Should Devin Booker Or Jalen Green Be The Suns’ Starting Point Guard?

Should Devin Booker Or Jalen Green Be The Suns’ Starting Point Guard?

Today we’re talking about Point Book and I’m sure everyone’s going to be totally chill about it. [Music] [Music] Psychos and Sickos, welcome to another edition of the PHNX Suns podcast live from Studio K, presented by Circle K, fueled by Circle K. We are here on a Friday. What a long week it has been. Uh, but we are here. We made it through day number two without Eric here to read our ads for your boy, but we’re holding it down. I’m Gerald Borgay and as always joined by Steven Pion Garner. Stephen, how you doing this Friday? Um, doing great. Filling the line. Go ahead and get that ready air time. Get it started. get it cracking bright and early. Um, all is well though. We got some fun um hopefully basketball topics that we can dive into earnestly um as we usually do over this way. How about you? How you doing? I’m doing good. I’m looking forward to the weekend to recharge. We’ve been going through you on the video side with some player breakdowns, me on the written side with some player breakdowns. And uh they take a lot out of you when you got a kid that’s, you know, sleeping four or five hours at a time. But we’re starting to get more sleep. So that’s a positive. and I think the articles are turning out better for it. So, I’m glad about that. Um, but today’s show, we’re obviously gonna get into the point book versus Jaylen Green in terms of who the Suns should be starting at the point guard position. We’re going to talk about Kobe Brea. I was able to speak with Kentucky coach Mark Pope about Brea’s game and he was able to offer some really good insight on that. So, we’ll get into that and then we’re going to close out with a fun little game that Stephen has prepared for me. He’s got a little bit of trivia because there’s been a lot of Kobe Brea versus Devin Booker comparisons recently. So, we’re going to put our knowledge of the two and their time at Kentucky to the test at the very end there. But, let’s start with the news off the top that broke yesterday. We had John Gamadoro uh amending something that he had tweeted the day before, I believe, about Devin Booker being the Sun’s point guard. He said, “Ajustment here. Plan will likely be green at at point guard, not Booker. uh Gillespie as the backup with Jordan Goodwin and Jared Butler battling for that third point guard spot. Um Stephen, I don’t want to panic or overreact in July to things that will shake out in training camp and in the early season. Um but what why Yeah. What? Yeah. All of those things. Um for me, I was definitely surprised to see it. Mhm. I think the main thing is because in this evolved version of basketball, it’s a like people throw around the term positionless, but I don’t think it’s used in the right context. Yes. I think more than anything when coaches speak to positionless more it’s more so less about position titles, more so about okay, here’s our best player. might not necessarily look the part of a point guard, might not necessarily always play it to a traditional sense in terms of the characteristics. However, if your best player is a three-level scorer that can pass to counter the coverages that they see to take the ball away from their scoring pockets, at the end of the day, that is playing point guard. You’re the point of whatever it is that’s coming for your offense after the advantage that you are as an individual. Mhm. Now, you take away the X’s and those part, not being pick and roll, not always even pick and roll or post ups. It might just be isolation. If the defense is catering to you and you’re making a pass that sets the advantage for everybody else to play off of, that might not be literal point guard, but it is playing point guard. Yeah. And I think that’s the clarification that I’m going to want when we get to talk to Jordan Au about how he envisions this offense kind of unfolding and setting up on a play-to-play basis. Because if point guard just means dribbling the ball past half court and then getting it to your primary initiator, your best creator, your best advantage creator on the team, which is Devin Booker, both as a scorer and as a playmaker, then that’s fine. That’s not a big deal. That’s a nominal point guard thing. And that speaks to the positionlessness of the NBA in terms of having somebody else bring it up and then getting it in the hands of your best player and letting him cook. Mhm. But if it really is, you know, Jaylen Green will be primarily on the ball and Devin Booker will be primarily off the ball, then I am concerned because then I really question the evaluation of who and what Jaylen Green is. Um, and we’re going to get into all of the cons of of this setup and also we’re going to take a look at some potential ways that Jaylen Green on the ball can help Devin Booker. A lot of people when they talk about um you know point book, it’s one of those phrases that like immediately people are entrenched in their view when they hear that phrase. They’re either like very much for it or very much against it. And I’m kind of in the middle on it. Like I I understand the need to get Book off the ball and let him, you know, be in attack mode and downhill immediately. But I also understand that based on the roster construction, like the truth of the matter is he is the best advantage creator, best playmaker, best passer that they have on the roster. So not having the ball in his hands would be a disservice to their offense, to what Book is good at, to the other players around him. Um, so we’re we’re going to get into some numbers uh in a little bit, and I promise we’re not trying to make Jaylen Green look bad with these numbers at all. We’re just trying to highlight that there is a gap there in terms of what these two are good at. But Stephen, how do you when you hear that Jaylen Green is going to be the point guard? Like what what are you I guess assuming or hoping that that means in terms of the Suns context? What I’m assuming or hoping that means is that uh similar to the Cleveland Cavaliers construct that means that Deon Booker is going to be in a lot of the positions that um Donovan I said DaVon that Donovan Mitchell was in with that team last season and