Can Devin Booker Jump Back Up Next Season? Phoenix Suns NBA Season Review

Can Devin Booker Jump Back Up Next Season? Phoenix Suns NBA Season Review

Should we talk about the other Phoenix Suns? Devin Booker, the goat BB bowl, the rookies, Ryan Dunn and also Igodaro, Michael Bolton. Let’s go. Thanks, Josh. It’s Michael Bolton here and it’s time for another episode of the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast. Let’s get to it. Let’s get to it indeed. You are Locked on Fantasy, your daily NBA fantasy podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast, brought to you by Basketball Monster. My name is Josh Lloyd and I’m just out here aura farming. I’m also the lead fantasy analyst at basketball.com and today’s episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch. Use the code lockdown on NBA at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. Thank you also for making lockdown fantasy basketball your first listen every day. We are free and we’re available on all platforms for all you double bangers and you every day. You’re out here thumbing and commenting and you’re watching and you’re listening and you’re learning. And tomorrow we’re doing a dynasty show. I didn’t mention that, but we are doing a dynasty show. Some a couple of dynasty buys, a couple of dynasty sells, just a bit of a dynasty discussion regarding some theories, strategies, and some specific players. And then on uh Wednesday, it’ll be we’ll have a couple of NBA or I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to release them, but I am recording them. Some uh NBA draft prospect preview shows discussing few of the draft prospects. Yeah, starting that. So, we’re interspersing all that sort of stuff along with season reviews over the next two months or so. So, we are here like I said to talk about the Phoenix Suns who could look incredibly different next season. Durant, Beal, Booker, are they going to be there? I’ve got no idea. and they are old and they are out of assets and it could be incredibly incredibly ugly. What we’re going to talk about here is the players who are under the age of 29 because half their roster is over 29 and half is under and that is not usually the split that we get. But that does enable us at least to talk about the Suns best. Maybe not. I guess you could argue whether he’s their best player or not, but he’s definitely likely to be their best player next season and that is Deon Booker. Well, again, that’s assuming that he’s there. Booker was drafted in the second round of most fantasy drafts this season and in the end I look his ADP was 21. In the end I would suggest that he sort of was around that mark. He wasn’t exactly there. He probably was pro worse than what you hoped. It is interesting though again I’m not sure that people would know this. Maybe they would. Booker is already 29. Like he’s not still 26. He’s 29. He ended the season as the 25th ranked player. 26th in points leagues which is obviously below that ADAP of 21. Post trade deadline 18th. Sorry, pre-trade deadline 18th. Post 42nd. So that dragged him down. He had a usage of 30. So him and Durant 29 and a half and 20 us 29 usage for the two of them. Beal down at 22. So obviously the split was very much Durant booker focused. But much like with Durant, much like with Beal, the darko values of these players all looked horrible in terms of how badly they regressed. Now, some of that I think is playing on a team that was just so incredibly disappointing that blame has to be a portion somewhere. So, if you’re as bad as you for as good as they were and as bad as they ended up, they’re going to drop. So, here’s a fifth percentile darko delta and a 22nd percentile drip delta. And look, when you are almost well, you’re 29, so you’re getting towards that time where decline hits, you do expect something to drop. But I I don’t think the book is just going to fall off the face of the earth or anything like that. He still averaged 25 1/2 points with four rebounds and seven assists despite them trying to make Tyus Jones their starting point guard. He shot 46 from the field, 89 from the line. Part of the real issue with Booker this season is he hit 33% from three. Now, he has never been an elite 40% three-point shooter. The thing that always bothered me when I was early on doing this podcast is that Deon Booker would come in and people go, “He’s like Klay Thompson.” Okay, he’s not like Klay Thompson just because they look sort of similar because Klay Thompson is an elite three-point shooter. Deon Booker is not and he never has been. He still has that impression of being this elite 40% three-point guy. He has It’s like Trey Young also never that. Never been that player. Not saying he’s a bad three-point shooter. He’s a good shooter. He gets good volume. He takes tough shots. But that tough shots don’t always translate across the fantasy in that way and that’s a detriment. Now I do think here given the fact that we don’t know who their coach is. Ty Jones at point guard didn’t really work and Booker still got