During the Phoenix Suns’ media day Monday, expect to hear the usual cliches about the great offseason of additions and Player X adding 15 pounds of muscle. Good news, though: Do not expect first-year coach Mike Budenholzer to give the ol’ “people are going to have to win their starting roles in training camp” speech.

The Suns have their starting five. There are no surprises.

Budenholzer told NBA.com’s Steve Aschburner in a story published Friday that point guard Tyus Jones will be joined by Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Jusuf Nurkic to begin games.

“Certainly we feel like Tyus has established himself as a great starting point guard in our league and he will be our starter,” Budenholzer told NBA.com. “When you put him out there with Kevin, Brad, Book and Nurk, we feel like we’ve got a strong starting five. And a really strong bench behind them.”

Phoenix’s front office members had already said Jones would start after he averaged 12.0 points, 7.3 assists and shot 49% from the field last season with the Washington Wizards.

That the Suns’ three-headed monster joins him isn’t a surprise, though fan debate at times this offseason went into the zone of considering Beal as a bench player.

That’s not how it works for a three-time All-Star making $51 million per season, even if he did have injury issues and even if his 18.2 points per game were the lowest since the 2015-16 season.

Beal had his most efficient season as a pro — 51% shooting and 43% from three — and hardly did enough to warrant that silly discussion.

Still, Budenholzer naming an official starting lineup this early puts a stamp on the Suns rolling out a pretty small lineup.

Phoenix added Jones late in the free agency process after the former Washington Wizards point guard watched the market dry up, leaving him with backup opportunities and potentially eight figures of annual pay. Instead, he chose the Suns’ starting opportunity, which comes with a veteran’s minimum salary of $3 million.

If the Suns are fully healthy, the move bumps shooting guard Grayson Allen to the bench after his career season playing along with Booker and Beal in the backcourt.

The Jones signing also eats at playing time for fellow point guard Monte Morris, who joined the Suns earlier in the free-agency process looking like he would at least play a significant role off the bench as a low-turnover floor general.

Having two point guards should be welcome for a team that leaned too heavily on Beal and Booker to run point last year. The starting lineup is scary offensively if Jones plays with tempo in the fullcourt and the Suns in the halfcourt can shoot as many threes as they should under Budenholzer.

There are questions about fit and offensive deficiencies at wing and rebounding worries at the 4 and 5 slots. But there’s no question there is more versatility to the roster compared to last year’s team.

Here’s a look at the depth of the 20 players entering training camp on standard, two-way and exhibit-10 contracts.

Who will be in the Phoenix Suns’ starting lineup to begin 2024-25?

PG: Tyus Jones

G: Devin Booker

G: Bradley Beal

F: Kevin Durant

C: Jusuf Nurkic

Suns bench depth

PG: Monte Morris, Collin Gillespie (two-way), TyTy Washington (two-way)

G: Grayson Allen, Damion Lee

Wing: Royce O’Neale, Ryan Dunn, Josh Okogie

F: Bol Bol, Jalen Bridges (two-way), Mamadi Diakite (exhibit-10), Moses Wood (exhibit-10)

C: Mason Plumlee, Oso Ighodaro, Frank Kaminsky (exhibit-10)

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One of the trends we’ve come to understand is muscle watch, when players will post workout pictures around August or September, showing a physical transformation of sorts. This is usually accompanied by a caption somewhere along the lines of “Career year inbound? 👀” and the career year is almost never, in fact, inbound.

The one involving a Suns player, however, has been alongside actual basketball footage. Dare we say, intentional basketball footage that is worth bringing up.

Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkic is online. He does not shy away from a reply here or there, as well as blocking someone in a way that triggers a “what did I say badly about the big fella?” response. Nurkic is a bit of a poster! Do not take this negatively. He is a refreshing, thoughtful guy to talk to in a media environment. This is to preface the fact that he is very likely aware of the on-court narrative that started formulating for him once new head coach Mike Budenholzer arrived.

With Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis used as stretch 5s under Budenholzer in Milwaukee, it has been asked if Nurkic will take on that role for Phoenix as well. In Budenholzer’s last year with the Atlanta Hawks, Al Horford went from 65 total 3-point attempts in his first eight seasons to 256 that year. Horford has since gone on to shoot over 40% from 3 for the Boston Celtics each of the last two seasons on great volume for a big.

Nurkic has been posting a fair share of his workouts overseas on Instagram, and the overwhelming majority of them involving a basketball play are him taking/making a 3-pointer.

Jusuf Nurkić is coming different next season 👀🔥

(h/t @Iceman_34 )

pic.twitter.com/ifsb64ki8p

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) August 22, 2024

Ah, I forgot the fire emoji earlier. That’s on me.

Wouldn’t you know it, even Budenholzer himself came to visit Nurkic too.

👋🏻 ☀️ pic.twitter.com/hMQCJrrC3E

— Jusuf Nurkić 🇧🇦 (@bosnianbeast27) August 4, 2024

Jusuf Nurkic doing more stretch 5 things can help the Suns

Going off some admittedly mislabeled positional designations on NBA Stats, the Suns ranked 22nd last year in 3s made by centers. Take out Bol Bol’s 22, a player that almost never was featured at the 5, and Phoenix drops to 23 total and 26th. The teams it shares the bottom-five with all ranked top-five in alley-oop dunks from centers, while the Suns themselves were 29th there with just 23 as well.

This was another topic of conversation inside the Suns’ offseason, how there was a need for them to add a center with a more pronounced skill set in that singular dimension. The new additions don’t exactly solve this. Mason Plumlee is not the lob threat anymore that he was in the prime of his career. Rookie Oso Ighodaro will snag a few but it’s not the focal point of his offensive role. Both do not shoot.

Nurkic used to!

Two seasons ago, his last with the Portland Trail Blazers before arriving in Phoenix, Nurkic shot 36.1% across 119 attempts. That’s a solid 2.3 per game and a solid knockdown rate for a big.

Nurkic would relocate to the corner when a possession saw its sunset. The mechanics of his jumper are fine and dandy.

There’s also the obvious pick-and-pop situations, which can be used on or off the ball with how Nurkic will be utilized.

To put it bluntly, this was expected to be a thing in Phoenix, one of Nurkic’s talents that would help offset all his limitations in areas Deandre Ayton thrived in, such as finishing around the rim.

And it was. Until it wasn’t.

Nurkic attempted a 3-pointer in 33 of his first 35 games with the Suns, a total of 77 and an average of 2.2 a night that was right along with that frequency in Portland. The problem is he only made 27.3% of ’em and that was the point Phoenix cut off his water.

In Nurkic’s 46 remaining appearances, he took just 13, eight of which were in late-clock scenarios.

The question is, should he next season? Yeah! Probably!

The value trade-off of swapping out Nurkic’s susceptible efficiency around the basket in exchange for getting more 3s up as a team is there, especially if Nurkic can get back around the mid-30s on his percentage. Budenholzer can figure that out in real time much better, assessing the pros and cons as the season progresses. And if Nurkic isn’t making them again, the Suns can adjust again.

This all goes back to the core point when Nurkic was acquired. He provides value in other areas since he is not a traditional rim-rolling big or rim protector. The playmaking was there last year, as was the top-tier rebounding. A sprinkle of triples would be a welcome added bonus to push that value over the top for the Suns.

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Arizona Sports at Night with Kellan Olson and Mitch Vareldzis will air weeknights from 6 to 8 p.m. when there is no play-by-play on 98.7 FM. The show will be fast-paced with entertainment and information that Arizona Sports fans need in their evenings.

“The new show is an exciting addition to the Arizona Sports lineup and extends our local talk into the evenings,” said Brian Long, Bonneville Phoenix director of programming operations. “Arizona Sports at Night will serve Valley sports fans with live, local content on their commute home and all throughout the evening.”

Arizona Sports, the home of the Arizona Cardinals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Phoenix Suns and Arizona State football and basketball, will now have more local programming when the teams are not on the court or field.

Olson has been with Bonneville Phoenix for nine years. He has covered the Phoenix Suns and co-hosted the Empire of the Suns podcast since 2015. His role will shift to help with Arizona Sports at Night and fill-in work on the daily shows. Olson will continue covering the Suns with in-depth coverage of games and practices, both for ArizonaSports.com, on pregame and postgame shows, and on the Empire of the Suns podcast.

Vareldzis has been with the company for six years, primarily as the producer of Burns & Gambo. His role will also expand to include pregame and postgame coverage of the Suns.

Vareldzis has also previously been host of Arizona Sports Saturday and the State of the Sun Devils podcast.

The first Arizona Sports at Night airs on Monday, Sept. 9. It will also air shortened shows around partner specials such as the Arizona Cardinals’ Big Red Rage and Arizona State football’s Sparky’s Den.

Updated Arizona Sports 98.7 weekday lineup:

6 to 10 a.m.: Bickley & Marotta

10 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Wolf & Luke

2 to 6 p.m.: Burns & Gambo

6 to 8 p.m.: Arizona Sports at Night (when there is no play-by-play on 98.7 FM)

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The Suns have shown zero intention of calling their Big Three bets sunk costs right now.

Trading one of their stars now sounds conspirational.

But John Hollinger’s story for The Athletic about the NBA’s top underrated moves this offseason strongly paints a picture of why we should expect to hear about Houston again whenever the Suns reach the point of blowing up the roster.

Hollinger, a former executive of the Memphis Grizzlies, points out that the Rockets’ involvement as a third team in the Mikal Bridges trade from Brooklyn to New York this offseason will tie Houston to Phoenix for future years.

We won’t dabble in the confusing pick swaps and future traded picks exchanged in the deal that made Bridges a Nova Knick. Just know the Nets dealt the Rockets some of the draft capital Brooklyn received from the Suns in the Durant deal from 2023.

Hollinger writes that the Rockets could be the Suns’ savior to get out of cap hell down the road.

… the Rockets started with an unprotected first and an unprotected swap from Brooklyn and ended up with two unprotected firsts from Phoenix and two swaps.

What makes this so cool for Houston is that the Suns, despite their own underrated move this summer (for Tyus Jones) are rapidly hurtling toward Armageddon. Maybe not this year, maybe not even next … but it’s just around the corner. Owning late-decade Suns draft capital is a great business to be in.

…

Dangling the return of those two picks and some other goodies to get Devin Booker and let the Suns restart in two or three years is perhaps still an underdog bet, and much water will go under the bridge between now and then.

Such an idea was floated in less clean terms in rumors about the Rockets’ interest in Durant and even Booker this summer.

There’s no doubt Houston this offseason was putting out bat signals, via reporters, about its willingness to punch the gas and make a leap into contention, be it a trade with the Suns or otherwise.

A trade with Phoenix could inch closer to reality on the Suns’ end if traction isn’t gained this year. And things like point guard Tyus Jones departing after a single season — see below — will ding the talent level of the roster looking ahead.

As we’ve seen this offseason, the Suns might have finally found their spending limit.

On Wednesday, cutting the contracts of Nassir Little and E.J. Liddell (after the David Roddy trade) saved Phoenix about $40 million in tax money, per Hollinger. And it came at the price of currently not filling a 15th roster spot.

Hollinger calls the Suns’ Tyus Jones signing a top underrated move

By all accounts, the Suns recruiting point guard Tyus Jones to join them on a minimum deal in a dried-up market was about luck and being able to sell him on the situation.

They made up for the lack of cash with a family atmosphere that Jones said played a big part. Obviously, so did a chance to set up three of the league’s best scorers in Durant, Booker and Bradley Beal.

But how much of a steal did the Suns get in money terms? Hollinger put it in these terms while naming Jones one of the league’s most underrated offseason moves:

On a roster where the only other options were the brittle and less offensively potent Monté Morris (himself a bargain on a minimum deal earlier this summer) and “let’s see how another year of Point Booker works out,” Jones is basically manna from heaven. Though an extremely late addition, he’s good enough that he could genuinely matter in a congested West race where two or three wins might be the difference between the third seed and the Play-In Tournament … not to mention a playoff series.