that’s him starting off the ball oftent times getting some type of movement whether it’s a variation of pin downs single or double or some type of other screen that gets him a dynamic touch early in the shot clock in that first third of the um that first third portion of the shot clock so that he can then either attack immediately where the defense is kind of unbalanced and not set up to take away pockets for him or he’s then getting into pick and roll but after receiving some version of an offball screen. It could be pistol action. It could be all type of things. But there’s multiple ways you can do it rather than what we saw last season and the season before that where Devin Booker, you bring the ball up the court, you run a predictable pick and roll and by the time you even come off the screen, either the bigs man is already where he wants to be, which is likely at the level and everybody’s already in their gaps and you haven’t moved anything within the defensive shell. So, I imagine the presentation and the process going into advantage creation for them is going to be a whole lot more hash aligned going into this season. Yeah, I I am very curious to see how this shakes out, but I will mention again that like it is not close in terms of playmaking and advantage creation and shooting efficiency, which is how that advantage creation starts because if Jaylen Green is on the ball and Devin Booker is off the ball, I don’t think they’re going to be sending a ton of Jaylen Green double teams. Like, their primary focus is still going to be shutting down whatever Booker is doing off the ball, which again, we talked about this the other day, he’s not Klay Thompson. He’s not a movement shooter like everyone thought he was going to be coming into the draft. Like, he’s so much more than that. So, it’s not like putting the ball in someone else’s hands is truly maximizing Devin Booker. You look at the way that he scores, a lot of it is with the ball in his hands, but putting him in advantages to attack off the ball, that’s where you can really get creative and make his life a little bit easier, which is what I hope that they’re trying to do. um trying to tap into Jaylen Green’s speed um his ability and if he’s not getting double team like he was all the time in Houston, maybe he will be a touch more efficient. Maybe the context will help shift his efficiency numbers in the right way. That’s kind of what I’m hoping for. But I do think it’s important to note that like these two are are kind of worlds apart when it comes to their ability to playmake for others. So again, I want to I want to preface this with a disclaimer. This is not meant to like shame Jaylen Green when we look at these numbers, but it is meant to highlight how elite Devin Booker is as a playmaker and as point book. So, let’s take a look at the first stats here in terms of their assists. Uh Devin Booker 11th in assists per game last year. Jaylen Green was 71st. In terms of secondary assists, which a lot of us talk about point book and we talk about, well, you know, it’s good for his individual numbers, but it doesn’t help the team. You know, he’s not as aggressive. Secondary assists is a very good way to measure how an offense is still functioning when that player gets off the ball. So Devin Booker led the league in secondary assists per game last year. Jaylen Green was 55th. In terms of total three-point assists, you highlighted this the first time we talked about this like earlier in the week. Deon Booker led the league in that category as well in terms of generating three-pointers, which is vital in the NBA. Jaylen Green 78th. In terms of total assist points created, Deon Booker was eighth. Jaylen Green was 66th. And in terms of total potential assists, in terms of, you know, he’s setting up your teammates, but them sometimes missing the shot. Eighth in potential assists. Jaylen Green 62nd. Again, we’re not trying to make Jaylen Green look bad by any means. Like, if you think about where he ranks, he’s top two, three players on each team. There’s 30 teams in the NBA. He’s around 55th to 70th in most of those. That means he’s a top two, three playmaker uh per team, basically. It’s just it’s just not the same thing. They’re not close. It’s not. And I think that’s obviously you’ve already presented context as far as what the reasoning for showing this is, but I think it also it also speaks to there kind of being levels to what types of combo guards there are. There are some ones that can play as twos. There are some twos that can play as ones. There are just some tools that have great athleticism and great handle, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good at creating for others, right? That’s a next step. Obviously, the foundation piece is being able to get your own. And then after showing that you can get your own, now getting the defense to understand that if you don’t do something to take me away from getting my own, I’m going to continue to do that. I feel like that’s where Jaylen Green is now. He’s got to the point where defenses understand that they have to do something otherwise he can erupt for 40. and do so in a way that just completely shifts the game context. And we saw that multiple times last season. Now he’s at that inflection point where, okay, I got that base player situated. I’m getting the defense’s attention. Now he’s where Deon Booker was before Chris Paul got here. And now he’s at that point where now you’re getting double teams. Now you’re seeing multiple different layers of help. What are you doing to combat that? Because you can’t always go against the grain yourself. Yeah. And and that point like we talked a little bit about Chris Paul. I think that when the Suns got Chris Paul and Devin Booker had his best season, people conflated the impact that Chris Paul can have on pretty much anybody he plays with versus, well, Devin Booker needs to be off the ball all the time because that’s when he was at his best. Part of it, but part of it was also because he had Chris freaking Paul there to dictate the offense and help set things up. It’s not necessarily an an equal cause and effect type thing that people are making it out to be. So, I I think that’s important to note. And again, going back to roster construction, if the