seven assists. Could that actually improve next season? Sure. Could his usage go up if Durant is not there? I would say that gets harder to say because you know he’s already at 30. It’d be more likely to me that a player coming in or or Bradley Beal goes up to 27 or 28 or 26 or whatever to take on some of that Durant load, but it’s possible that he averages 27 with seven and a half assists next season. Deon Booker hit 36 of your threes, get to 47 and a half from the field and we’re back at 19 or 20. I don’t look at this, as much as it was a little bit of a disappointing season for Booker, I don’t look at and go, well, I guess he’s cooked now. I still think he’s going to be really solid as a second round player. I think there’s an outside shot he could finish back end first round next season. Yeah. Then we start to get into that war. You’re 31 32 now. Maybe we don’t expect that. But there are certain things based on how this season went. The assists, the three-point percentage numbers, and even like a 0.9 steel to 1.2 steel season, it changes some of those fortunes. So, while it was disappointing, the other thing actually I’d worry about with Booker on the seven, he has had some injuries. Clearly, he was pretty healthy this season, 75 games, but he played 37 minutes as well. What if that if that pushes to 35, there could be some some changes there. So, while it was disappointing, while if you picked him inside the top 20, you would have been let down this season. Look, that’s understandable. I don’t think that that should mean that we’re taking him just to be a consistent third round guy from now on. I think that there are very clear ways that he can you keep these numbers, improve in others and be slightly better next season and maybe the season after. That after that, after two more years there is where we start to get into more of those discussions of okay, now do the assist drop, now does the usage drop, now do we have worries about the efficiency maintaining? That’s probably in a two a two-year time discussion. But for now, I wouldn’t look at this and the decline in some of his stuff as being a a big harbinger for the future. Harbinger, Word. Let’s talk about another one of these younger guys, and that is Tyus Jones, who I talked a lot about Tai Jones in the last show about the Suns. You can talk about that there, and I’m not going to rehash all that. And maybe I was a bit harsh to Ty, but I think at this point, there’s quite a few players we’re going to talk about here that we sort of I think know who they are. Ty Jones is not a starting point guard on a very good team. He’s a high level backup point guard who’s also now 29. He played 27 minutes a night. He started the season as a starter. He still generated 5.3 assists and shot 41 from three. None of that stuff is bad. Obviously, low usage player, high passing volume. Defensively, I think he struggled a lot and he has in the past. Drip really hated him. I actually thought he declined a lot and I think that’s fair cuz I don’t think he was very good this season. Uh he’s definitely not a guy that you would want to pay to be a starter. He’s a guy that you want to have on your team. And I’ll use his former team Memphis as an example the way that Scotty Pippen can be used. You can play him as a starter when you need to. You play him as a highle backup so your team doesn’t go off the rails when he’s on the court, but if you want to like bank on him being a 32minute a night starting caliber player, I think you’re going to just be in for a bad time. And that’s what the Suns tried to do. and then they corrected their ways mid-season, but they’d already sort of built their team around that being the case. Um, so yeah, he he’s an interesting sort of a player. He was 197th overall in category leagues and again when you go to look at your Yahoo total ranks, it will tell you that he was the 76th ranked player. And if you ever wanted, if you ever wanted an example, and there’s millions of them, if you ever want an example of why looking at Yahoo, NCAAT total rankings tell you absolutely nothing. In fact, tell you the incorrect information about the value of a player, that’s where you are. Cuz you know what 76 is? It’s it’s above average as a fantasy contributor cuz 156 players in a league, you’re talking the 78 is the middle point. So you’re saying he was the 76th ranked player. So, he would have been one of your top half players on your roster. He would have been your sixth best player on on a roster. Get out of here. Like, just actually get out of here. I almost dropped a million fbombs in that sentence cuz that’s just in my nature. Um, like just get out of here. Yeah, I know we played 81 games, but honestly, who cares if you play 81 games if you get 10, two, and five? That is useless. It’s not It’s not useless. Useless would be Damen Lee, right? That’s useless. 