Sure, Jones is gonzo next summer, and they’ll have to try to fill his spot again, but for a team in win-now mode, the “NOW” part strikes me as the more important element. The late-decade endgame in Phoenix looks brutal no matter what. But whatever Phoenix’s 2024-25 ceiling is going to be with Mat Ishbia’s absurdly all-in, burn-all-the-draft-picks approach, the Suns are way more likely to hit it after adding Jones.

Hollinger’s BORD$ metric, which puts a dollar value on a player’s production, had Jones as a $14.2 million talent.

Phoenix’s veteran minimum offer, the only contract they could hand the 28-year-old Jones, will pay out $2.1 million.

Jones is coming off his best NBA season, where he averaged 12.0 points to go with 7.3 assists and 49% shooting with the Washington Wizards.

In case you are wondering, there’s a near-0% chance Jones will be back with the Suns after the 2024-25 season.

This is a prove-it year, and Phoenix’s salary cap prison disallows it to offer him much more than a minor raise, which would still put Jones $10s of millions below his true value.

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All-in-all, the moves illustrate the Suns’ interest in pursuing outside options as well as confidence in rookies Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro, as Charania adds.

Charania reports the Suns will stretch Little’s three years and $22 million left on his deal, opening up cap space on top of the roster spot immediately. That means the contract will be paid over twice the number of years left on the deal, plus one, thinning the amount owed.

While it moves millions to the salary cap table through the 2030-31 season, taking those small amounts off the books will save around $40 million in tax penalties over the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons as the Suns navigate the second apron, according to The Athletic’s John Hollinger.

Dunn, plus re-signed wings Royce O’Neale and Josh Okogie, will take care of what Little could have provided as defense-first wing players, while Phoenix could rotate bigs Bol Bol and Ighodaro at the 4 alongside a center rotation of Jusuf Nurkic and Mason Plumlee.

Little appeared in 45 games for Phoenix but struggled with a knee injury in the backend of the year.

He averaged 3.4 points and 1.7 rebounds in 10.2 minutes per game with a single start.

The 6-foot-6, 220-pound wing was the 25th overall pick in 2019.

Still 24 years old, Little was viewed as a big piece to the Deandre Ayton-Damian Lillard blockbuster last offseason. Instead, it was fellow former Portland Trail Blazer Nurkic holding up as a starting center and former Milwaukee Bucks guard Grayson Allen putting together a career year that will define that move on the Suns’ end.

Phoenix in July traded wing David Roddy to the Atlanta Hawks for Liddell, whose career has not gotten off the ground in the NBA. Liddell had already been shipped this offseason from the Hawks to the Pelicans on July 6 as part of the Dejounte Murray trade.

Liddell was set to make $2.1 million next season with a club option for $2.3 million the following year.

The 6-foot-6, 240-pound scorer has appeared in eight NBA games for the Pelicans after a productive college career at Ohio State.

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Tier 4 — How are we not in an automatic playoff spot

7. Memphis Grizzlies

This should be a 50-win team again like it has been in the past. We’ve been deprived of Ja Morant for so long that Anthony Edwards took his place in the superstar hierarchy and we forget Morant is just as fun to watch. Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. got to expand their offensive roles during the mess of last season while Memphis got to discover potential rotation finds like Vince Williams Jr. and G.G. Jackson.

Oh yeah, Marcus Smart is on this team! He’s great too! And Brandon Clarke! Then there’s rookie Zach Edey, who slips into the starting center role and should be a plus player in a limited role of 20-25 minutes a night immediately.

But there’s something not quite right here.

Jaren Jackson Jr. has had an odd career. We all know he is a very good player. He also can’t rebound and fouls a lot, which relegates him to the 4 where he is shooting 32.6% from 3 the last four seasons. Bane is a large variable too, someone with All-Star upside entering Year 5 after missing significant chunks of the last two seasons due to injury.

Edey will surprise you with how well he runs the floor and moves defensively in his drop coverage zones. The scoring touch around the rim is as advertised and a two-man game with Morant will be money from the jump. Edey is also not Steven Adams, a master at what he did over the years in all the little nuances that make great big men great. Replacing all that with a rookie is tough sledding.

Williams is absolutely ready to be a playoff-caliber wing. G.G. Jackson was a terrific story and can really score, while the other stuff remains to be seen. Memphis is lucky it hit on Bane because everyone else it has drafted since to play off Morant has been underwhelming. Maybe Jake LaRavia defies that trend in his third season?

All that before getting to Morant, a story that speaks for itself. There’s just the ask of needing to see it to believe it. The same was asked in this space a year ago of Dallas and Minnesota.

Oftentimes the tiebreaker is coaching. Taylor Jenkins is great and has a connection with his guys. With that, we’ll give Memphis the benefit of the doubt.

6. Sacramento Kings

(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

The Kings were a delightful story two years ago, nearly upsetting the Golden State Warriors in the first round and putting Sacramento back on the map.

Then, last year happened. They were slightly worse, got mostly bad contributions from the supporting cast around their two stars and that was enough to miss the playoffs.

Sacramento took a responsive swing by acquiring DeMar DeRozan, the most underrated player of his generation. DeRozan’s career has unfortunately withered away since he was traded by Toronto six years ago. There’s another version of his time where he’s made seven or eight All-NBA teams by now instead of just three. He’s a phenomenally great offensive player and gets a chance on a good team here to show everyone what he’s about.

The Kings will love his injection of half-court scoring and creation off of De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis and Malik Monk. DeRozan and Fox in crunch time is as deadly of a pairing as any.

The defensive fit is not ideal. Kevin Huerter had a weird season and presumably moves to the bench so Keon Ellis, the lone bright spot out of last year’s role player exploration crew, can get his defense involved more prominently. It’s a huge year for Keegan Murray to go from, “Hey, he’s not bad!” to a legitimately great complementary wing player. Trey Lyles has been pretty reliable for Sacramento and he all of a sudden becomes a lot more needed with Harrison Barnes’ departure.

The challenge for Mike Brown is getting the most out of Fox, Monk and electric factory rookie Devin Carter while still letting DeRozan and Sabonis do what they do. If Ellis was 6-foot-8 that’d be awesome but he’s the size of a point guard just like that trio. This is a small team. If Brown figures that out, this is a top-3 offense again and a squad firmly in the top-six. If not, it’s play-in time again.

I’m betting on them figuring it out and DeRozan pushing them over the top.

Tier 3 — Trust issues (but I still trust you for some reason)

5. Phoenix Suns

Phoenix gets bumped up to this tier because it should be a very, very good team in the regular season. None of those other teams offer the same assurance they will finish top-six.

Mike Budenholzer deserves all the hype for his ability to rack up victories and while “we still won 49 games” turned into an offseason meme it’s easy to see how that number gets to the mid-50s. If the Suns are a below-average team in the fourth quarter, that’s a few on its own. Add in a full season of Royce O’Neale, Bradley Beal being healthy to start the year and Tyus Jones’ implementation notching down the turnovers while notching up the offensive organization for a few more. If Bol Bol or Ryan Dunn can add something, this is suddenly a deep team too.

And then imagine if this team looks like it enjoys basketball again! Oh boy!

The problems have more to do with projecting for the postseason but aren’t any bigger than the next two teams.

With Jones, Phoenix is tiny. Denver, Minnesota and Oklahoma City are the MonStars in comparison. Dallas offers its own size issues too when you remember Luka Doncic is 6-foot-8 and 240 pounds. You can’t get to the Western Conference Finals before facing one of those four squads. The Suns majorly lack on-ball juice to defend the big-time weapons on any team, so that plus rebounding concerns is a recipe for a very bad defensive team.

Offensively, the Suns still have to show they can form a cohesive rhythm around Beal, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. Jones will help, as will Budenholzer. That doesn’t mean they alone can completely fix it. It’s on those three and now those three have to shoot even more 3s after they didn’t listen to the coaching staff last season. A low-key concern here is removing Grayson Allen from the starting lineup. You know, the expert launcher of triples and the unsung connective piece who busted his ass last year more than anyone on the team. Finding Beal his touches gets even more difficult with Jones in there for Allen as well.

4. Denver Nuggets

(Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

Disclaimer: I understand how irrational it would appear to put these two teams in the same range. But let me explain!

Blahblahblah, the Nuggets were cheap in letting Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown go. Blahblahblah, no one can reasonably trust their young players to replace those guys (just like last year).

What’s more interesting here is the remaining core beyond the best player in the world, Nikola Jokic.

Jamal Murray is a pretty good NBA point guard who transforms into a superstar for the postseason. But he didn’t hatch this last go-around, shooting 40% and looking bothered by his latest injury. Two-and-a-half months later, Murray was still not moving well at the Olympics for Team Canada, bad enough for speculation to begin if he’s lost his burst entirely. The lack of explosiveness and space creation was quite alarming. While it’s not what defines his game, every guard requires some level of that, even the slower ones. Is he still that guy, pal?

In his last three full seasons, Michael Porter Jr. has had a notable bump in his scoring averages after the All-Star break. It seemed like that breakout was coming, Porter morphing into a 25-point-per-game guy and the third All-Star of this group. It just hasn’t happened yet and he’s 26 years old now. Either this is who he is, a great complementary piece to stars, or an elite enough talent to be mentioned right alongside Jokic and Murray.

Remember thinking that to a lesser degree with Aaron Gordon? He wound up getting to Denver and accepting a lesser role to become one of the most valuable role players in all of basketball.

The real question is if any of those three guys can be better next season in a way to supplant the lack of depth given how this is now a more top-heavy roster. Jokic doesn’t have any more new heights to reach. That’s the three-time MVP, brother. Murray is going in the wrong direction while Porter and Gordon have understandably stagnated. This did not matter when the Nuggets were armed with a balanced, lethal top of the rotation. It matters now.

To be clear, Denver should still win a whole lot of games. It’s just that the ice will crack as soon as a somewhat significant injury comes, and we’re talking about Murray and Porter. The Nuggets will now remain a step behind the next three teams come playoff time unless Christian Braun, Julian Strawther or Peyton Watson emerges as more than just a reliable rotation player. Braun knows how to impact games in an all-around way, Strawther can really shoot and Watson can really defend. Keep an eye on how that trio does.

Tier 2 — The third elite team

3. Dallas Mavericks

(Photo by Joshua Gateley/Getty Images)

Crafting an argument for regression is difficult. The foundation of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving is stronger than it has any right to be. P.J. Washington’s seamless transition into an agitator who takes defense seriously while making every energy play he can was one of the pleasant surprises of last season. A center rotation of Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford is as good as any.

Naji Marshall will ease the impact of losing Derrick Jones Jr. with a slightly different skill set. He’s been quietly good behind some not-as-quietly really good wings in New Orleans the past three seasons and Dallas noticed. But he’s going to have to shoot it. Jones did enough and while Marshall is coming off a 38.7% knockdown rate from 3, his career numbers are 31.3% on 2.4 attempts per game. Jones, not a volume shooter, squeaked out 34.3% on 3.1 a night. Marshall is a better connector and that will help a lot.

The overarching question is if Dallas needs a great version of Klay Thompson to win the West. Thompson can score and shoot off the bench in bunches, as he did at the tail-end of the regular season when he fully immersed himself into a reserve role. And to the previous point on Marshall, Thompson will really help heighten the decision-making by the guys catching the kick-outs from Doncic and Irving. But his days as a serviceable defender are behind him and it’s not like there’s much shot creation left in the tank, either.

It doesn’t feel like the Mavericks require all that. Unlike Phoenix, Dallas won’t be in a position where it has no choice but to close with Thompson and play three perimeter players who bring red flags defensively. He will be in the Sixth Man of the Year running.

Two names to monitor are Olivier-Maxence Prosper and Quentin Grimes, with either’s trusted inclusion into the rotation giving the Mavericks enough depth to really compete.

Prosper is a 6-foot-8, 230-pound wing with a 7-foot-1 wingspan who was a first-round pick last year. He wasn’t ready for NBA minutes right away. Dallas would be perfectly set on the wing if it could sprinkle him in with Marshall and Washington. It surprised us with Lively last year. Maybe the Mavericks can do it again.