Suns had gone out and gotten like a traditional ball handler, a guy that’s like a floor general to set up everyone else. Mhm. Okay, fine. Like, I I get playing Booker off the ball and letting an elite playmaker do that. There aren’t many playmakers in the league that are better at coupling the shooting and the advantage creation for your teammates, drawing to the ball, getting off of it. We’ve talked about how he needs to be more aggressive getting back into plays and not letting a double team completely take him out of games. But in terms of someone that can draw to the ball, make the right play out of it and still find ways to score. There aren’t many guys that are on that same level as Devin Booker. So there’s this perception that, you know, just put him off the ball and he’ll be fine. Not if the player on the ball is not as good as him as those specific things. And I think there’s this perception that Jaylen Green is going to like be that because he can get downhill. Well, we have a couple of stats on this as well. Uh, in terms of drives per game, Devin Booker was 11th in that category. Jaylen Green was 38th. He does get downhill. He is very quick. He’s dynamic with his athleticism, and I think Jordan Kn and the Suns are going to lean into that more, but there’s this idea that like Jaylen Green gets downhill and Devin Booker does not, which is just not true. um the assist percentage on drives. When you look at the top 50 players in drives per game last season, in terms of their assist percentage, Devin Booker ranked 16th among those 50 players. Jaylen Green ranked 48th. Uh total passes, they’re pretty similar. Deon Booker 31st, Jaylen Green 35th. Uh Devin Booker played, I think he played a lot fewer games than Jaylen Green, but they’re pretty similar in that regard. The problem is their assist to pass percentage was night and day different. Deon Booker was fourth. Jaylen Green was 205th. So like again, there’s a big big gap between the two in terms of playmaking. So I’m assuming if you’re telling me that you really want Jaylen Green to be on the ball, you are either a assuming that the context under Jordan is going to be just completely different and they’re going to tap into some skills that we just really haven’t seen from Jaylen Green as a playmaker. or you are just hearing the phrase point book and running because you just don’t like hearing that phrase. Yeah. And Erton, if we can get those those back up on the screen one more time, there’s something specific I want us to look at. So with the drives per game, let’s start there. This is where I really feel like context certainly matters. For one, I know Devin Booker for the amount of drives he had last season, he also is someone that has a counter to his drives with that mid-range pullup. That’s something that he has this just a a creme creme de la creme top of the top type of um type of skill that most players don’t have to the efficiency that he does. Uh Jaylen Green does he does have a mid-range pull up, but it’s not as efficient or effective as Deon Booker’s. His counter is to rely on the athleticism part more than anything. And that’s what I’m kind of getting to. So that’s I kind of steer the ship contextwise. Last season the Suns had at least as a template for their roster elite level spacing. the Houston Rockets did not. So, one way to mitigate some of the issues Jaylen Green would run into with drives because of the elbows being clogged and people not necessarily respecting the spaces around him, which I believe is why uh Emma Yudoka had him taking so many more pullup threes last season because he needed to get his scoring efficiency in some capacity. So, rather than him going and driving to get to the paint, he’s getting drop coverage. the driving lanes are clogged. Pull up. I feel like that’s what kind of sways some of that, but there’s more to get to. I know we got to get to ad break. So, yeah. No, absolutely. And I think that’s a good point. Like we’ve been saying, the context is going to be different in Phoenix. You’re hoping that obviously the Suns are going to have better shooting than he had in Houston, which is a good point that you made and that the chat brought up as well. Um, but we do have more point book and Jaylen Green to stuff and stuff to get into right after our first break. Stephen, I know you’re a numbers guy. Did you know that the number 130 is the only integer that is the sum of the squares of its first four divisor? I did not see that on any of the basketball sites that I use. Yeah, cuz 1 2 + 2 2 + 5 2 + 10 squares equ= 130. Well, anyway, Edibles has 130 dispensaries in Arizona. 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Um, Stephen, I’ve got a child now, and we chose to bring him into the world during the hottest time of the year possible in Phoenix. So, you know that the air conditioning is a very important thing and our friends over at APS can be very important with that type of thing because they have what’s called a smart thermostat. It works with your APS rate plan to help you automatically adjust the temperature in your home. Not that we’d ever leave the baby at home by himself, obviously, but if I’m away and Amy’s at home and she’s holding the baby and the baby’s crying and she can’t get up to do it, she can just shoot me a text and I can do it or she can just do it from her phone herself. And that’s important because for every one degree that you raise your thermostat, you could save up to two to 3% on your cooling costs. Um, but you have to remember to adjust that thermostat, which is difficult. And that’s where the smart thermostat comes in. Uh, it does make it easy. And APS customers, you can find instant rebates, discounts, and special offers on smart thermostats, energy efficient appliances at and more at marketplace.aps.com. So, right now, APS customers may be eligible for smart thermostats for as low as $0 when you enroll in the APS Cool Rewards program. If you already have a smart thermostat at home, see if it’s eligible to enroll in cool rewards. Plus, free install is available at marketplace.aps.com. Must be an APS customer and pay shipping and taxes. Other restrictions apply. Go to marketplace.aps.com for more information. Um, I alluded to some more articles that we’ve been writing, been doing