10, two, and five. If I stream in that position during the week, I blow it out of the water. It’s not even it’s not even comparatively close. Yet, he’s considered a top half standard league player by those rankings. Absolutely. Get out of here. He was 160th before the trade deadline, 255th after it, 171st in points leagues. He did not belong on a roster for majority of the season. Yet, he’s the 76th ranked player. That’s going to be my go-to about people talk dropping ever dropping a nine catat totals ranking on me. I’ll be like, “Yeah, Ty Jones was 76.” Yeah, very good season with his 10 points and two rebounds. Um, yeah. So, like we are almost definitely not going to be any sort of spot that we look to Taius Jones as a fantasy guy next season. Now, things could be interesting because what if Durant leaves? What if they find a way to trade Beal and they bring Jones back and it is Jones and Booker who are starting and then like that changes the dynamic. But overall the upside of Jones is so low. It’s so low as a long-term prospect. He’s 29. Like what’s he improving on? Like can he be better than that usage wise? Yeah, probably a few ticks. Can he get to seven and a half assists? Absolutely he could. But it would need to be the right circumstance. He’s a circumstance player and the circumstance is just not available on as many teams as we might think it is. Got some more guys to talk about in this younger group of the Phoenix Suns. We’re going to get back to that in a sec, including talking about the GOAT BDNR. But today’s episode, it is brought to you by Monarch Money. 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Use the code lock on NBA at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That is monarchoney.com. The code is lockdown for half off your first year. All right, let’s um let’s go in here as we look at these Phoenix Suns players. We’ve done Deon Booker and Tyus Jones. And now it is time to move on to the savior of so many fantasy teams this season, the league winning legend, Big Dick Nick Richards. traded for by the Phoenix Suns from the Charlotte Hornets to take over their starting spot after they demoted Yusf Nerkage. Richards is 27 now. He had an 18 usage and he finished the season ranked 203rd because do you know why? He’s not good. He’s been not good for a long period of time. He he’s just like he’s bad and he doesn’t defend well. He’s horrendous on offense. He has no hands whatsoever. He can’t pass. He can’t shoot. He’s bad. He’s been bad. People convince themselves that he was good. But like with Ty Jones, where I think the jury is out now, well, people go, “Yeah, he’s not a starter.” I think people look at Nick Christians and go, “Yeah, he’s not good. He’s a very good rebounder.” That is true. 8.2 rebounds in 22 minutes is very good, but this is a team that needed a center. He started a few games and then played good minutes and then he just would reduce down to 22 minutes cuz he was terrible and his impact was bad. And look at those like so many on this team. The DPM delta 8th percentile drip 41st. He contested 90 90th percentile contesting shots. That’s pretty good. He ended up with one block a game, but you’d want to convert more of those, my guy. It’s because also he’s bad. No offensive ability, no passing, 18th percentile in offensive load. He does nothing there. Like the things that he does is rebound and and that’s it. 59th percent. Sorry, 59% from the field. Look, that’s what fine 74 from the line. Totally okay on incredibly low volume. He does have a fully non-g guaranteed deal for this next season. I’m certain they will guarantee it and he could be easily just in place as their starting center again. And honestly, if he is their starting center again and the backup option is I’d rather they use Igodara, but I could see Nick Richards being a maybe a later round draftable guy in fantasy just because if you’re out there and where do you average nine and eight in 22 minutes? If he played 26 minutes and averaged 12 and nine with 1.2 blocks on 60% shooting, it’s it’s okay. But part of the problem and why I harp on this as a joke, some of it, but I think it’s also a good a good barometer of valuations of players is that he’s never going to be consistently 30 minutes a night because he’s bad. He has such limited skill set overall for fantasy and real life that you need everything to go exactly right. You need him to play 30 minutes a night. You need him to be out there getting those minutes every single day just so he can get to 12 and 10 with 1.2 blocks because if anything is off, he’s not good enough to way. He’s an excellent shot blocker. He adds interesting passing from center. He shoots threes. He gets his hand on balls for steals. He none of that’s true. He doesn’t do any of those things. He rebounds. He has field goal percentage. That’s it. It’s a two cat. I say wonder, but he’s bad. But that again doesn’t preclude him at age 27 from having one season next season potentially as getting 22 bits to 27 and being an okay backend guy. That’s all possible because everything is context. when when he came across this season, I was like, I don’t think this is a very good option because A he’s bad, B they play small, c there’s Plumbley, D there’s