Dallas got back Grimes from Detroit when it salary dumped Tim Hardaway Jr. to Detroit, a move that surprised a lot of people. Grimes was legitimately good for the New York Knicks two years ago and the key player coming to the Pistons when it moved Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks. Perhaps Detroit knows something we don’t on Grimes but bad teams tend to repeatedly do stupid things and you can’t help but get a whiff of that here for letting go of a sturdy defender and good shooter at guard.

These guys can win the West again. The foundation is just less concrete than the two top dogs.

Tier 1 — Complete and excellent basketball teams

2. Minnesota Timberwolves

Minnesota is really damn good. And young. We know Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid aren’t done getting better yet. On top of that, it quietly had the best NBA Draft night.

We spent months in the Valley speculating what an unprotected 2031 first-round pick could fetch and the T-Wolves turned it into the No. 8 pick and Kentucky guard Rob Dillingham, a bucket collector with lots of sauce to his game. Then they got Illinois’ Terrence Shannon Jr. in the late first round, one of the best fits for a contender in the entire draft (and he absolutely looked the part in Vegas). Both those guys add tons of juice to areas on the second unit that were lacking in explosiveness and big-play ability to the degree of Reid.

But this is more of a win-now situation than you’d think at first glance.

Mike Conley is crucial to what makes this team work and is 37 years old. We watched him control portions of that first-round series against Phoenix when Edwards was struggling to make the right reads in half-court looks. Rudy Gobert just turned 32 and is two years away from unrestricted free agency, just like Reid. And prized reserve guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker will go from making $4.3 million this year to a whole hell of a lot more from whoever he signs with next summer.

This team is about to get a whole lot more expensive and is already on pace to pay the second-highest luxury tax bill in the league. Did I mention they are going through ownership drama?

This is not to say Minnesota is about to make some crazy trade because of this but the clock is ticking already and the pressure of knowing that can affect teams sometimes, so it’s worth a mention. The key is again those two rookies because everyone else is absolute nails. If Dillingham and Shannon are good right away, the T-Wolves will threaten for 60-plus wins. They think Dillingham is and should feel just as certain Shannon is. If not, the signing of 37-year-old Joe Ingles starts to get a little too important to their liking.

1. Oklahoma City Thunder

(Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)

Oklahoma City is the most complete team in the NBA.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander headlines as a certified star, the closest thing we’ve had to Ken Griffey Jr. since The Kid in terms of how cool, effortless and smooth an athlete makes greatness look. Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren were better than expected last year and will make multiple All-Star teams. The league’s best trio of perimeter defenders is arguably Alex Caruso, Luguentz Dort and Cason Wallace. All six of those guys shoot it well, and that’s before getting to the sharpshooter on the team Isaiah Joe.

The Thunder overpaid massively for Isaiah Hartenstein in a *shrug* “Well, we’ve got the money, might as well use it” move to fill their only real need of size. Hartenstein defined himself in New York as a rugged, reliable player around the basket but actually was known as a versatile playmaking big coming out of the draft. Don’t be surprised if his passing pops and that he even starts knocking down some 3s, too.

He and Holmgren are the best rim-protecting duo around, supported by that aforementioned hydra on the perimeter. This team is going to be a monster defensively. An absolute monster.

Aaron Wiggins and Kenrich Williams are solid enough to round out the wing depth. Don’t forget about Jaylin Williams as well, a luxury of a third big. All three of them hit triples, too. While opponents will feel comfortable leaving some of the Thunder’s shooters open, namely Dort and Wiggins, they go 11 deep without an inefficient one popping up outside of Hartenstein (for now).

All that is stopping OKC is the young guns adapting to the postseason. There were a handful of moments in the second round when it was Gilgeous-Alexander’s time to step up and take over a game in the second half. The results were mixed. Jalen Williams was OK but never anything above that. Ditto for Holmgren.

Maybe this is a year early. Then again, that’s how it felt picking them to finish top-five last season and then they nearly won the West. As the Boston Celtics showed with their five-out style of play, basketball is trending in the direction of versatile rosters like this one becoming the standard. Oklahoma City has been ahead of the game for years and it’s getting rewarded for it.

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This season requires a major asterisk. The story would have gone up by late July had it not been for the obvious chess pieces we are waiting for on the board. Bruce Brown is still on the Toronto Raptors, somehow.

There are a few teams here that feel incomplete, clearly still in the midst of trade negotiations while battling through the limitations of these apron rules that have ruined flexibility for that thing that garners a fair amount of interest — trades! Those wrinkles in the latest collective bargaining agreement were a gigantic fail from an entertainment perspective.

For now, there aren’t any potential moves in the West that should drastically shift the pecking order, so these spots should be relatively close to where they would land regardless.

With Part 1, we begin in that unknown space to whet your appetite for potential wheelin’ and dealin’ that could be on the way.

Tier 7 — The perfect time to suck

15. Portland Trail Blazers

Congratulations to Portland for landing in last for the second straight season! There are both short- and long-term questions with the roster to monitor.

In drafting Donovan Clingan seventh overall, the Blazers indicated neither Deandre Ayton nor Robert Williams II is the ideal starting center for the present or future. For those in the Valley lower on Ayton, last season went about as expected. There were major lulls before a surge late in the season reignited the “if we can get that version of him” consistency conversation for a player entering his seventh NBA season.

Williams was hurt again, and even on a deal with only two years left on it, he’s got some major medical hoops to jump through before a team would consider acquiring him.

Ayton makes $34 million this year and is an expiring $35.5 million contract the year after. His career has suddenly entered a mercurial state now that it appears a second team is giving up on him. His contract is drastically overpriced for any team that still may have interest in him as a starting center. Williams is at a more affordable $12.4 million.

Jerami Grant is one of the central players we are waiting for to get traded, but he’s on the Bradley Beal paradigm. He’s definitely overpaid, with four years and over $130 million left on his deal. Can any contender or fringe play-in team make that work?

Keep an eye on Anfernee Simons. He’s a legitimately great offensive guard with two years left on his deal and is fairly redundant playing alongside Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe. Again, like Grant, a price tag of $25.8 million this season probably complicates the ability to move him, but both he and Portland have to decide if he’s the guy the rebuild is centered around.

Anyway, this team will be very, very bad again. That is no slight to some of the fun complementary players they have like Deni Avdija and some of the possible nuggets discovered on the back-half of the bench like Dalano Banton, Toumani Camara and Duop Reath.

14. Utah Jazz

The Lauri Markkanen variable was the one seemingly a handful of teams were waiting on. Because of the date he just signed his extension, Markkanen cannot be traded until next offseason, which is when he will have more value.

For back-to-back years, the Jazz have essentially declined play-in opportunities. They were 35-36 and 25-26, respectively, at points in those seasons before a mix of sitting injured guys and selling at the deadline led them to crater out.

Utah will be competitive again. Markkanen is a stud and there’s still enough Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson around to keep the Jazz in games. Both of those guards have two years left on their deals and the odds both are still on the roster by the end of the year are low. There is no reason to rank Utah any higher because of its clear intent to hop in its bomb shelter and wait out the storm while nearly everyone else in the West is good.

What could theoretically change things as soon as this year would be breakouts for their recent draft selections like Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks, Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski. All of them have some level of fandom from smart basketball folks to believe there is high-end upside there. George is absolutely headed toward becoming a solid pro while Hendircks and the three rookies will get more opportunities than the Jazz previously allotted to show something.

Tier 6 — Attempting to transfer to the Eastern Conference

13. Los Angeles Clippers

There is a feint sentiment not to bet against the Clippers being a reliably great NBA team in the regular season before they fizzle in the playoffs. The Clippers are also averaging just under 46 wins per season over the last three, hardly giving confidence to suggest they are not immune to falling into the play-in pit.

It was great to see Kawhi Leonard look like Kawhi Leonard again and he played 68 games last year. James Harden took a major step back, attempting only 11.4 shots per game, and still remained rather effective as an initiator. The star power punch of that pair has some sting left in it, even as the two are in their mid-30s.

The concern is what exactly this team is supposed to be beyond that after losing Paul George in free agency. Here’s an alarming question: Who is the third-best player on this team? I think it might be Ivica Zubac? The third-highest paid is Norman Powell.

We have arrived at an age-old problem in roster construction when a collection of seventh-to-ninth men make up all of the rotation after one or two All-Stars. You like Terance Mann just like me and Nic Batum always finds a way to impact games. The signings of Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn were smart defensive additions. If this is the team to figure out Mo Bamba, the second unit might border on being fun to watch, at least on one end of the court.

But they are screwed when Leonard and Harden miss a week or six. When they don’t, it’s probably a fairly scrappy bunch. That’s not nearly good enough in this conference.

12. Golden State Warriors

I have never liked a team’s offseason more in a way that did not affect their standing at all.

The Warriors rebounded from the loss of Klay Thompson by bringing in De’Anthony Melton, Kyle Anderson and Buddy Hield — a trio of trustworthy veterans who will provide more as a combination than Thompson did individually. Jonathan Kuminga is definitely good and could be really good. Brandin Podziemski is at least going to be a great glue guy. Based on the way the Warriors kept him out of trade talks, they believe he will be much more than that.

The hesitation lies with Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins. Green can still be a very effective version of what he was in his prime. It’s the increasingly volatile nature of his shenanigans plus the fact that he is not the player he once was that makes him unable to act as a true co-star alongside Stephen Curry. Wiggins’ career is one of the strangest for a No. 1 pick, ever. He at long last figured out what he is in the league and did so as an incredible supporting cast member on a championship team before regressing significantly the last two seasons.

This team goes 12-deep. While Curry is 36 years old, he remains one of the best players in the world. And all of that can’t fix what is a wholly uninspiring 2-7 of the rotation to compete.

11. Houston Rockets

Last year, our hypothesis on the Rockets was an upside of the 2018-19 Clippers, a 48-win squad without an All-Star that was loaded with really great ancillary pieces. Some version of that unfolded. Houston went 13-9 to begin the season and 16-7 to end it. It’s just that the Rockets were 12-25 between that to land at .500.

The Kevin Durant trade speculation was entirely about the Rockets wanting to trade for a star and nothing about Durant. It did perk up the ears on if something else is at play here. If there is, they can really certify themselves in the next echelon of the conference, confidently a play-in team. Without a deal, it’s mostly the same story, a very fun roster lacking star power.

Center Alperen Sengun will be an All-Star in the near future. But he’s not going to be an absolute force capable of carrying this team, a team that requires some real oomph elsewhere. A season later, we are largely in the same position we were with Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr., two players who are obviously good. But we have no idea about how good. There are a few really smart folks who think Reed Sheppard should have been the No. 1 pick. Maybe he’s that guy.

The rest of the roster is ready if any of those three have a big-time jump in them. Tari Eason and Amen Thompson make up the most fun role-player wing duo around. Eason only played 22 games last year and Thompson was a rookie, so expect to see far more of them in highlight packages this season. Former Sun Jock Landale was a key cog in the push across the stretch run, and if Steven Adams is healthy, that’s an awesome bash brothers from Down Under tandem.

If the offense led by Fred VanVleet can find some viability from those young-ins, this is a playoff team. They immediately established an identity around defense and grit last year, a dangerous combination for others to deal with given the amount of athleticism and length on the roster.

Tier 5 — So close yet so far

10. Los Angeles Lakers

I was a huge believer in this team last season. They got 70-plus games out of both Anthony Davis and LeBron James. Both got All-NBA nods. And yet, all of *motions around the room* this didn’t work. A supporting cast that seemed fairly complementary never found a balance. The only real spurt was an 11-3 finish to the season and they couldn’t even get a real series out of a totally wounded Denver Nuggets group even with some tremendous sequences from James sprinkled in.

There’s a good chance this was a version of what happened in Phoenix, a group submarined by a disconnect between the coaching staff and players. On paper, it’s five players most teams would love to have around two superstars. A pair of those, Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent, combined for 40 games played. Dalton Knecht slipping to them in the draft was a heist, gifting a roster ready to launch under J.J. Redick the best NBA-ready shooter in the draft.