a lot of player breakdowns. We’ve done Jaylen Green, Mark Williams, uh, earlier this week, uh, Kobe Brea today. That’s the new one that’s up on the site. It’s for Die Hards only. So, you’re going to want to make take advantage of our Die Hard Training Camp sale that we’re doing right now. Uh, if you join today, it’s only $36 for the entire year. Normally, that’s about 80 bucks. And in addition to being able to read all my son’s coverage, you get exclusive access to our Cardinals training camp coverage from Bo and Johnny. They do a fantastic job over there. Um, for only $3 a month, you get that plus a free t-shirt, access to our Discord, which has channels for Cards fans, Suns fans, Merc fans, every every team in between, the Dbacks, even the the Coyotes still have a channel in there, and they don’t even live in this state anymore. So, uh, make sure you go to gophnx.com/intro-offer-social to take advantage of that sale right now. Stephen, let’s get back to book and Jaylen Green at the point conversation. Um, is there anything else that we kind of need to touch on before we look at potential positives of playing Jaylen Green on the ball more? Yeah, I I have a question for you that I’ve been mulling over. Sure. As this topic is kind of taking over Sun’s Twitter. So, I assume I assume they’re going to both be playing about 37 38ish minutes on average a game for his team. Probably going to have to. How often are they going to be on the court together? That’s a good question. I think Book goes back to playing his full first quarters again. And I think maybe you stagger them. Maybe you take Oh, Jaylen Green’s young though, so you’re not putting him on the Chris Paul six minutes. Yeah, you’re not you’re not putting him on the Chris Paul 6 minutes, seven minutes in, come out, stagger you. Yeah, that’s a good question. Um I think he probably plays like 10 minutes in the first quarter and then he comes back in No, not halfway through the second quarter because then he’s only on pace for 32 minutes. So 37 minute mark. Yeah. Yeah. No, he’s they’re going to be sharing the court quite a bit. It seems like Yeah. So I’m asking because I do think that there will be time where they’re staggered as terms of one off and one on naturally. When one is off, the other is going to assume the position of point guard regardless of what the lineup construct is. Sure. But I think that there’s going to be opportunity for them both to unlock each other in ways that they simply neither one of them were last season or the season before that. And I think there’s positive to take away from that. But I don’t think you can process the positive of that if you’re happy, sad, indifferent about the point guard title. And that’s where we get back to the positionless positionless talk because I feel like if Jaylen Green is initiating, he’s playing point guard, but the first thing he does when he brings it down the court is get to a dribble handoff with Devin Booker that gets Deon Booker in movement. Sure. I mean, that sounds great to me, right? Yeah, I’m good with that. I love it. Right. Good with pace. Good with putting Booker in positions to get downhill. And that’s why I think it’s important to note that that like if it’s just bring the ball up court and then initiating an action like that, that’s fine. if you’re counting on him to be your new Chris Paul or your new, you know, whoever, I I don’t I’m fully out on that. So, I think that’s a very good point. It feels like from everything we’ve heard Jordan not mention, they want to play a a much faster style of game than the Suns did in the doldrums of the league in terms of pace last season after a team that lamented pace. Yes. In media day and all through training camp and we just didn’t see that after the first month. Mhm. I imagine they’re looking to even after they may give up a basket, get the ball off the court within the first 3 to 4 seconds and immediately start putting a defense in conflict within the first 5 seconds of the shot clock. So, if you’re doing that and you’re telling me Jaylen Green is the one that’s initiating and Deon Booker is kind of getting into that or even vice versa, I think that puts them both in a great situation and it puts their offense in situations to be successful. Um, so I think that I just don’t want that part to get lost in all of the point guard talk because I feel like there’s ways if it is a a true process that they’re working towards and they’re building layers through, there’s a lot that they can both benefit from in that. Yeah, I don’t think offensively defensively is where I have my bigger concerns about this duo. I think offensively they will find a way to make it work. And I think you’re looking at a scenario where despite this report, you’re leaning into having multiple ball handlers, multiple creators, because that’s what the NBA is now. Like, ask the Boston Celtics who their point guard was last year. Who cares? Like, their offense was elite because they had multiple guys that could put the ball on the floor, that could make plays, that could make the right pass, and everybody on that damn roster could shoot. So, it didn’t matter who their point guard was. Um, I I just want to point out that we were so gung-ho after uh the season prior. Suns need a point guard. They need a point guard. Turnovers are out of control. And they were, but a lot of those I trust me, I watched the film from every single damn turnover that season. I have the receipts to back it up. A lot of it was just sloppiness. It wasn’t like, oh, we need a point guard. It’s we need Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Yousef Nerkach, whoever it is to not make this insane stupid pass that makes no sense. They brought in a point guard. We saw how that worked out. The turnovers were a lot better. The offense was not like it just wasn’t. So, I think leaning into what they were envisioning with Bradley Beal, but not having that offguard as like the third cog behind Booker and KD. I’m curious to see what that configuration looks like because I do think there are areas where they could help each other out, especially Jaylen Green being the younger, more athletic player. Um, and when he’s cooking and when defenses are focused on book, but Jaylen Green’s taking advantage of not