Igodaro, and we’ll see what happens. But if Plumbley’s gone, if Durant is gone, so they’re not playing small. If it’s him and Igodaro there and he plays 25 a night, Igodaro plays 23, then I’m marginally in. But I still don’t think he’s good. And if we’re looking at that long term, I know, this is the test that I that I do like to use, especially when talking dynasty. When you look at the Suns, you go, do you think the Suns sit there and go center’s locked down five years, we got our starter? No, they don’t. They don’t even look at that and go, we’ve got our starter for next season. They’d be like, we’d be very happy to get an upgraded center because he is not it. So, when we’re talking about valuations of players and how we try to look forward for them, the grip that they can have on that spot can be quite tenuous. And I think that’s exactly where we’re at with BDNR. Let’s talk about because it’s been pretty negative about the Suns. I think rightfully so. They’re one of the worst vibes team and one of the worst teams relatively to expectations that we’ve seen in recent memory. But a positive story was the play of Colin Gillespie. He was a two-way guy with the Denver Nuggets. Broke his leg in his first season, I think it was, and barely played and had some injuries this season as well. But by the end of the year, he was starting games over Ty Jones. If they had have made the playin/playoffs, he would have been converted to a full-time contract. Now, he is older. He’s 26, 18 usage. He only played 14 minutes a night and only 33 games on his two-way. He ended up 314th in Durant rankings, averaging six with two and a half assists and6 deals in those 14 minutes. But you’ll notice the difference at post trade deadline. Now, 268th is not good, but he’s 491st before the deadline. His drip delta 96th percentile, Darko 82nd percentile, passing volume 76. Like he’s wasn’t dominating the ball. 87th percentile, offensive load 79th. He deflected balls, he contested shots. He did important things for this team. And 14 minutes is nothing. Let’s just double that for the sake of 28 minutes as a starter because honestly, if they decide that Booker is not going to go back to point guard and Jones isn’t there and Morris isn’t there, Gillespie could get converted and honestly be a 28-minute starting point guard. is again because the restrictions they have, he could possibly just be a starter. So what would it be? 12 points, five assists, 1.2 steals, 43 from three, 86 from the line. I know that’s not fantastic. It’s it’s not it’s not that much worse than Tus Jones. And if you’re one of those ones that in deeper leagues you’re marginally interested at the very worst, the imp he’s quite small Colin Gillespie as well, which is a little concerning. At the very worst, I would say what we saw from Gillespie in a season where there are not many wins for the Phoenix Suns, this was a W. And he made himself look like at very worst he is a third string regular NBA point guard. And if you had to use him as your backup point guard, I think you’d be okay with it in stretches. Does that mean that there is like huge jumps moving forward? You know, eight 18 usage is not super strong. two and a half assists. He’s not super strong, but like yet, if Jones wasn’t there and it was him and Booker, could he get six, seven? Sure. I think it’s I think it’s actually possible. I I don’t think we should be relying upon it. But there is a shot to me that Gillespie is a rotation guy next season and an outside shot, a 2% chance that Colin Gillespie is a starting point guard for the Phoenix Suns and is at least 16 team viable and has a year where he’s inside the top 180. I think it’s I think it’s possible. Am I a little delusional? Maybe. Do I really like Colin Gillespie? Not really. But that’s the situation we’re in. I was impressed at times with Oso Igodaro. Late second round pick from the Suns. Didn’t really think we actually get much of him in the rotation, but he started games. He played 61 games in 17 minutes. He’s 23 as a rookie. That’s not you’re super young, but the fact that he was able to play 17 minutes a night as a rookie, I thought was pretty impressive. He only averaged four points and three and a half boards. That’s not huge. Obviously, that’s in 17 minutes. Half a steal, half a block. Okay. He can’t shoot. He shot 60 from the field, but can’t shoot threes. Can’t shoot free throws. But he contested well. He was able to generate decent amount of steals. His Darko Delta 99th percentile. Interesting. Drip had him at sixth percentile. I don’t really understand that because I would have said that, you know, the expectations for Igodara were pretty small. And then by the end of the season, you go, “Yeah, I’m I’m okay if he’s a rotation big man. He’s not really a four, but I guess at times he can sort of play that. He’s a small ball of five who can pass a little bit as well. Now, he didn’t really show much of that 46 percentile passing creation volume is not a huge number, but when your offensive load is fifth and your time on ball