The problem is that’s where the improvements stop. It does not seem like nearly enough. Do we really want to talk ourselves into this being the year for D’Angelo Russell? A breakout for Rui Hachimura or Austin Reaves? It seems like the ship has done sailed on James’ chances at a title here. That’s why they seemed like an obvious candidate to make a fairly substantial trade this offseason. But nothing has come and the front office sounds OK with not going all-in. The needle gets moved a bit with acquiring someone in that Bruce Brown or Cam Johnson range. Until then, doubts persist.

9. New Orleans Pelicans

This is almost certainly not the final roster and I reserve the right to move them up a peg or two depending on what the trade is. You know the “MINE!” birds in Finding Nemo? Imagine those saying “behind!” in the The Bear’s kitchen. That’s how many cooks there are here.

Right now, two of C.J. McCollum, Dejounte Murray, Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson, Herb Jones and Trey Murphy II will come off the bench. That is for a group with a center rotation consisting of rookie Yves Missi and journeyman Daniel Theis. Unless there’s some funky small-ball tomfoolery afoot, which would be completely bonkers and amazing to watch.

Either way, math ain’t math-ing. Let’s assume it’s McCollum or Ingram on the move and the return is decent. Then it will be much easier to forecast a really good basketball team. A strange pitstop in Atlanta halted Dejounte Murray’s ascent drastically after it took a while to get going in the first place with San Antonio. He is fantastic and this should serve as the best thing to happen to his career if New Orleans gives him room to work. Honestly, that should mean moving away from both McCollum and Ingram.

Here is the craziest prediction I will make all year: This will be the year for Zion Williamson. Last season was about staying healthy. And then he was incredible at the end of the season, including a spectacular performance in Phoenix that felt like one of those moments when you realized you are seeing a big one unfold in real-time. Yes, this ended with him getting hurt. But! This will be the year it all comes together! New Orleans is already financially committed to him so it might as well do so with its roster construction instead of loading up on scoring in case Williamson is hurt again. Maximize it!

That’s easy to do because Jones and Murphy are terrific, a 3-and-D wing duo that very well could be the best in basketball to offset star-level talent. Outside of putting some stock in a Year 2 arrival for Jordan Hawkins as a concrete part of the rotation, the supporting cast feels a little light. It’s almost like … a trade is on the way! *gasps*

8. San Antonio Spurs

Let’s establish three things.

One, there is little to no result for Victor Wembanyama’s second season that would be surprising individually. All-NBA and Defensive Player of the Year seem more likely than not. He got better so fast as a rookie that becoming an MVP candidate is on the table. The way he stepped up as a 20-year-old versus Team USA in a gold medal game overflowing with pressure in front of his home crowd was telling.

Two, Wembanyama was on the court with a few properly functioning NBA players last year. The 22-60 Spurs were good in small pockets. The foursome of Wembanyama, point guard Tre Jones, two-guard Devin Vassell and wing Jeremy Sochan outscored teams by 6.7 points per 100 possessions in 626 minutes. Take out the non-shooter Sochan and funnel it down to just the trio, the only three legitimate rotation-level players on the roster, and you got a 9.0 net rating in 806 minutes.

Three, Chris Paul has won just about everywhere he’s been. The combined record of Paul’s teams over his career is 946-576. That is an average of 50 wins per season even with three shortened seasons. He hasn’t finished below .500 since 2010 when the iPhone 4 was released.

Paul is not the player he once was. In both Oklahoma City and Phoenix, two situations you wouldn’t have expected to see him in, he proved he was still one of the best in the world. This will not be Round 3 of a renaissance to that level. But he’s still effective and is still the Point God. Even in 28 minutes a night, Paul is going to completely change how San Antonio operates and show an aimless group of mediocre talent how to win. And for goodness sake, he will set up Wembanyama in positions to succeed.

San Antonio prioritized the future over the present in the offseason. There was no use of long-term money in free agency or trading any draft capital to upgrade a roster sorely in need of more capable hands. Harrison Barnes was more of a salary dump, with the prize of that acquisition being a pick swap. Paul comes in on a one-year deal conveniently just under the mid-level exception, allowing him to be a buyout candidate if the ship sinks.

A bounce-back year for Keldon Johnson and No. 4 overall pick Stephon Castle being solid right away would still only give the Spurs eight reliable players. And the gap between their top guy and second-best player is bigger than any in the league.

But man, we all know what Wembanyama is and will soon be. And we all know what Paul does in these situations. We saw both up close. There’s something here.

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As a way to cover some of the main themes surrounding the team coming into the season, here are five matchups that should highlight those.

Suns games we’re most excited for in the 2024-25 schedule

Minnesota Timberwolves — @ Nov. 17, vs. Jan 29, vs. March 2, @ March 29

There is more here than any other Western Conference foe when it comes to storylines. It’s a rematch of the first-round sweep last year, a team that Phoenix looked mighty comfortable with in during the regular season. Some chippiness always carries over and the Suns will want to get their licks back. Then there is the relationship between Anthony Edwards and his idol, Kevin Durant, which is coming off the Olympic stage. It’s one that Devin Booker thrived on in a starting role ahead of Edwards in the Team USA pecking order.

There is also the stylistic items on the court itself. This will be even more pronounced than last year, especially with size. With a Tyus Jones/Mike Conley savvy point-guard-off covered, that leaves Bradley Beal or Booker to defend 6-foot-9 Jaden McDaniels and the other to take Edwards.

Mike Budenholzer will certainly get the Suns taking more 3s and presumably with a decent amount of pace. Minnesota is an opponent that Phoenix should get more out of with those two factors considering Karl-Anthony Towns has to defend Kevin Durant or one of the other two-guards, and the Suns letting Minnesota get away with that in the first round is the exact thing that can’t happen this time around.

New York Knicks — vs. Nov. 20, @ April 6

Elaborating on the size questions, the Knicks might be the tallest test of all (sorry). Beal and Booker will be mirrored by 6-foot-8 Mikal Bridges and 6-foot-7 OG Anunoby. The frontcourt includes 260-pound bruiser Julius Randle. How much of the concern is overblown and how much of this is actually a huge detriment to the Suns that will lose them games gets pushed to the limits by teams like New York. There really isn’t a choice with hiding the 6-foot-1 Jones on any of those three, thus he now has to mark All-NBA Second Team guard Jalen Brunson.

New York provides a great challenge for the Suns’ depth as well, which will be much improved. It’ll bring Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Hart and Miles McBride off the bench, three difference-makers to offset the Suns’ own in Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale. The Knicks will also mix in either former Suns fan favorite Cam Payne or former Suns draft fan favorite Tyler Kolek at backup 1, where we may or may not see Phoenix’s other point guard signing Monte Morris. On the topic of reserves and with the Knicks’ athletes on the wing, this is when a heavy sprinkle of Bol Bol and Ryan Dunn would help matters if both prove reliable.

Most of all, the Knicks reach Tom Thibodeau’s desired level of physicality and grit, the type of traits combined with all the size and length that should punish the roster construction Phoenix has. With that said, if the Suns match it, they can maximize advantages elsewhere given their edge in talent on the ball. Last year, Phoenix did well in Madison Square Garden for Booker’s tremendous game-winner before giving up a buck thirty-nine at Footprint Center two weeks later, a shellacking that included a 50-burger for Brunson.

Sacramento Kings —- vs. Nov. 10, @ Nov. 13, vs. March 14, @ April 13

Consider this last trio as a litmus test for the play-in line. The Suns, on paper, clear that quite easily. But that’s before taking in how last year went and all of the hesitations built up based off that. Expect Budenholzer to clean that up and have this squad rolling in the regular season, thus avoiding a fate below top-six. So in bounding off that, these are three teams that have enough intrigue to reach beyond the muck of that and approach a squad like Phoenix attempting to hold down a spot in the 4-6 range.

Sacramento is in a similar position as Phoenix when analyzing its roster and how there is a vision for a really great team, but only if they can properly utilize it. The Kings are also small like the Suns, deploying Keegan Murray as a 4 and are heavily reliant on a guard rotation of De’Aaron Fox, DeMar DeRozan, Malik Monk, Kevin Huerter, Keon Ellis and Devin Carter. In all likelihood, this should be the most entertaining opponent over the course of the regular season. Track meets will ensue for two of the league’s best offenses.

Memphis Grizzlies — vs. Dec. 31, vs. Feb. 11, @ Feb. 25, @ March 10

Think of this as more of a lil’ check-in to see if Memphis has indeed snapped back into place, rebounding from a 27-win season to return to the form of a group that won 107 games the two years before that. If it is, the top-six will get more crowded.

No team has an individual on-ball answer for defending Ja Morant. But he’s an example of a hyper-explosive lead ball-handler to see how the Suns attempt to scheme against. Even at their best, Beal and Booker have little chance at keeping him in front. The Grizzlies will likely start Zach Edey (a non-shooter) and Jaren Jackson Jr. (a 33% 3-point shooter since 2020-21) together, allowing teams like Phoenix to help off and recover from there. Budenholzer is an underrated defensive coach and seeing how he plans for Morant will be interesting.

On the other end, Edey will be a pick-and-roll target from the jump, which is where Phoenix can exploit him via four different very good options handling the ball. With Desmond Bane and Marcus Smart presumably taking the matchups of Booker and Beal, that leaves Jackson to get the most out of his perimeter skills on Durant. Even a team like Memphis with two former Defensive Player of the Year winners still reaches the point of running into matchup problems against the Suns, something they have to be far better at getting the most out of this year.

San Antonio Spurs — vs. Dec 3, @ Feb. 20, vs. April 11

If you don’t remember the initial Victor Wembanyama experience, that’s understandable because the World Series was happening across the street. A quick synopsis is that Wembanyama majorly flashed his long-term potential everyone had been hyping up, his first real showcase moment in the NBA.

Wembanyama alone makes San Antonio worth a mention on this list. If you passed up seeing him live last year, don’t make that mistake again. It’s indescribable. There is also the Chris Paul effect to consider on a team coached by Gregg Popovich. Apologies if I just made you shudder. This team is going to be good, and like Memphis, getting a quick look at potentially how good will be nice. Are the Spurs going to be more frisky, or like a legitimate playoff team? Don’t rule out the latter.

Watching Paul and Booker compete against each other is worth the price of admission too. This was their first time doing so since the trade. Paul knew Booker’s shoulder lean in transition was coming, pulled the chair on him and made fun of him for it after.

Knew the shoulder was coming! pic.twitter.com/DiKWeMLrQu

— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) October 25, 2023

He’s the best. Hang that dude’s number up.

Lastly, San Antonio is not a deep team. It will be lucky to get to seven or eight trustworthy rotation players. While the Suns have a juggling act on their hands to get everyone proper minutes in the backcourt, they’ve got a great top-seven and a few others that have a chance at making a real impact this season. That is a difference-maker in the regular season that will win Phoenix a whole lot of games if it can find some consistency versus less talented competition. The Suns went 1-3 against the 22-60 Spurs last year.

And in a fun side note, the Feb. 20 matchup will actually take place at the Moody Center, home to Durant’s Texas Longhorns.

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Booker finished with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists. He played the entire fourth quarter for the second straight game, a testament to his importance on this team. The trio of Booker (+18), LeBron James (+17) and Stephen Curry (+20) was the stabilizing force across a game that could have gone either way.

Durant added 15 points, four rebounds and four assists, drilling a couple of key shots in the second half. He becomes the all-time leader in the history of the men’s program with four Olympic gold medals while Booker now has two.

The competitiveness of this game rivaled the NBA Finals. Don’t define that word by the score line as much as the fire and spirit on the floor. It was absolutely through the roof, amped up further by a unbelievable crowd making serious noise for both sides.

The signature shooting barrages of Curry’s marvelous career capped what was a magical two final contests to watch for the Americans.

France hung around enough through some turnover issues for Team USA to be down just three with under three minutes to go. Curry then went bonkers, downing France with back-to-back-to-back-to-back 3s, ended by a dagger that was such a storybook ending it must be etched with a Song of Ice and Fire.

"THE GOLDEN DAGGER!"