being hit with double teams constantly, that makes his life easier. Um, you know, bringing the ball up the court, that that, you know, incr improves their pace. It spares Book the exhaustion of having to do that himself. Um, and he can still operate as the primary ball handler once it crosses half court. But I think you’re hoping for a situation where no one is the set ball handler. It’s just a nominal name thing because the last time that we did this when they were like, “Oh, Bradley Beiel is our point guard now.” They did have the ball in his hands a lot more than it should have. Like they had him bringing the ball up the court. They had him initiating actions and it didn’t work well. Especially in the playoffs. Like that was the most glaring one against the Timberwolves. they had him doing that and it was like, “Okay, when are you going to put the ball in your best players hands?” So, I don’t want to see that work out. I want that to be a cautionary tale for a new regime rather than, “Well, let’s try and do this again so that book can we can say that book’s playing off the ball.” For sure. Last thing I’ll just kind of note, um, I I feel like, and I’m speaking off of the example of Tyresese Hallebertton in his most recent playoff stretch for the Indiana Pacers. Mhm. So if you have someone that’s deemed a point guard and teams pressure said person 94 ft to where they’re exhausting energy before you even get into the half court. Yep. Now if you extrapolate that, multiply it times 80 90 possessions over the course of a game. How much effectiveness are you getting out of that player if they’re going against the grain like that? So imagine Deon Booker is going to be going to be pressured 90 to 94 feet typically. If you have him off the ball first, let Jaylen Green do what young guys do, dribble in space, you can kind of play with his handle a little bit, that also keeps him involved. I think there’s a kind of marriage there to balance out the usage. Yeah. Um, and what I’m kind of getting at is when you get to the nitty-gritty points of games and you look at the Pacers again, last playoffs when it mattered most to get from the conference finals to the NBA finals and even through the NBA finals, how often was Tyres Hallebertton initiating offense for the Pacers in crunch time? Mhm. Significantly less than the first 75% of the game. Yep. That’s Andrew Nimhard in a certain respect. That’s going to be Jaylen Green for the Suns. I can alleviate the pressure from Devin Booker, which now allows Deon Booker to do a lot of a lot of the stuff that makes him great. Be a pass away. Playing misdirection, faking screens off the ball, and then flowing into getting the ball in different pockets. All all the things I’m speaking to, dynamic touches. Yes, you can balance more dynamic touches than the static touches we saw the last handful of seasons. I think his efficiency goes significantly through the roof. Yeah. And I don’t think 30 points is untenable for Deon Booker this season either. No. And and I think that’s that’s kind of what I’m envisioning and hoping that this report from Gambo is actually referring to because what we’re talking about is not what you picture a point guard from the 90s or 2000s or even 2010s what a point guard is. But if it’s basically just getting the ball across half because we saw defenses when Chris Paul was here even they would make him zigzag all the way to half court and by the time he got across there was like 16 17 seconds left that delays your offense. So if you don’t have and we saw when Booker was primarily on the ball they were doing the same thing to try and wear him down to try and get the Suns out of their offense to try and make them work against the shot clock. So if you are leaning on Jaylen Green’s speed, youth, athleticism, endurance, all that stuff, just get the ball across. let Book do his thing. I’m fully on board with that. Beyond that, we went through all the numbers of how the playmaking stacks up. It is a night and day difference and I do think he’ll be better in this context under a new head coach with better weapons, more shooting around him. Um, but we did need to dive into that as fully as possible. Any any final thoughts on the whole point book versus Jaylen Green thing? I think this could actually be a a fun conversation if people allow it to be and allow for the basketball to kind of steer the direction of the conversation. I think we’ve had a thorough one. There more to get to. We got other things to get to. So, I can kind of cap it there, but I feel like we touched on a lot of the relevant topics in it. Yeah, I’m sure. I mean, look, it’s only July 25th, so we Yes, I did have to check my phone to make sure I had the date right. It’s been a long week, but we have a lot of time before we get any tidbits from training camp or media day or any sort of thing like that. So, we’re probably going to revisit this again in the future and we’ll probably dive in. We might do a whole episode about this very topic again. But for now, I think that’s a good way to put a bow on it. We are going to come back right after a break and we’re going to talk a little bit more about Kobe Brea Steven as my partner in crime for take that for data. I know you appreciate some raw data. So I’ve got three numbers for you. Okay. 365 because whatever the moment it’s never ordinary at bet 365 they have 90 million users worldwide. That is how much it feels like the Suns are paying grab and be but it’s actually more than that. Uh they have live streams, 780,000 events each year. Uh and they offer early payout offers across the NBA, the NHL. They have an MLB early payout offer right now for Dbacks fans. Uh with the Bet 365 early payout offer, you’re a winner if your team goes five runs ahead with an instant payout on straight bets and parlay selections marked as winners. 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We talked about Devon Booker and Jaylen Green because that was one of the biggest things on Sun’s Twitter over the last 24 hours, but now we’re going to get back to dictating the conversation ourselves, Stephen, because we’ve been doing these breakdowns. Uh we’ve been doing our homework every day. It feels like for the last few weeks. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. in the in the in the chat. Someone asked, “Who is DB3?” Well, as we got news before we got on the pod today. We did. Dylan Brooks is wearing number three for the Phoenix Suns going into next season. So, there you there’s your answer. Take that for what you will. The man came in and said, “Give me Chris Paul Bradley Beal’s number.” I I can’t wait to ask him uh why he chose number three. Do you think Bradley Beal let him wear three? like rather be let Chris call three. Man, why are we on the topic? What a wild phrasing of reporting here. Let or allow. Um, yeah. Yep. We don’t even need to get into that, Stephen, because we we know how those alltime ranks shake out. If we had to if we had to put him on a list and not even slander Bradley Beal, but CP3 is is one of the greatest point guards of all time. That that’s his number. Yeah, that was wild. It ain’t CP3. So, um, but yeah, let’s, like I was saying, we’ve been doing these breakdowns for a little bit now. Uh, been doing great work. Nobody in the video space, I say this all the time, is doing it like Stephen does it. Uh, and not to toot my own horn, but on the written side, I don’t think anybody’s doing this type of deep dive on a second round uh, two-way contract. So, no one covers the Suns like like us. That’s exactly right, Stephen. Need to get that on the shirt next. Alignment. Mhm. Um, but I did reach out to Mark Pope, coach over at Kentucky. He only had him for one year because, as we know, uh, Kobe Bre spent his first four years in college with, uh, Dayton, and then he transferred with that extra year of eligibility that he had. Um, but I had a great like 15-minute conversation with Coach Pope about Kobe Brea, what makes him elite as a shooter, uh, some of the other areas of his game that deserve a little bit more attention. The first thing that stood out to me and that you always when you’re doing an interview for me, I’m always thinking, okay, what’s like the golden quote? What is the thing that I’m going to need to share with the audience as soon as it’s over? And for me on this phone call, when I asked him about his shooting, he kind of went into this whole spiel about the peace and calm that Kobe Brea shoots the ball with. I I I’ve actually talked with people a lot about this because he’s such an elite level shooter. One of the things about Kobe that’s different than most of us is for most of us the most stressful moment in the game is when we’re we’re letting the ball go out of our hands when we’re shooting it right. It’s the one part where you know you you don’t always make shots. It’s maybe one of the less controllable parts of the game. And I actually think it’s where Kobe that moment where he’s actually engaged in his stroke. I actually think it’s his most peaceful moment on the court where where it’s most our most stressful that last second shot, the last moment of the game, you know, that’s our most stressful moment. It feels to me like it’s where he’s most peace. He never gets rushed, right? He could have three guys racing at him challenging shots. You know, he could be trying to maneuver himself out of a double team, but when he gets to his release point, it feels like he’s he’s never rushed. It’s really unique. I mean, I’ve been coaching for a long time and in this game for a long time, I’ve seen very few players that that have that feel of peace uh and and unrushability with their shot. Gerald, if I asked you, when are you most at peace? when others are significantly under stress and pressure. What would be one of your first answers? Oh, don’t think too much on this. Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, probably when breaking news happens on in the sun space. I feel like it becomes very clear what needs to happen, what we how we need to cover it, what needs to go out, what we need to do, what it means, that type of thing. So, your job. Yes. Say don’t think too hard. Okay. I’m glad I didn’t answer. playing Donkey Kong while the baby’s crying. That would have been bad. So Gerald’s most calm when he’s doing what he’s what he’s great at, which is his job. I would say the same for me. I would say Eritton, considering when he got here and the breadth of news that he’s worked through and done so with no missteps. I would say the same thing for him. Mama mentality, if you know, you know. Um, for Kobe Brea, that very much sounds like his coach is saying his best quality is his shooting. He’s his most calm when he’s playing to his best and he’s at his best when he’s taking shots. Yeah, that’s a good thing to hear because even for players that do have certain strengths coming out of college, going into the professional level, it doesn’t always translate as a strength and confidence even though it is what they default to because they know that’s their best quality. And I think we saw a lot of that with Kobe in um summer league where he’s getting he’s getting opportunities to take shots off the dribble at times which he wasn’t advertised as a scorer. He was advertised as a shooter that can score. He showed the comfortability to do that under pressure or if he’s wide open and I feel like that aligns a lot with what we just heard his coach get done speaking to. Yeah, absolutely. And everybody that has done any sort of scouting on Kobe Brea or familiar with his game at all knows that shooting is what he brings to the table. It’s is it’s his one like bankable immediate NBA skill right now that you can lean on and say like yes in the NBA this guy can absolutely still do this at an elite level. Um but the one thing that stood out to me Brian Gregory touched on this as well in terms of what impressed them and why they ultimately drafted him was his progression as a shooter. Like a lot of guys that come into the league being designated as shooters, they’re movement shooters or spot-up shooters. They’re very good at what they do, but they’re more limited in terms of how they can get those shots. Um, and so Mark Pope kind of broke it down for me a little bit in terms of what makes him special as a shooter when it comes to off the bounce. Well, what’s interesting about Kobe is, you know, there’s a lot of guys that are great cast and shot cast and shoot shooters, right? Kobe is was I don’t remember if he finished first, second, or third, but