is 25th, that should at least stand out somewhat. Mason, is he a Mason Plumbley type of passer? I think he’s a little bit more creative than Mason. And Mason’s had some pretty high assist numbers, largely the Damont Sabonis way of getting assists, like getting it and just handing it to someone. But Igodara shows a little bit more flash there. He’s a little undersized, but he’s a decent enough defender. And I think the Suns have found a backup caliber big man with that pick. He is 23. Is there how much room is there to improve from a you fantasy and dicey perspective? I think there’s enough second half of the season or post deadline 232nd in categories. It’s not terrible in lowish minutes. Will he ever be a top 100 guy? I’d be pretty surprised. Top 150 is possible. I think there’s a chance in the next two years we get a 23 minute season out of him. And like again, if we’re going to highlight a lot of negatives because there are a lot him and Colin Gillespie, I think we’re pretty positives. a pretty like getting that out of Igodaro as a second round pick and being able to hang on an NBA court and actually take minutes away from other players I think has got to be considered a huge positive. Is it sky-high upside? Not really. But enough little things there like think think of like another second round pick Jonathan Mo for the Raptors. I don’t think Igodaro is as good as Mobo. He’s got nowhere near the level of fantasy upside. But if Igodaro was in Mobo’s situation in Toronto the last few weeks of the season and they weren’t because the Raptors obviously weren’t pushing but the Suns were. I think Igodaro could have had I’ll say 80% of what Mo did there. So he’s he’s a name to watch. I think I would almost go as far as to say that he might even be more of a name to watch than their other rookie who played also way more than I thought Ryan Dunn. Ryan Dunn’s numbers in college were so weird. He never took threes. He could not shoot at all. Couldn’t hit free throws. Never took threes. They never went in. But he had a million steals and a million blocks. Coming into the NBA, he like he started taking threes. Now, early on was like, “Oh my god, the Suns found somebody. They’ve turned him into a shooter.” And I think a lot of you would be surprised to find out that he shot 31% on threes. So, was he good? Absolutely not. He was actually bad. He shot under 49% from the free throw line. Again, horrific. But his expectation was so low that when he came out firing threes, we went, “Oh my god, they’ve turned him into a shooter.” In the end, he wasn’t a shooter. He was terrible at it. And he averaged seven points. The part of the problem we’ve done is that you wanted a level of respect for the shot. You wanted him to take those shots to try and do something offensively so he could stay on the court and generate big defensive numbers. But he averaged 6 deals. What? In 19 minutes, bro. I want I want Matis Lible numbers here. I want you to give me 1.6 in 19 minutes. I want.9 blocks in 19 minutes. You got 6 and.5 16th percentile in rim contest. 46th percentile deflections, bro. Come on. That’s that’s a problem now. It could could it change next season? He’s more comfortable. He gets back to more of that disruptive defense. Possibly. But I would have wanted those numbers to be way higher this season. This isn’t to say that he is a bad oncourt defender because he still he’s a pretty good defender. His advanced stuff was pretty positive. He’s never going to do anything passing wise, on ball-wise, offensive load-wise, usage wise. 17 usage actually higher than I thought he would ever get to, but he didn’t take advantage in the second half of the season. He didn’t improve. He was the guy that took over from Bradley Beal in the starting lineup and then was moved back and forth from the bench. I don’t think you ever want Ryan Dunn playing 30 minutes a night. Honestly, maybe. It’s hard to know after one year. Like, but in four years time, could he have become respectable enough offensively where he averages 10 points and two threes, but also two steals and five rebounds and three assists? Maybe. But I I think again, we looked at this and what a great success. The offense, the shoot, it’s all there. And he shot 31 from three and 49 from the line and 43 overall. Like, that’s not actually good. That’s good when you’re starting from the absolute basement of all basements. But going from the worst to above the worst is not good. It doesn’t make you good. And that’s part of the problem with a guy of his size, especially when you aren’t actually playmaking defensively. He he wasn’t playmaking defensively. We wanted him to and that would be part of the appeal from a fantasy perspective. Like don’t shoot, don’t score. Get me two steals and a block a game. and then anything else you provide on top of that is just additional but that that didn’t happen. He was actually listed as a negative in Darko DPM which again is a concern. It is it is a concern. He like he improved as the season went on. Um but overall like I just yeah I I