Steph Curry that is utterly ridiculous. 🤯#ParisOlympics | 📺 NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/8hIN8tgmfK

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024

Curry and Durant actually began 1-for-8 from three-point range and another stagnant offensive spurt from the second unit affected what should have been a double-digit lead for the United States. Instead, it was a slight France advantage early in the second quarter as the starters trickled back into the game.

That’s when James could sense he needed to take over when he got back in the game. It began with an isolation on Victor Wembanyama in which he boldly failed an attempt at a T-Mac, lobbing the ball to himself off the backboard, before he got himself and the squad rolling. James had a grab-and-go finish, Booker drilled a 3, Curry knocked one down from Booker on a sweet extra pass and then a Bam Adebayo dunk was followed by another James transition masterclass for an and-1.

That had Team USA up six to quickly regain control of the game in a 13-6 run over two-plus minutes. Durant then finally got another 3 to fall, as did Curry, and then a Booker transition and-1 finish completed a tremendous effort from the starters to buffer the lead to 10 late in the first half.

It was an eight-point edge for the Americans at halftime with 16 assists and 20 made field goals.

The balance of their effort began to overwhelm the French. Joel Embiid established himself on the block to get to the line and Curry hit his fourth triple of the night when he set a screen for James, a nightmarishly impossible defensive scenario to consider. Durant converted two midrange jumpers to relocate his rhythm as well.

The only way Team USA was going to fumble away its grip on the game was becoming its own worst enemy. Seven turnovers in the last 6:18 of the third quarter let France and its crowd to get back in it. The lead was only six going into the fourth.

The Americans widened the gap midway through the fourth quarter but the unforced errors persisted and France climbed back to a 82-79 margin at under three-and-a-half minutes to go, setting the stage for the Curry explosion.

Curry’s 24 points were a special moment for him in his first Olympics and something we as basketball fans have to consider might be the last time we ever see him at these heights again. The Golden State Warriors dynasty is over and he’s 36 years old. Appreciate what we saw from him even more if you weren’t already.

Ditto for James. He did get careless with his decision-making in a second half. He was trying to close out before Curry’s heroics but was still great in this game, particularly in a spectacular first half. It was 14 points, six rebounds and 10 assists to cap off a tremendous tournament in which FIBA crowned him MVP.

Anthony Davis had his best game of the Olympics and was an awesome bench big. In 20 minutes, he produced eight points, nine rebounds, an assist, two steals and four blocks.

Wembanyama was absolutely up for his moment, an omen for what is to come over the rest of his career. The 20-year-old scored a game-high 26 points and Guerschon Yabusele added 20 to also meet the moment as one of the best players in the tournament.

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If the Americans play in a high-level contest, like Thursday’s thrilling semifinals finish against Serbia, that phrase enters the discourse. That is not catching up. That is just being good enough to be competitive. Catching up would be playing Team USA 50-50 and defeating them a handful of times over a short period of time instead of once or twice a decade in Olympic play. We’re not there yet. Maybe we are in the future. But we’re not there yet.

That tees up Saturday’s gold medal matchup with France, because what the Serbians showed is that if Team USA plays an average to below-average brand of basketball, it will lose. The gap is not large enough anymore to scoot by on lengthy incompetent stretches of games. Thursday required an unbelievable fourth quarter to eek out a victory.

Saturday will require consistency and poise in a rematch of the 2021 Olympic final in Tokyo.

Head coach Steve Kerr closed the semifinals with a lineup of Stephen Curry, Devin Booker, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Joel Embiid. This was effectively the starting lineup with Durant swapped in for Jrue Holiday, and given Durant’s calf injury had him start the Olympics on the bench, we can presume this was the planned five and the one we’ll see on Saturday.

The secret sauce in the comeback was rebounding and running. Serbia finally cooled off from 3 and the United States crashed the glass with real desperation that it extended to getting going in transition.

Team USA’s halfcourt reliance on off-ball motions for Curry, and Embiid’s individual scoring was too heavy on Thursday, which is why keeping the game out of that space as much as possible will benefit the Americans.

Kerr attempted to get away with a deep rotation but he went one game too long. The closing five, plus Holiday, Anthony Edwards and Anthony Davis should be the eight. Edwards had a rough go on Thursday in the few minutes he was initiating the offense, proving incapable of the decision-making process, but his emphatic on-ball defense and scoring in other areas should be given another chance. France will play three bigs, so we’ll probably see Bam Adebayo too, a fair call to make given he’s been good like Davis.

James has been pretty incredible as a jumbo playmaking floor general. With Durant out there, that should bring some big-time relief to the offense and the duo should balance it back out. Durant has maintained his intent to score despite the superstar squad, a key part of the adjustment guys naturally lose when they’re trying to be unselfish. That was Booker in the semifinal, passing up a few decent looks. Let it fly, Book.

There is not a continuity advantage here for the French side that you might expect.

France returns seven players from the 2021 matchups while it is five for the Americans. Both teams play completely differently from the Tokyo matchup. Evan Fournier no longer leads the French attack, which is instead prioritized around Victor Wembanyama, while James is the head of the American snake.

Wembanyama has not had the star-making tournament it looked like the night sky was aligning toward. He has largely struggled to establish himself as a scorer, shooter and playmaker, instead putting points on the board where he can inside the gaps while defending supremely well.

The Frenchman is shooting 37.5% from the field and 27.6% from 3 with only four free throw attempts per game, a surprising mark considering how much larger he is and how aggressive he has been trying to score.

It’s easy to forget Wembanyama is only 20 years old when we have been so quick to anoint him with future greatness.

While playing Team USA allows opponents to play free and feel like there’s no pressure on them, that does not apply when an Olympic gold medal is on the line. And it sure as hell does not apply when you are playing that game in the country across the front of your jersey.

Speaking of that, the crowd will be a huge advantage for France. Think of it as a boost for them instead of something that will rattle Team USA. Maybe it can shake up one American or two. But LeBron James? Stephen Curry? Kevin Durant? Nah.

When Germany dominated France in pool play, it was primarily because it took the crowd out of the game right away. A more competitive semifinals surprisingly saw a confident German side tighten up.

The message in USA’s pregame locker room will be to get out to a fast start and hijack the crowd’s enthusiasm. The opening 10 minutes will play a giant role in the whole game.

This is a really, really good French squad. It nearly lost to the massive underdogs Japan in pool play, a suggestion that the group wasn’t jelling and it wouldn’t be France’s year. But a fantastic effort in a physical war against Germany in the semifinals was all of France’s potential coming through.

Diehards of the NBA Draft process might know this: Do not use a lack of name recognition across France’s roster as a way to minimize the amount of NBA-quality talent.

Isaia Cordinier, Mathias Lessort and Guerschon Yabusele are all former selections with NBA athleticism and ability who are having fantastic tournaments. Cordinier can shoot and handle with great speed, Lessort is an undersized power big who cleans up around the basket while Yabusele is a high-end combination of strength and agility. All three of their agents are probably having conversations with NBA front offices right now.

In the opposite vein of Team USA not trying to upset anyone with the aforementioned deep rotations, France has shockingly moved Rudy Gobert to a bench role. The postgame of a quarterfinals win after this first occurred led to some confusion. Gobert and his teammates referred to surgery he had on his finger as a reason for the move, while the coach didn’t go that far and also noted the matchup aspects played into his decision.

However the injury is or isn’t playing into this, Gobert is hardly playing at all so France can maximize spacing with Wembanyama at the 5 while also still finding Lessort minutes he has earned. Gobert has played four and five minutes in the last two games, respectively. Team USA has too much shooting, especially if Durant starts, for Gobert to see much of the floor.

Fournier has moved to the bench in favor of Cordinier but is still capable of absolutely torching a FIBA game at any moment. He was unreal in 2021 and is the premium shot-maker on this squad. Fellow NBA veteran Nic Batum will be nails and impact the game everywhere, as he has for over a decade. Frank Ntilikina was a more high-profile prospect who recently made the transition to playing overseas and brings his pesky defense. France will also mix in Andrew Albicy and Matthew Strazel at guard, as well as 37-year-old Nando de Colo, who also spent time in the NBA.

When Albicy, de Colo, Fournier and Strazel are on the floor, Team USA has to maximize the advantages of hunting those mismatches. There is a real lack of either size or speed from those guards, and the USA attacking them is what having a superstar roster is all about. France can’t hide those guys anywhere. Certainly, the cerebral James will be eyeing that.

Lessort, Wembanyama and Yabusele are going to be physical on the offensive glass. Once again, eliminating those second chances and sparking the transition game is the name of the game for Team USA.

Lastly, Olympic final Kevin Durant is the final boss of all basketball. In three gold medal games, he is averaging 29.6 points per game. Toss in the 28 points against Turkey in the 2010 FIBA World Championships, too, if you want. Expect to see him at his best.

What time is the USA-France Olympic basketball gold medal game?

Saturday, 12:30 p.m. MST

TV: NBC, Peacock, NBCOlympics.com

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Team USA’s legendary 32-15 fourth period comeback over Serbia decided a 95-91 final that was the basketball gods gifting us one final moment to appreciate this current generation of the game.

Stephen Curry’s go-ahead 3, LeBron James’ unbelievable transition finish and a Curry transition layup was a 7-0, 42-second run that went from the Untied States being down one to up five in the late fourth quarter.

STEPHEN. CURRY. TEAM USA LEADS.#ParisOlympics | 📺 NBC, USA Network and Peacock pic.twitter.com/C4MUUl1v78

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024

LECAPTAIN AMERICA!

Team USA extends their lead over Serbia. #ParisOlympics

📺 NBC, USA Network and Peacock pic.twitter.com/FvYRv6Mw8f

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024

After a timeout call, Durant forced a backcourt violation on a phenomenal defensive possession. Then with 45 seconds left and Team USA up two, we all knew who to give the ball. Durant isolated and drilled a middy to effectively ice the game.

pic.twitter.com/MJSpIAgmzE

— Hated (@HatedzsMedia) August 8, 2024

Booker had six points in 24 minutes while Durant added nine points in his own 24 minutes. The duo and their squad advances to the gold medal game on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. MST against France in what will be an absolutely unglued atmosphere from Paris.

Curry was out of this world with 36 points, the savior of this game. Right behind him was Joel Embiid’s best outing for the Americans by far with 19. James had a triple-double of 16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.

In what we talked about for the preview to this matchup, Serbia cashed in its tickets from the 3-point line on being due for a scorcher after multiple poor shooting performances. It knocked down five of its first six 3s and 10 overall in the half it led by as many as 17.

A few offensive rebounds here, a few missed US free throws there and four turnovers that were unforced errors were all it took to trail by 11 at halftime. And it should have been much more if it wasn’t for a 17-point first quarter out of Curry.

If Team USA cruising through its first four games lulled you into a false sense of the Americans suddenly expanding the gap on their competitors, that gap just isn’t there anymore. Yes, the United States has the best squad by a sizable margin. But against the best of the rest, it is still not enough of a margin to avoid vulnerability. Team USA played a mediocre half, Serbia played an awesome one and that was the deal.

Serbia was going to leave a few windows in the second half and it was just a matter of if the Americans could capitalize. The first came in the mid-third quarter when the Serbians got cold but the United States turned it over on three out of four possessions and the other was Durant missing an open 3. It looked like it was shut before Curry and Jrue Holiday knocked down triples to make it 72-66. Serbia showed serious composure and got the lead back to 11 early in the fourth quarter.

Durant and Booker then hit back-to-back 3s to cut the Serbian lead to five, the lowest it had been since the late first quarter. A disastrous three offensive rebounds giving Serbia four free points was offset by five points from Embiid to bring it to 84-80 at under five minutes remaining. Embiid answered a Jokic bucket with his own and-one before another Embiid jumper and James layup tied it at 84 with 3:41 to go, setting the stage for that unforgettable closing sequence.

Bogdan Bogdanovic was miraculous, leading the Serbians with 20 points. Durant defended him for most of the fourth quarter and locked him up a few times to cool him off. Serbia’s undoing was an offense not primarily centered around Jokic and the two-man actions with point guard Vasilije Micic were handcuffed by Booker on multiple possessions as well. Jokic ended up with 17 points, five rebounds and 11 assists.