he was one of the top uh three-point shooters off the bounce. Uh he was actually I I think he was more accurate off the bounce than he was actually as a catch and shoot guy. Just being able to go create his own shots. And he did it in huge moments of huge games uh down the stretch late in games where the offense kind of gets stymied and and Kobe’s like, “Yep, let me go to work.” Uh and and he just has an unbelievable talent of making shots from deep off the bounce. This was one of my favorite parts is going back through and watching film and putting clips together and seeing the similarities in some of the shots that he’s hitting because yes, there were a lot of impressive movement threes in terms of how he’s able to curl off screens to set his feet to get a good clean look off every time. We talked about the piece that he shoots with as a shooter. Contests don’t bother him. Range, he’s been shooting at NBA range for years now, like well beyond the three-point line. But the ability to create and add a little shake and bake and get to his step back three off the dribble is really impressive. I don’t know that he’ll be able to do it to the same degree at the NBA level because creating NBA separation is hard. He doesn’t have very dynamic movements, but he has a pretty solid handle. He has a good step back. He can cross over, go behind the back. Like he’s got a good way to free himself up. And he did it multiple times at Kentucky and at Dayton with the shot clock winding down and just drilled some really difficult shots. I put together a whole montage of it in the article for Die Hards Only. So, make sure to check that out. But, it was really impressive watching some of that back. Yeah. And that that is kind of what I what I’ve been getting to and what I kind of went through when I did my film session a few weeks ago. This dude is not a shooter who can score. This guy is a scorer who can shoot. Shooters you think of as a specific skill set that doesn’t really involve self-creation. Yeah. the fact that he showed the depth of of self-creation incrementally, especially that latter half of the season where he got to the starting lineup, which I imagine that’s a large reason why for the conference that they were playing in and what they were working towards. Um, that’s a scorer. That’s a scorer that can be proficient at shooting in catch and shoot scenarios, whether it’s simply attack and closeouts or if it’s isolation. You got the ball with eight seconds, you got two, three dribbles max, you got to go create some space. Mhm. And I don’t think that I don’t think that his lack of shake, if you will, with this handle, like we’re speaking to the dynam that the dynamism, if you will, the Kyrie Irving of it. Yeah. Even though he doesn’t have that, he has size. And I think he understands the bump fade situations where especially when he gets to his left hand, he can go and get his shot off whenever he wants to and do so with that piece. And I want to challenge you. Can you go go back and watch the clips that you put? When you’re looking at the self-creation, watch how many times he goes to the left. Yeah. and defaults and gets there as in some way he’s going to make sure he gets there because that’s where he’s most comfortable. It’s fun to see that NBA teams are going to needless to say force him to go right. So that’s where the growth is going to come from. But very comfortable. Yeah. No, that’s a good point because it it feel like now that you mention it, it was a lot going to the left. So that will have to be something that he adds to his bag. But um it’s not just that like the shots looked good, it was the efficiency behind it that was paired with it. And it was funny because when you’re talking to these coaches, sometimes you can tell that like they’re not high on a guy’s skill set in this area or maybe not even in their NBA future at all. But while I was on the phone, I was trying to ask him about other things like defense and whatever. And Mark Pope, he kept cutting me off and he was like, I I just looked this stat up. Make sure you get this. So this is what knowledge he kind of dropped on me when he was talking about Kobe Brea and his shooting off the bounce. These numbers are crazy. So in terms of his shot quality of his shots off the bounce, the shot quality, so this is the standard of all shooters when you take the mean of all shooters in college basketball shooting these shots off the bounce was a 089 points per possession. Okay. Okay. He shot 1.23 points per points per shot. He was a plus.34. Like I’ve never seen that in a in a player off the B. And they were they were big shots. I’m telling you, he’s got a he’s got an incredible skill set. He’s he was funny cuz and he was telling me he was like if you look at percentage of shots taken off the bounce, he was top 3%. If you look at like points per possession, he was also top 3% or whatever. Like it’s hard to pair the frequency with the efficiency to that degree. Um and he was just he was just geeking out. I’m I’m picturing him on the phone with me on his computer looking up all these stats while we’re talking. Uh so it it was pretty fun. That’s that’s rare, especially considering on the collegiate level, space is significantly harder to to create in terms of a team trying to open up pockets. Most teams just sit at the blocks and elbows in college. So, if you’re isolation or just a scorer in general, you have to be a lot more nuanced where in the NBA, there’s a lot more space between those driving lanes that you didn’t see on the college level. I think that stuff that’s going to it’s going to at some point start to work in his favor. M he he’ll certainly have to improve adding more moves to his bag and just generally being stronger with his handle. It gets a little loose at times when he gets when defenders kind of get into his body. But I think that if he can if he can kind of massage a little bit more midies into his game to where he’s working off of curls like you’re talking about and rather than in college catch and pull, he’s able to get one dribble, get into the paint, get around the elbow, and then pull up and use his 66 height. I think that’ll kind of shift things for him in a positive manner. No, that makes sense. And we saw him do that at summer league