would say marginally a little bit a little bit disappointing. Compare that to his namesake Chris Dunn, right? Chris Dunn steal percentage 3.2. Ryan Dunn 1.4, right? Says a lot. We wanted the turnovers. They did not come. They did not come. One thing I will give him significant credit for, finish at the rim at a really high rate. 70th 70% at the rim. Huge number. Huge number. But the other stuff work in progress. And it is very hard to be a consistent fantasy producer if all you’re relying upon is your defense and then that defense doesn’t actually translate into defensive numbers. So it was great that Ryan Dunn hit one three a game. That is really really that is really strong, right? We did not expect that obviously. Um but he took way more threes than we thought. His three-point percentage was way better than we thought. But in the end, it hovered in an area where I don’t think we have tremendous faith in that moving forward. I don’t. We got a couple more guys to get through. And get through them. We will. Let’s talk the GOAT. Let’s talk BB Bowl. Much like with Ty Jones, much like with Nick Richards, I’m not getting into arguments or discussions about whether bowl is good anymore. He’s not. He was given an opportunity and this is the thing with bowl is unlike Richards and unlike even to a degree Jones is if BB Bowl plays 25 minutes a night he will rack up numbers and he will be absolutely fantastic for fantasy but the caveat will always remain that he is bad and he cannot maintain that role or those minutes because he sucks. Now he did improve I thought quite a bit this season. He was much better than he’s been in the past. 21 usage in the past he’d go higher than that. But one thing that changed was like what happened to bros blocks? He ended up playing 12 minutes a night for.7 blocks which is not like that’s not terrible. It’s actually pretty good but contest percentage 29th doesn’t pass. 48th percentile offensive load with creation passing creation seventh like just black hole offensively. He shot 34 from three and 53 from the field and 77 from the line which is fine but it’s not elite. He took shots as an offensive big man, doesn’t pass, doesn’t get steals, and honestly just makes poor decisions in terms of ignoring his teammates, in terms of being out of position offensively and defensively. Now, it improved a lot this season, but it went from how are you still in the league to okay, we can sort of play you at times, but there’s got to be something that every single coach that he play that he plays for is just like I I I can’t with this guy. The good never outweighs the bad. He got opportunity to start under Benho. It last about five games and we’re see we’re just not, bro. We’re not playing you now. Is it because of his encore play entirely? Not necessarily. Maybe there’s something else going on off the court and the way he interacts. I don’t know, but it’s a pattern every year. Injuries, gets a chance, puts up stats. We use it for fantasy, but the ability for it to stick is is just never there. And now he’s an unrestricted free agent. And this is what again if you ever want to if you ever want to use Shaquille O’Neal or anyone on NBA inside the NBA or Charles Barkley as one of their comments to back up your opinion in basketball just know that they spent hours during the All-Star game before the All-Star game talking about how BB ball was 1.0 know how he does the same things as what Wimby does, which again shows you that while Shaq was a great player, Hall of Fame level player, has no idea what’s going on actually on the court. None. Doesn’t have any idea any idea regarding what makes a player good or what is impacting things at this moment in the NBA because those things can be am I a Hall of Fame NBA player? Absolutely not. But I also know that BB Bowl is not Victor Minyama. So just always remember, always remember that the All-Star game got hijacked to discuss BB ball by those clowns. And I do not know what team bowlers going to be playing for next season. He might be on a team, but one thing I do know is that no team is going to be giving him a shot to be a starter. Two more guys to talk about here. One of them is Titai Washington who is a guy that as a Kentucky guard I thought had a real chance in the NBA. He did not. He has been terrible and I got that one way wrong in the draft. He’s bounced around multiple teams. He only played 7 minutes a game here. The Suns don’t like to give these sort of guys any minutes at all. He was 523. He averaged two points with an assist. He shot 19% from three. I don’t really know what what to make of all that honestly. like there’s not enough playing time for him or for um the next guy we’re going to talk about, Jaylen Bridges, to like understand anything about what they did in the NBA. Washington did get some playing time towards the very end of the season, but it’s not just the Suns that have um you failed to give him opportunities and so I’m not just going to fully look at that and go, well, you know, it’s their bad development that led to