The 2013-14 Phoenix Suns ended their season with about as much momentum as any team in the NBA, which is odd for a group that missed out on the playoffs. The 48-win team had all of the basketball cognoscenti on its side as they watched six other Eastern teams with either worse or similar records made the postseason in the pitiful East, it defied expectation in turning what was thought to be a tanking season around, and the squad’s bevy of on-roster or incoming sound draft picks seemed to portend well for a bright future. The franchise’s lone question mark, free agent Eric Bledsoe, didn’t seem likely to go anywhere due to the restricted nature of his free agency.
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A year later, the outlook has changed. The Suns still managed a respectable record in 2014-15, topping .500 in the West is no joke, but the team is three games out of the playoff bracket with just five to play. The squad has lost two-thirds of its games since Jan. 20, it had to ship the disgruntled Goran Dragic and the we’re-not-sure-about-this-guy Isaiah Thomas out at the trade deadline, and the return prize in that deadline likely will not play again this year.
That prize, hybrid guard Brandon Knight, will also be a restricted free agent this summer. Bledsoe and the Suns eventually did come to terms, but it was an uneasy summer that inspired Dragic and Thomas’ frustrations. Now Knight, who just about plays the same position as Bledsoe (as was the case with Dragic and Thomas), will have his own turn.
Not before sitting for a bit to rest his dodgy left ankle. From Paul Coro at the Arizona Republic:
"From our standpoint, we need that to heal so I would guess he's out for the season," Suns coach Jeff Hornacek said.
Knight, 23, will be a restricted free agent in July, when the Suns will be able to re-sign him or match any offer sheet he signs with another team.
"I wish I could've been healthier throughout the process but that's part of basketball," Knight said.
Knight averaged 13.4 and 4.5 assists in 31 minutes a contest during his 11-game run with Phoenix, but he also shot 35 percent from the field and the Suns went 4-7 with him in the lineup.
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The Suns gave up quite a bit to secure Knight, a first-round pick that belongs to the Los Angeles Lakers that could either turn into the sixth overall pick this June or the fourth overall in 2016, depending on lottery luck. The Suns did well to extract two first-rounders from the Miami Heat in exchange for an in-prime player in Goran Dragic that was certain to flee as a free agent in July, picks that could cripple the Heat on down the line, but the Suns won’t see those selections until 2019 and 2021.
Meanwhile, a shot at using the season’s final two months to determine whether or not Knight (who had a near-All-Star season in a weaker Eastern Conference for part of the season) and Bledsoe fit together was shot to bits by Knight’s ankle woes. The Suns might be pressed into committing an eight-figure yearly salary to a guy they saw play for 11 mostly-iffy games. Yes, the salary cap is rising and Knight just turned 23 – but the Suns nearly made Eric Bledsoe the fifth-highest paid point guard in the NBA last summer, and does he feel like a top five point guard?
Bledsoe has his rightful excuses for his relative stasis this year in needing to share the ball with Dragic and Thomas, and he certainly gave off top five potential last season, but the same good timing and good collectively bargained luck we thought the Suns would have on their side when negotiating with Bledsoe and then Knight might reverse to bite the Suns in the tail.
Of course, it’s not as if Phoenix is in salary cap hell. If Bledsoe develops into an All-Star he will be a bargain, as the Morris twins currently are at their combined rate of around $13 million a year in most seasons, and the team will have heaps of expiring contracts leaving the books this summer.
One of those belongs to Gerald Green, a player that seems to alternate bouts of charming and tantalizing play with entire seasons of disappointing his employers. The Suns are the next franchise on Green’s list, sadly.
Via Pro Basketball Talk, here’s Coro quoting Suns coach Jeff Hornacek:
"He never really seemed to get it going and then it comes to the point where, if you're not scoring and if your defense isn't picking up, it's hard to stay in the game," Hornacek said.
"The next guy is going, 'I needed help here and the guy wasn't here.' We're trying to develop something for the future, not just being out here for everybody to play in the game. We want to get to a top-notch winning level and you've got to do it on both sides."
Green sees the writing on the wall, as well:
"I want to be here but I just don't know if they want me here," Green said. "Because if you want somebody, you show them. I didn't think I was playing that bad and now we're here."
Gerald dropped 24 points in his last outing, a win over the Jazz, but he hardly sees that as a sign of things to come even with Knight heading to the sidelines:
“I don't really get excited about games any more because I don't know if I'm going to play. These type of games don't excite me any more. They don't give me confidence.
"I don't want to get too excited because I know the next game I might not play."
Hornacek did well in his initial turn as coach last season, creating excellent spacing and movement that was in place even without Dragic and Bledsoe diving to the basket incessantly, but he is not without his quirks. The decision to bench players as a rule after they were given a technical foul was widely ridiculed, and while Dragic’s undoing came at Goran’s own behest, Hornacek has still presided over what can be a chippy and sullen locker room.
There have been good signs in Phoenix, despite all this storm and stress. Bledsoe, a year after another meniscus surgery, stayed mostly healthy in 2014-15. Center Alex Len blossomed in his second season, the movement on offense was in place at times, and the team will have room to move financially even if Knight banks a big deal this offseason. Losing a potential top six or top four pick for 11 games (or the eventual overpayment) of Brandon Knight is worrying, but Suns general manager Ryan McDonough might be hailed as a genius in four and then six years for grabbing those first-rounders from Miami. There is porential here, even before those picks hit.
A lot of movement, and yet the Suns didn’t actually go anywhere in 12 months. That’s worrying. We’ll have to see how the next 12 go.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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