suns haven’t been able to meet force with something sustainable to get back even or put themselves in a position of dictating to opponents.

Their help hasn’t been sharp on timing consistently or stepped in with force often enough, and rim protection via charges taken (which requires rotations to be on time) or vertical rim protection via blocked shots.

Of note, the league average for opponents’ points in the paint has been 47.7 over the last month. In this window, they’ve compiled eight games, conceding more than that to a crop of opponents.

Addressing the wing and center positions, infusing both with some athleticism, size, and grit to all provide versatility, is beyond a need for the team.

Invest more into Oso Ighodaro

The Suns rookie big man is not a player without flaws, as no rookie ever has been.

However, he is one whose strengths align directly with a lot of what the team needs from his position in particular.

Stemming from a lot of the schematic inter-lineup breakdowns that plague the Suns in an ill-timed manner, cyclically, the need for them to simply keep teams from turning the corner and getting downhills is beyond important.

Whenever they’ve done so successfully in a sustained manner, the results are loud.

Oftentimes, it’s come with Oso Ighodaro on the floor for them defensively, as he unlocks the ability for them to viably switch and do so with activity — flattening out opponents actions and forcing them into secondary layers of play, and at worst, bleeding away the shot clock in favor of the Suns.

Phoenix defends at a rate that is the equivalent of the fourth best in the league when Ighodaro is on the floor, that’s 12.7 points better than their bottom-third ranking 115.0 defensive rating on the season.

To have so much value added while his proverbial training wheels are still on, heavily suggests a need to see just how much of a minutes load he truly can handle in the rotation.

He’s not a stalwart or a brute force kind of defender. In fact, one of his biggest weakness remains that when players can get into his chest he is rendered defenseless, but his IQ and sharpness with positioning, especially when insulated well on the wing and used in lineups with Durant (which I spoke to in the last Stephen’s Notebook), produce heavily positive results.

In lineups with Ighodaro at the center and Durant at the power forward spot next to him, the Suns have a 100.9 defensive rating per 100 non-garbage time possessions — good for a 99th percentile ranking, which is very (and I mean very) good and effective in 218 possessions.

This is a template for the lineup types this team will need to rely more on and can hopefully execute via transactions.

Ryan Dunn and Josh Okogie’s Multiple Efforts

Partly because of injury, but even more-so for a need of more energy and activity, the Suns have had to lean a lot more into having both Ryan Dunn and Josh Okogie on the floor than they ever desired to or imagined.

In that, there’s an inevitable advantage conceded to opponents in the offensive end.

For Okogie, though he’s both shooting well from deep this season (38.5% on 2.0 attempts per game) and finishing at the cup (64.6% on 48 rim field goal attempts), he simply will never strike enough fear in opponents to force them to react to him being spaced, shooting, or scoring.

That’s no indictment to him, nor a reason why he shouldn’t stake some claim in the team’s rotation, but it speaks to the high-end pieces around him and why it makes it complex to build an avenue for him to play consistently.

For Dunn, though his flaws are akin to Okogie’s, they’re far less alarming.

What these two have proven the last week or so is that the Suns haven’t been in a good space. Relying on them, off the bench no-less, to provide a spark often when the team is already at a deficit, is not good.

Additionally, they’ve proven the team’s need for at least one more, hopefully bigger (or a player that plays bigger than their measurable’s list) wing.

Those two simply guard the ball and do so well. They’re also great in the 50/50 scenarios, and play with multiple efforts, helping to fill the gaps on the margins that any role player brought to this Suns context needs to.

Whether addressing these needs for the team comes via a Jimmy Butler trade, or via other options, a need to juice their wing room with someone cut from the same Blue Collar cloth as they are, is loud.