that. But look, in saying all of this, Taito Washington last season in the G- League shot 38%. this season from three. This season shot 41% from three. Averaged 22 points in the G- League with seven assists. They are really good numbers and he’s shown steady improvement. The Suns is not a good place to be for that sort of thing. And it is three years now in the NBA for Washington. But I don’t know, maybe I’m just maybe I’m being foolish in thinking that maybe he could develop into a backup point guard the way that like a Ryan Rollins was able to do that in Milwaukee. the shooting is bad in the NBA, but it it’s been consistently real across the G-League. So, I’m not going to fully fully ride him off. I I’d say one more year and then and then we get into a situation of like, okay, I think we might be out on that, but there was some interesting G-League numbers there, which it’s not everything and obviously didn’t get a chance to do anything in the NBA even when they needed somebody that I’m not going to fully fully write it off. The last guy is a guy that I was I thought could have been a first round pick and that’s Jaylen Bridges. He ended up falling out of the draft and I thought some of it was there was a deal organized cuz he was snapped up immediately by the Suns. They negotiated this two-way contract and he was going to get an opportunity to play. Not really. 32 minutes total. Eight games, 4 minutes a game, 19 usage. These numbers that you can look at on the screen, the NBA numbers, they don’t mean anything. We just didn’t see him play. We could look at his G-League numbers where he played 33 minutes a night. He averaged 15 points. That’s not that good. He shot attempted seven threes a game and hit 39%. Oh, okay. One steal,8 blocks.8 blocks. Interesting. As a guard, five rebounds, 1.4 assists. Now, again, are they great numbers with the 18 usage in the G- League? Not really. Like, they’re fine. They’re not great, but enough there as a defensive wing who shoots threes. Like, what do you call those guys? Three and D, maybe. The Suns need a huge change clearly in the way that they develop coach the GM and they’re on the way to making another one of those changes. I’m not suggesting that Jaylen Bridges is this star ready to blow up. And I think my pre-draft evaluation on him was way too high. Admittedly, in a bad draft, but I think it was way too high on him. But to me, he could I actually do think that in two years time he could get a rotation role and be useful enough. Think about Cody Martin on this team. I am I am pretty sure that Bridges could at least get to close to a Cody Martin level in a few years time. We have no evidence of that in the NBA so far and maybe we don’t ever get it. He might even be back on this team. But I’m not much with Washington. There’s just there was the couple little flashes with both Bridges and Washington in some of those numbers where I go maybe, probably not, but maybe. And that’s the Suns. An incredibly disappointing season, an incredibly unsure um off season coming up and we just don’t know where they’re going to go. We don’t know their coach. We don’t know if Durant’s going to be there, Tyus Jones, Mason Plumbley. What moves they make? Do they keep themselves in the second apron? I don’t know. You can keep yourself in my second apron by thumbing up these videos, subscribing, and leaving comments down below. And get ready for our Dynasty show tomorrow. We’re going to talk about a couple of guys to buy, a couple of guys to sell, an off the radar player that deserves some discussion as well. Guys, we are done here. Thank you so much for listening everyone. See you. [Music]

Phoenix Suns fans and NBA Fantasy Basketball enthusiasts, get ready for an insightful breakdown of your favourite team! Discover how Devin Booker, despite being 29, remains a top fantasy pick, and why Tyus Jones might not be the starting point guard you hoped for. Josh Lloyd from the Locked On Fantasy Basketball podcast dives into the Suns’ roster, offering a critical look at Nick Richards’ potential and Collin Gillespie’s sleeper status.

Josh Lloyd provides a comprehensive analysis of the Phoenix Suns, evaluating key players like Devin Booker and Tyus Jones. He questions whether Nick Richards can overcome his limitations and if Collin Gillespie could emerge as a fantasy sleeper. With a focus on rookies Oso Ighodaro and Ryan Dunn, Josh offers insights into their potential impact. Can Bol Bol find a team willing to give him a starting role?

Don’t miss out on this episode’s deep dive into the Phoenix Suns’ fantasy prospects. Watch or listen now to gain an edge in your NBA Fantasy Basketball league!

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0:00 – Intro and episode overview
1:41 – Devin Booker analysis
5:36 – Tyus Jones evaluation
11:41 – Nick Richards assessment
15:45 – Collin Gillespie potential
18:48 – Oso Ighodaro rookie performance
21:53 – Ryan Dunn rookie analysis
25:59 – Bol Bol discussion
29:33 – TyTy Washington and Jalen Bridges
33:07 – Outro and future episodes