Serbia’s hot shooting continued in only the third quarter, as it failed to knock down a 3 in the final period after notching 15 in the opening 30 minutes.

The United States closed with Curry, Booker, James, Durant and Embiid during the rally, which has to be the 5 we will see start on Saturday.

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Bradley Beal was sitting on a trainer’s table at the Phoenix Suns facility after practice April 4, having what looked like less of a conversation and more of a listen to an elongated message from then-head coach Frank Vogel. At a distance, Beal did not seem engaged nor thrilled.

Who could blame him?

Beal has been through some challenging seasons, but last year surely tops the list.

A back injury in training camp turned into him missing 19 of 22 games to start the season. He arrived in the Valley fully aware of the narratives swirling about his inability to stay healthy, attached to him and hanging over his head like a HUD indicator on 2K. He wouldn’t be fully ready to play until two weeks before Christmas. In his third game back, New York Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo undercut a Beal jumper five minutes into the game, twisting Beal’s ankle.

He sits for five games, working fine enough on a bum ankle in ways we’ve all watched NBA players do before at long last locating a groove. Beal is slipping into his role. He’s figuring out when he can be 30-point-per-game scorer Bradley (expletive) Beal and also when to step to the side, doing the dirty work.

To some, the highlight may have been a 37-point outburst in L.A. against the Lakers. For everyone, it should have been his 13-7-5 stat line while guarding Zion Williamson in a road win versus the New Orleans Pelicans.

In the very next game, Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner inadvertently elbows Beal in the face.

Beal plays through that too, this time with a mask. It again takes him time to adjust. Eight contests later, he rampages for 43 at his old stomping grounds in D.C. before following it up with a 25-piece and a 30-burger. Two games later, he plays 4:39 and tweaks his hamstring. He’s out five more games.

But no ramp-up period is required this go-around. Beal labors through 20 minutes in Houston and then proceeds to post an eight-game stretch over two weeks of 22.6 points and 6.1 assists per game on 54.6% shooting. Devin Booker is out for the first week and Beal keeps it rolling upon his return.

Until he didn’t. At some point at the turn of the new year, Beal is appointed the “point guard” of the team — or at least it was vocalized as such. On the surface level, it looks like an effort for the Suns to make their third banana feel valuable. While he’s bringing the ball up a fair bit and playmaking, it is still Booker’s show and everyone knows the Suns reach the tallest heights that way. Hell, Beal himself probably knows that.

Through injuries and a team just attempting to figure out how to co-exist, Beal is trying his best with this role. He’s even buying in. But the balancing act is understandably too much. Being Bradley (expletive) Beal and Point Guard Bradley Beal on the flip of a dime is affecting him. Beal starts to get passive and less connected to the core of the offense. After that two-week flurry, Beal goes on to attempt less than 15 shots in each of the next nine games. The last time that happened was 2013 when he was a 19-year-old rookie.

Teammates and coaches are urging Beal to be more aggressive. They know they can’t win with just Point Guard Bradley Beal and without Bradley (expletive) Beal. But after going in and out of the lineup due to injury with his role ever-changing — all while receiving inconsistent messaging from the coaching staff — Beal is likely exasperated.

That’s what it looked like on his face during that post-practice talk with Vogel, a moment in the middle of that unassertive string of games.

Beal reels up one more surge to end the year, 26.8 points per game in the final five, and then the playoffs were what they were.

That is not the story most of you remember for Beal this past season. It’s understandable. The lasting image for many fans of his first Suns season will be the most recent one they got, an awful Game 4 performance in the sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves, an outing that surely is placed at the bottom of Beal’s career.

And now, one season after the Suns tripled down on committing to the second tax apron we’ve watched a handful of teams avoid with purpose this offseason — doing so by trading for Beal on a bad contract that cemented his place in Phoenix for four years — they’ve added a starting point guard.

All of this inspires the proclamation: What are the Phoenix Suns doing with Bradley Beal?

The short term is obvious. They are punting on the idea that Beal and Booker could work together as an initiating backcourt, using two extremely well-rounded two-guards and Kevin Durant to make up for not having a point guard. It’s less about the direction the league and moreso about the evolution of the game that certainly made this a half-decent gambit to attempt when there were little to no appealing options left to do with Chris Paul.

It didn’t work, “it” being the thing the Suns committed four years to. And they’re bailing on it in a year.

Is it the right decision? Impossible to say. Those of you who were clamoring for a floor general just scoffed, a valid response. But how much of this was on Beal’s health ruining continuity; how much of this was on Vogel’s inability to get buy-in ruining connectivity; how much of this was on how Beal and Booker work together; and how much of this was on not having a point guard?

It can’t be fully answered next year.Three of those four factors have been too significantly altered to make a rock-solid claim.

So to get back to Beal: Now what?

Signing Tyus Jones for $3.3 million was like seeing a misplaced sticker price and winning a dispute for it at customer service. It’s a no-brainer. That is, until it bumps either Booker or Beal to the third guard position in the starting lineup. And let’s be honest, that is going to be Beal. Jones brings value with the ball in his hands and then there’s Booker and Durant. Where does that leave Beal in the offense?

Jones is listed at 6-foot-1. Who is defending the star ball-handlers? Beal showed a penchant for it in the back half of the season, including a great effort on Anthony Edwards he got hardly any credit for in the postseason. Booker is the most capable of the three but is coming off his lowest defensive season in nearly a half-decade.

All of that is to say Beal is going to go from getting asked to become a point guard to become a 3-and-D wing.

A much-offered solution here is to transition Beal into a bench role. Perhaps a patch of Beal struggling as other parts of the team thrive sparks at least the beginning of a dialogue. That, however, is the point we will have to reach first. A 31-year-old three-time All-Star making $50-plus million a year over the next three seasons does not turn into a sixth man after one shaky season. The NBA has never worked like that and will not anytime soon.

The most damning part of it all is while Jones’ inclusion makes the Suns deeper and fixes some other issues it also creates a log jam with guard-sized players. There are 144 minutes to give out at the 1, 2 and 3. Let’s toss 32 each on the Mike Budenholzer Program™ to Booker and Beal. Let’s limit Jones to 25. That leaves 55 minutes to go between Grayson Allen, Monte Morris and Royce O’Neale. It’s already not enough for Allen and O’Neale as it is. Morris surely signed with some sort of expectation to play. And before you mention playing O’Neale at the 4, my goodness look at the size of this team.

Trade one of them then, right? If it’s Allen, there goes the best complementary shooter on the team and the one guy with consistent and impactful high-end energy last season. If it’s O’Neale, is there a bigger and better 3-and-D wing for a pretty good 3-and-D wing? Using that logic would mean the Suns made a move that forces them to make another move, which is always a bad recipe. Remember, a lot of the optimism for next year spawns from starting to build some continuity.

Maybe this is just ignorance. The Suns are going to work around Beal, behaving like this is all part of some new step in his career when in all actuality this is just the best they feel they can do, steps that would ignore how they need Beal at his best to win a championship. Maybe the Suns are right and this is what Beal needs.

Who knows. Worst of all, Beal probably doesn’t either.

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Booker was masterful in the quarterfinals victory over Spain in 2021 and it was the quarterfinals again three years later that brought the best out of him. He was arguably the best player on the floor, and while his 18 points led the way, it was everything else as usual that stood out more.

His nine-point surge over seven minutes of the first quarter included a few plays that won’t show up in the box score, like tipping out a defensive rebound away from a Brazilian player and deflecting a lob pass around the basket. That is the type of impact he has brought with the USA jersey in both Olympics and why he is vital to its success as “the perfect FIBA guy.”

“You just never know when you’re night is going to be,” Booker told NBC postgame. “You always have to be prepared for it. Locking into the details of the game is the important part (and) defending at a high level is what the team needs.”

Kevin Durant wasn’t required of much and contributed 11 points, passing Lisa Leslie on the all-time Team USA Olympic scoring leaderboard.

Booker and Durant remained in their roles from pool play, with Booker starting and Durant coming off the bench. Booker has been an irreplaceable glue guy for two straight Olympics while Durant’s scoring punch as a reserve with Anthony Edwards is a special dynamic head coach Steve Kerr is looking to maintain as long as he can afford to. And that opens a starting lineup spot for Jrue Holiday, who has formed an awesome one-two with Booker in role player duties from All-Stars.

Kerr took advantage of a blowout by giving Booker only 15 minutes ahead of the semifinals on Thursday and medal round on Saturday. Playing three games in five days is a typical NBA workload but Kerr rested Booker ahead of two games in three days when the two-guard could play 30-plus minutes in each.

Brazil briefly got within eight points early in the second quarter before a 15-0 run led by LeBron James closed out the first half and put the Americans in the driver’s seat with cruise control activated, up 27. James as the point guard has taken charge of a few furious flurries in the middle quarters that have blown the game open to keep the fourth quarter uncompetitive. James had 10 of his 12 points and eight of his nine assists in the opening two quarters while a 14-point first half for Joel Embiid was not only a big boost for him but the team too.

Team USA’s ball movement might not be popping off the screen but it has been incredibly efficient and concise thanks to a star-loaded group that all understands basic passing rotations off lopsided defensive alignments. It was a dozen assists on 13 made field goals in the first quarter and the Americans ended up with 31 dimes on 45 buckets.

Brazil wasn’t expected to be much of a test and the only acceptable result was a procedural result like Tuesday to continue building confidence for the more significant matchups. The United States now advances to the semifinals against Serbia, with the winner of Germany and France on the other side of the bracket. Germany has separated itself as the second-best team in the tournament while France was underachieving until a spirited handling of Canada on Tuesday in front of its home fans put everyone on notice.

Team USA-Serbia Olympic semifinals preview

Thursday will be the third meeting between Team USA and Serbia in the last month. Both have been convincing American wins, with the second in pool play featuring a Durant scoring explosion in the second quarter and a huge third period that made the result formulaic in the end. Out of respect to the quality of the Serbian side, the odds are low that it will be three straight finishes lacking any real drama. But then again,  maybe that’s just how good this Team USA squad is.

The Serbs are led by Nikola Jokic, the best player in the world who completely dominated the overtime period in the quarterfinals against Australia after a tremendous comeback in regulation. He might be the favorite for player of the tournament. Former Suns draft pick Bogdan Bogdanovic is a terrific FIBA player and has been having a great tournament through his deep scoring arsenal.

The supporting cast, though, struggles to knock down 3s. Serbia is shooting 32.4% from deep in four games. Despite that and an offense that doesn’t come close to orbiting around Jokic as much as it should, it is averaging 95.5 points per game, so we should see a shootout on Thursday.

America’s largest advantage in the matchup is athleticism and pace. Serbia lacks the type of length and quickness on the wing that defines a lot of what modern basketball has become. So if Team USA keeps the game in the half-court defensively by limiting turnovers offensively, it will be in prime position to cruise once more. The engagement has to be there on defense to seize this advantage or else Serbia, second in the tournament in assists per game, has the connectivity and passing chops to find the right gaps.

Jokic impressively had a plus-minus of zero in a 26-point loss to the Americans while Serbia shot 9-of-37 (24.3%) on 3s. Booker and Holiday were both called upon in the pool play victory to pester Serbian guards Aleksa Avramovic and Vasilije Micic, capable playmakers that spark the ball movement beyond Jokic. We should see some of Anthony Edwards and perhaps Derrick White on those two as well.

Expect Serbia to start drilling 3s. FIBA tournaments often feature March Madness-esque spurts from underdogs of unbelievable shot-making and a parade of triples. With how little Team USA has been tested, it feels like it is due and Serbia’s numbers indicate it is in its own right. How Kerr decides to tighten up his rotation, if at all, when this occurs against either Serbia or another team is the fascinating wrinkle everyone is curiously waiting on.

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Puerto Rico has been the worst team in Group C, and that combined with the Americans having already clinched a quarterfinal berth formed a recipe for some potential lulls. That came in a first quarter Team USA lost by four before a 28-10 close to the first half led by LeBron James’ sublime playmaking got it back in front by 19. It was nearly an assist per minute for the United States, with 19 across the first two quarters.

The advantage was extended to 28 after a 23-14 third period.

Devin Booker finished with nine points, four rebounds and two assists while Kevin Durant had 11 points, four rebounds, three assists and a steal. The only real standout performances came from Anthony Edwards’ 26 points off the bench in 17 minutes and a balanced 10 points, six rebounds and eight assists out of James. Jrue Holiday did not play after rolling his ankle against South Sudan but was a decision defined as highly precautionary and he will play on Tuesday.

Team USA will face Brazil in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, the weakest team to advance that has a handful of solid players but no one with the headlining power to go blow for blow with the red, white and blue’s stars.

It is led by Bruno Caboclo, the former 2014 first-round pick of the Toronto Raptors who you might remember from the “he is two years away from being two years away” line on draft night via ESPN draft analyst Fran Fraschilla. Caboclo had 33 points (13-for-19) and 17 rebounds in a vital win over Japan, a big-time flash of the athletic frame that made him a tantalizing prospect.

Keep an eye on the backcourt. Former Los Angeles Lakers guard and 41-year-old Marcelo Huertas is a crafty floor general and Yago Santos’ shifty agility in a smaller frame off the bench has made the point guard duo a really fun watch. The trio of Gui Santos, Leo Meindl and Vitor Benite offers some reliability on the wing as well.

Perhaps Brazil’s lack of real oomph gives Kerr one last chance to feed all the mouths he has to but he would be wise to play his best guys and forget the rest, building up any extra needed cohesion before two more games against high-level competition to finish the job.

Team USA’s combination of ridiculous star power and today’s world of discourse has spawned daily conversations about the lineup choices by head coach Steve Kerr. The spotlight on it has undoubtedly led to some badgering behind the scenes from interested onlookers back on this side of the globe. Kerr is mixing and matching at the moment to keep everyone happy, an unavoidable part of the dynamic.

He has been complimentary of Booker with this in mind, via ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.

“Devin is probably the guy who’s been most adaptable to go from a different role in the NBA to a new one here,” Kerr said. “The offense clicks when he’s out there. The defense is really good. That’s why he’s started every game and seems to be good with any combination.”

Over the last month, the best five is clearly Anthony Davis, Booker, Durant, Holiday and James. After that, it would be a lot of Bam Adebayo and Edwards, with some bits of Stephen Curry and Derrick White sprinkled in.

When the stakes are high, it will be fascinating to see what Kerr chooses to do (or not do).

Curry, as an example, has been constantly hunted defensively and hasn’t been enough of a supernova offensively to offset that on a team with more well-rounded two-way guards that doesn’t need one-of-a-kind scorers like Curry. He will still play, but will Kerr still give him big minutes if that trade-off still isn’t yielding great results?

Booker held a starting spot alongside Curry and James for all three pool games. That won’t change. Durant should join them but has also played well off the bench, so if Kerr feels like he can get away with it, he will keep that up in order to find starting time for another guy. If that’s the case, it should easily be Holiday. And in that vein, Davis and Adebayo have definitively performed better than Joel Embiid. Either guy should start over him if it was based on just that. It rarely is, so we’ll see.

Jayson Tatum has also started now in the last two games after getting a DNP in the win over Serbia, far and away the best opponent Team USA has faced so far. He’s done a solid job as a ball-mover and slasher but it still looks a little clunky for him to mesh out there in FIBA play, like Embiid.

Germany and Canada both look good enough to take down the Americans on the right night. France hasn’t found its form but has the talent too as well. Ditto for Australia and Serbia. Team USA does not have a margin of error to appease underperforming stars (or their NBA teams) later on when any of those matchups could prove to be volatile. The risk is there and how much the Americans play with fire could determine their fate.

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If the Phoenix Suns offense in 2024-25 hits an explosive gear that everyone expected a season prior, Tyus Jones and Monte Morris will receive a majority of the credit for how it ends.

But offensive execution starts with the new Mike Budenholzer-led coaching staff.

Regardless of how to credit any improvements from the Frank Vogel era, the expectations are again that Phoenix should challenge to be one of the best offenses in the NBA.

On paper, the Suns have to be that to make up for the roster construction issues that can lead to worries about defending bigger wings, rebounding, and generally, things that begin with size.

So the identity has got to be this: The 2024-25 Suns need to increase their three-point rate, move the ball better than last year and find more space for Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal to operate in the midrange.

“If you kind of look how the league is trending, teams are playing smaller, teams are playing faster,” Jones told reporters at his introductory press conference Wednesday. “Scoring is at an all-time high, three-point shooting is at an all-time high…. the fit (with me) is there, I think it’ll work. I look to continue those trends.

“We want to play faster, we want to continue to score at a high rate, be efficient. We want to be an efficient basketball team.”

Jones used the word “fit” 11 times over about 10 minutes Wednesday.

Suns fans do not need a massive explainer about how a true point guard can help the offense. But quickly:

His play a season ago with the Washington Wizards in a career-high 29 minutes per game made him worthy of an eight-figure contract: 12 points on 49% shooting, seven assists and a turnover.

Instead, “fit” was the reason he opted to take the veteran’s minimum and join a Suns lineup needing a starting point guard. Phoenix’s opportunity mattered, and so did the family feeling. Maybe most importantly, he was recruited by fellow Duke product Grayson Allen — it should be pointed out Allen did so while surely knowing Jones landing in the Valley meant he would lose his starting role after a career year.

“I’m a competitor. Want to win. Want to compete, want a chance to lead and so the role that was offered up here, it’s hard to pass up just from conversations with Josh (Bartelstein), with James (Jones), with Mat (Ishbia), with Coach Bud,” Tyus Jones said. “They did a great job recruiting me but ultimately the role for myself, I felt the fit was perfect. You look at the roster, it speaks for itself.”

Jones, like Morris, has a career history as a low-turnover player. He’s twice set an NBA record for assist-to-turnover ratio and has led the league in that category for five years in a row.

But he’s also got a case as one of the league’s most underrated pure playmakers. Last year on a struggling Wizards team, Jones ranked seventh amongst a bevy of stars in terms of assist percentage (34.6%), an estimated percentage of teammate field goals assisted by him while on the floor.

The only players with a higher assist percentage: Trae Young, Tyrese Haliburton, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, LeBron James and Cade Cunningham.

The players with an assist percentage just behind Jones: Domantas Sabonis, James Harden, Jalen Brunson, Chris Paul, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Devin Booker.

Surely that number would drop in Phoenix even with heavy minutes.

Maybe defensive concerns are generated with Jones bumping Booker and Beal to the wings. But there’s little doubt Jones’ profile will alleviate some offensive pressure on that pair and Durant as Suns fans called for all last season.

“Talking with coach Bud, how he envisions me kind of fitting in (is) kind of being the orchestrator, being the playmaker, trying to make it easier for Book, KD, Brad and the rest of the guys, honestly,” Jones said. “Ultimately just doing what I do and that’s being a point guard, being a leader. Again, the fit was there, the fit was perfect.”

Again, Budenholzer’s job will play an important role in this after a 2023-24 season full of junky-looking offense.

It sounds like he’s ready to bump the tempo, increase the spacing with three-point volume and — more simply — get his team to run better offense compared to last season.

“Touching the paint for sprayouts, pushing the pace, kick-aheads, just moving the ball side-to-side,” Jones said of how he can help. “Second-to-third side possessions I think will be huge for us just making the defense work. Again, we got a lot of firepower, lot of offensive weapons, so not letting the defense off the hook. Making them work for a full shotclock … ultimately picking the pace up, moving the ball. That starts with me setting the tone.”

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Head coach Steve Kerr swapped it around a bit, inserting Anthony Davis and Jayson Tatum in place of Joel Embiid and Jrue Holiday. For one, it’s the latest sign of Booker’s importance that he remained alongside Stephen Curry and LeBron James. Outside of that, Davis and Tatum offer more versatility against a wing-based South Sudan squad with more perimeter threats to worry about.

Davis has thoroughly outplayed Embiid thus far while Tatum went from not playing in Sunday’s win to starting on Wednesday. It’s impossible to ignore the possibility of politics and keeping everyone happy on the latter. Tatum’s DNP sparked plenty of discourse and surely there were upset parties within basketball, not aided by Tatum serving as social media’s punching bag across Sunday.

Team USA’s lead leapt into mid-teens by the early second quarter and hung around there before the plucky opposition kept hanging around, cutting it to 11 with over eight minutes left. That’s when a lineup of Curry, Booker, James, Davis and Kevin Durant quickly got the advantage back to 17, a run that featured a Booker and-one, layup and middy to suspend any dramatics.

devin booker and-1 pic.twitter.com/2yZrNCMvMO

— who is @goaltend (@2MANYBRIDGES) July 31, 2024

That has emerged as Team USA’s best lineup through two Olympic contests.

Booker started the game on South Sudanese point guard Carlik Jones, the breakout star of the tight exhibition contest the Americans narrowly won. Booker picked him up with fullcourt pressure and remained physical with him, using his size advantage to contain drives.

Devin Booker All Defense 1st team 🔜 pic.twitter.com/dojEuuti4U

— Book’em “fan” (@dbookownsyou) July 31, 2024

Durant had a similar level of impact defensively, where he was doing everything you’d want from a wing of his size with his length.

Both found pockets to score in. Durant finished with 14 points, two rebounds, three assists and three steals while Booker produced 10 points and a team-high six assists. Durant was a game-high +26. Booker led Team USA in minutes with 22, with Durant shortly behind at that number as well.

Bam Adebayo was awesome in this one. He was quietly one of Team USA’s best players in Tokyo and on Wednesday he knocked down two 3s, switched effortlessly on defense and punished mismatches around the basket. Fourteen of Adebayo’s team-high 18 points came in a 6-for-6 shooting first half.

Embiid did not play. He has notably looked out of shape and his injury history also brought some level of expectation that he perhaps might not play in every game. Where it gets interesting is that Davis and Adebayo have been far better and the team flows better when either is in there. Was this just a day off against a smaller team or has Embiid actually been phased out of the rotation? That’s what would happen if there weren’t optics and such to worry about ala Tatum.

Speaking of, Tatum played fine. He had four points, five rebounds and two assists in 17 minutes. The issue is it’s not contributions on the level of Booker, Anthony Edwards, Jrue Holiday or Derrick White. All three of those guys were really good again. Edwards and White each had three steals to go with double-digit scoring nights while Holiday was solid as always.

It was not the best showings for Curry and James. Curry continues to struggle defensively and a 1-of-9 shooting day can’t compound that. James’ six turnovers followed his six in the victory over Serbia and turnovers are really the only way this Team USA group becomes beatable.

The Americans wrap up group play on Saturday against Puerto Rico. While the expectation could be they will be on cruise control with a quarterfinal berth clinched, the star of that nation’s men’s team is Jose Alvarado, so, yeah. They’ll be locked in.

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Durant scored 23 points in 17 minutes of a 110-84 win over Serbia to kick off pool play at the Paris Olympics.

Sunday was an intriguing opener for a few reasons.

For one, the Americans kicked the crap out of the Serbians in Abu Dhabi just 11 days prior by 26 points, the best Team USA looked during its five-game showcase tour. Secondly, head coach Steve Kerr shared his displeasure with the team and let that be known between the last exhibition against Germany and the opener in Lille. Kerr was vocal about his group’s lack of energy and pace at times in those games, adding intrigue to Sunday to see if he elicited a response.

He did not, from the jump at least. Joel Embiid and Stephen Curry both turned the ball over on inbounds passes less than four minutes in, leading to immediate open layups in transition for Serbia.

Devin Booker knocked down back-to-back 3s to silence a 10-2 Serbian start and settle the Americans. A few minutes later, he checked out for Kevin Durant, and Durant took over that role and the game in general from there. Across his 8:39 in the first half, Durant went 8-for-8 from the field, including five 3s. The shorter FIBA line is less like a cheat code for Durant and more like he has hacked the mainframe. Durant entered the day shooting 48.8% from 3-point range in FIBA tournaments.

ZERO missed shots for Kevin Durant in the first half.

Easy money. 🔥 #ParisOlympics

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Despite a 12-for-18 mark from 3 for the Americans at halftime, they only led by nine (58-49). Curry was constantly targeted defensively and had a rough half on that end while Embiid’s two-way performance was even worse. There just isn’t enough margin of error against a team as good as Serbia to be afforded that and the other general turnovers Team USA committed to still blow teams out.

That is the key for Team USA through this tournament. Because in the second half, it was just solid, avoiding big mistakes and capitalizing when opportunities were presented. There was no Herculean effort from an opposing individual or crazy shot-making, two variables that will pop up for the United States at some point. So without major slip-ups for Team USA in the last two quarters, it was a 52-35 rout.

Booker, like his Phoenix Suns teammate Durant, was also his usual Team USA self, connecting and filling in gaps where he could. As a starter, he finished with 12 points, two rebounds, five assists and two steals in 26 minutes, the second most on the team.

He played good defense, made the right passes, knocked down shots and inserted energy wherever he could. Notably, Booker found Embiid a few times in the mid-range area during scattered possessions, trying to get the big man some rhythm.

The biggest surprise of the rotation pecking order came with Derrick White getting a nod off the bench in favor of Jayson Tatum. Matchup-wise, it made a lot of sense. Serbia’s playmaking guards were a problem out of the gates and Charlotte Hornets guard Vasilije Micic is Serbia’s engine as a reserve, captaining the minutes when Jokic rests. Tatum, however, just starred for the title-winning Boston Celtics.

With that said, Tatum struggled to adapt to a lesser rule in Tokyo, even though he was able to put up numbers in some of those games. While his slashing was a benefit during the exhibition tour, he and Anthony Edwards together off the bench yielded a bit too much iso ball that led to too many midrange pull-ups.

Durant began the tournament coming off the bench after missing Team USA’s entire exhibition tour due to a calf strain. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported from France there has been a consistent dialogue between Durant, the Phoenix Suns’ staff and Team USA throughout the lead-up to Sunday for the injury sustained at the start of July. Extreme caution has been exercised, with Durant looking the part of someone ready for legitimate minutes in pre-game warmups back in London a week before the Olympics got underway.

Expect to see him back in the starting lineup on either Wednesday against South Sudan or Puerto Rico on Saturday.

LeBron James added 21 points, seven rebounds and nine assists on 9-of-13 shooting. He’s 39 years old. Crazy.

Pretty much everyone for Team USA looked good after those early struggles. Jrue Holiday continued his awesome glue-guy minutes from Tokyo alongside Booker with 15 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals. There is no wrong choice for Kerr between Holiday or Booker as the fifth starter.

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Phoenix is signing Tyus Jones, three weeks after signing Monte Morris. Both players are elite at taking care of the ball, ranking at the top of the assist-to-turnover ratio leaderboards for years. Their similarities don’t end there.

Both are on the smaller side and aren’t known as scorers or high-end playmakers, instead touted for pure point guard skills. Both are trustworthy shooters off the ball, where Morris is a career 41.5% catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter and Jones’ number the last two seasons was 39.7%. Both are one-position defenders and it is not a strength of their game.

Jones is the definitively better player. Perhaps there is some exaggeration to how we opened but it certainly feels like what happened here, which is one of the many reasons why this signing is fascinating.

For one, it’s tremendous value. Jones should be making at least eight figures a year and settles for the minimum in the Valley, where he said to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski he will be the “starting point guard.” Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro reports that is the expectation and for Grayson Allen to move to the bench. (To get it out of the way, Bradley Beal is never coming off the bench nor should he. It is a universal truth worth accepting now. Everyone will be better off for it.)

While Jones probably won’t be out there for longer than 25 minutes a night, he will greatly aid the Suns’ horrid turnovers, offensive flow and overall play during the fourth quarter from last year. Obviously, they felt this was not going to be solved by just a coaching change. Whether or not Devin Booker and Beal could have figured out running the offense now goes unanswered.

Depth in the backcourt is now a luxury Phoenix can lean on in the regular season. If injuries come for either of those two or Kevin Durant, Jones (and Morris) can take on more ball-handling duties to keep the Suns stars away from engaging in a daily superhero night at Footprint Center, like what Kevin Durant had to try and do in the first 10 games of the regular season.

Those are the benefits. The rest of this picture is muddled and we’ll see if more benefits emerge from bringing in Jones or if lingering downsides are now more pronounced.

There are now too many cooks in the guard-sized kitchen. This is a tiny team. Even if this isn’t a full point guard gambit and Morris isn’t also locked into minutes, it’s still Allen, Beal, Booker, Jones and Royce O’Neale all at under 6-foot-7. Those are five very good players that should all ideally play 30-plus minutes. But this is not an ideally constructed roster and it’s likely only two of them reaching that number.

O’Neale is the only impactful defender of the five. One of Beal, Booker or Jones is going to begin games out west defending Stephen Curry, Anthony Edwards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, De’Aaron Fox, Kyrie Irving, Ja Morant, Dejounte Murray or Jamal Murray. Scale up to wing-sized scorers and that’s DeMar DeRozan, Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard or Zion Williamson for either Durant, Booker or Beal.

Jones’ arrival did not create this issue, rather it inflates it further. The previous trade-off was having the best 3-point shooter in the league last year spacing off the Big 3. Allen and his 5.9 3s per game on a team that struggles to get them up will now play less. Jones’ point guard acumen is now the preferred booster pack to the stars. So in turn, Beal, Booker and Durant must now combine for 20 triples a night minimum and aim for somewhere more like the mid-20s. They were at just over 16 last year. Again, they must get ’em up.

Suggested answers to this dilemma include trading Allen when that becomes legal in October for a 3-and-D wing with more athleticism and size. That would be unwise.

In that reality, the Suns have lost Allen and Eric Gordon, their two volume shooters off the ball and then replaced them with worse ones who won’t be nearly as prolific. Allen was also, like, really good at basketball for this team last year and was the second-best defender last season out of those five guards. He was already going to be somewhat phased out by a full year of O’Neale on the roster and now it’s going to be a challenge finding 25-plus minutes a night.

Beal and Booker now have even further elevated defensive expectations than last season. Beal showed a desire for it through patches of injuries last year and did as good of a job as you could’ve hoped on Edwards in the playoffs. Booker regressed after showing great promise two postseasons ago and is again showing everyone in the Olympics that this is an end of the floor he can be a positive on.

It’s an incredibly small three-guard lineup. Jusuf Nurkic was the best defensive rebounder in basketball last year and can shoulder a lot of the responsibility now but a lot of onus now goes on Durant and whatever other wing plays, whether it’s Bol Bol (maybe?) or Ryan Dunn (probably not). Allen was a sneaky good rebounder last year too.

We should not breeze by Morris’ role. He was surely under the expectation he would be getting a decent chunk of minutes off the bench. Either he will still receive those as a way to make good by him, something that would be redundant and further complicate playing Allen and O’Neale enough, or Morris gets the short end of the stick.

If Morris plays, that is a lot of the ball not in the hands of Beal, Booker and Durant. Jones and Morris are not necessarily playmakers that are going to jam the pressure points of a defense. That is what that trio is here for.

So, to revisit the point guard thing one last time and speak directly to those hammering it, the argument for the necessity of one is to get the Suns organized and running the offense. OK, that’s fine. But what do you mean by that really? What is that point guard doing?

In theory, Jones and Morris are bringing the ball up and waiting for one of the three scorers to move around off-ball action until they give them the ball in that spot. Is that really something that Beal or Booker are incapable of?

This was not the main problem last year. The problem was failing to consistently run those motions and keeping the offense fresh. That is not something that Jones and Morris themselves can magically fix. It was an issue from both the previous coaches and players avoiding stagnant offensive movement.

Regardless, that puts an end to those debates. The point now becomes if whatever the point guard play is and hiring of Mike Budenholzer prove to be enough in getting this offense to the level it should be — the best in the league. It better just about be there or else this team is looking at the play-in.

Essentially, the Suns spent one year betting on having enough on-ball, initiating equity and then abruptly cashed that ticket out while it still had any value left in favor of the intrinsic value of a floor general commanding the majority of the offense. Now they have to hope their other ticket is still a winning one, the bet on overcoming a league that keeps getting bigger, faster and stronger.

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Liddell was shipped from the Hawks to the Pelicans on July 6 as part of the Dejounte Murray trade.

New Orleans drafted Liddell 41st overall in 2022.

At face value, the move for the Suns swaps jumbo forwards at the backend of the roster and gives them a small salary trim that will alleviate even more in tax money. Roddy was set to make $2.8 million in 2024-25 with a club option worth $4.8 million for 2025-26.

Liddell will make $2.1 million next season with a club option for $2.3 million the following year.

The 6-foot-6, 240-pound scorer has appeared in eight NBA games for the Pelicans after a productive college career at Ohio State.

He blew up as a junior with the Buckeyes in 2021-22, averaging 19.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.6 blocks per game while shooting 49% overall and showing improvement with 37.4% accuracy from behind the line that year.

It hasn’t translated to the pros so much, and a July 2022 ACL injury set him back as well. In 23 games with the G League’s Birmingham Stallions last season, Liddell averaged 17.7 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game.

He shot 50.4% from the field and 27% from deep while taking 4.4 attempts per game.

Roddy’s 17 games played with Phoenix could highlight where Liddell falls in the pecking order — behind a perimeter-oriented rotation that includes superstars like Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. Veterans Royce O’Neale, Josh Okogie, Bol Bol and Nassir Little, plus rookie Ryan Dunn would eat up minutes at forward as well, though Liddell’s size and rebounding with a little scoring pop give Phoenix another unique forward option.

Roddy was acquired by Phoenix in the three-team O’Neale trade last February from the Memphis Grizzlies.

He has career averages of 6.6 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists over 135 NBA appearances. Despite being 23, he appeared to be fighting for his place as a member of the Suns’ Summer League squad this offseason.

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Mercury guard Diana Taurasi is pursuing a record sixth gold medal, which would be the most for either the men or women in American basketball. Suns guard Devin Booker is going for a modest No. 2 after snagging his first in Tokyo. They are joined by the Mercury’s Kahleah Copper and Brittney Griner, plus the Suns’ Kevin Durant, who is the all-time men’s leading scorer seeking a record fourth gold.

Booker is entering his 10th season, a number tough to wrap your head around considering how young he still seems (and is at the age of 27!). Through the whole journey in Phoenix, Taurasi has been there as a mentor. Having the greatest of all time and someone who has been in the Valley since 2004 in that role speaks for itself.

“It’s meant everything,” Booker said at Team USA minicamp in Las Vegas. “She took me in under her wing Day 1 in Phoenix and I’ve returned it. But it’s not tit for tat — it’s a real love there that still exists. I was just at the game last week. Just inspiration.”

That last bit there is probably the most important.

Among many other things, Taurasi was featured in the commercial for the launch of Booker’s signature shoe with Nike.

Both are frequent guests at the other’s games and have supported each other throughout this last decade. And perhaps the last significant moment in that joint effort — while both are still playing at least — will be halfway across the world in France.

Both of them speak highly of what their connection has meant over the years.

Taurasi recently turned 42 and has achieved it all. Whether it’s what she’s done already or is still managing to do at her age, it would be difficult for Booker not to get an extra jolt from watching the G.O.A.T. operate.

Taurasi has watched Booker’s career develop from the day he was drafted to now. What she’s seen goes far enough to hope her son can take something from how Booker has done things in Phoenix.

“If Leo can grow up like anyone, I wish he was like Book,” Taurasi said Friday. “From the day he got to Phoenix, he was a grownup, he was serious about basketball. The way he approached it on the court, off the court — I love everything about Dev. To be able to share the Olympics with him in Paris, we already did Tokyo a couple years ago. To see his work ethic.

“And the thing I love about Dev more than anything is he’s loyal. We know how professional sports are, the ups, the downs and it’s not an easy landscape to navigate but he always does it with the most respect and the most loyalty.”

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