as well in terms of being able to get to the midi a little bit more than I think a lot of people were expecting. Um although uh when I asked Mark Pope about how he was the pleasant surprise of summer league, he just hit me with a that was business as usual. That’s that’s what he did every day for us at Kentucky. Um I do want to before we shift to the other elements of his game, I do want to look like he was elite as a shooter one last time from every area of the floor. like overall three-point percentage 43.5% on 6.1 attempts per game that led the SEC and that’s coming off a year at Dayton the year prior where he led the entire NCAA in three-point percentage on similar volume he was at like 49.8% which is just stupid. Um offscreens 46.4% off dribble handoffs 44.2% off the dribble 42.7%. Over his five years in college he took 733s and made 43.4% of them. that put him in very elite company with only five other players since 2000 uh who have played for a top 10 conference in in the NCAA that took that many attempts and made that percentage. Um, one of those guys, someone that Deari Carroll compared him to in terms of we want this guy to shoot more, his former teammate Kyle Corver. So, that was kind of cool. A lot of green on the screen with that. I mean, a whole lot of just in your face type of green. And if you’re talking about somebody that’s taking shots that a defense is not allowing them to take open shots very much, especially on the collegiate level at the top of the scouting report, we watched it. Well, I watched it in his film. There’s a lot of times where they’re going up against opponents and he’s just being faceguarded all over the court to where everybody else is allowed to play four on four and the person, even if that defender is a pass away from where Kobe is, they have no interest in what what the ball is doing. No different than kind of Steph Curry at times. So getting that type of attention and still shooting that efficiently, that’s that’s prolific. And I think there are going to be mo there going to be dynamics of that that do translate to the NBA level for sure. And and for a lot of people, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the shooting. It is the biggest thing to talk about with Kobe Brea. But before we take our final break, we should touch on very briefly the other elements of his game. Stephen touched on a lot of this in his video breakdown. I did as well in my written breakdown. So if you want more, make sure to check those out. Um, but in terms of what he brings to the table outside of the shooting, uh, this is what Mark Pope said when I asked him about it. I actually was really proud of him, his growth as a cutter off the ball. So, um, he he became a leap, you know, he kind of became like a at least one back door dunk a game guy for us. He be became a really high Q cutter on the offensive end. Um, and he’s big enough and physical enough that I think he has a chance to be a really uh utilitarian screener also, which is is obviously key for any shooter. He also one of the really special things about him is he never turns the ball over. In fact, last season, just so you have this context, he was the number nine player in the country in terms of ball protection. His turnover rate was 6.2. That’s the ninth lowest in the entire country. And that wasn’t just a one-year deal. Um, if you look at him, uh, the year before at Dayton, he was in the top 250. So, he’s consistently been among the elite ball protection guys in the country. So, that’s something he’s going to bring uh to the NBA. Also, that cutting portion is very important for any offensive player, but especially one that’s playing next to or around Devin Booker or Jaylen Green. the ways defenses show help in multiple types of ways to take them away from the pockets that they like to score in outside of just double teams. Having players that understand the timing of cuts, the art that that is, and how that can either create new space for someone else to operate in or put themselves in position to score is important. Uh something underrated about cuts, the good cuts usually end up in a paint touch. Anytime something happens in the paint, it gets a reaction out the defense. So whether it’s a paint touch with the ball or a paint touch without it, it’s going to force some type of reaction. If Jaylen Green plays to that, we’ve talked about him being very good as a cutter and that’s going to be leaned into more. If Kobe Brea is who he, his coach, Mark Pope, suggests he is, that’s going to be little things that help to make the offense significantly more functional. So on the offensive side, if he can do more than just shoot and score for himself, those things can add a lot of value. Yeah, absolutely. And I think because of the gravity he’s going to have as a shooter. Yeah, you know, when he’s curling around screens or when he’s cutting to try and get to the three-point line, guys are going to overreact to try and take that away. And that’s going to open up the back door cuts. Like he was saying, he became a one back door cut, dunk a game type of guy. We saw that in summer league. That one dunk that he had was a back door cut with somebody overplaying him running out to the three-point line. So, as much as this guy is on a two-way contract, as much as the defense has questions, and if you have questions about his defense, check out the breakdown. Check out the breakdown. Uh we don’t have enough time to get into all of that. Mark Pope did say like I’ve seen him step up on the defensive end because they had injuries midway through the season and he had to. Um he said he should adjust to the physicality. He said Kobe Brea said that himself that he can’t wait to kind of continue to adjust to that because the scouting report in college was played this guy physically. Don’t let him get to the three-point line. So he’s he’s going to adjust to that. It’s going to take some time, but he does have the good size. He has the experience. So, if he can just be passable defensively, I think what he brings to the table on the offensive end is going to more than offset that. But, uh, we do have one last game for you guys before we get out of here. But, first, we’re going to take our final break. Stephen, how many pennies are in a dollar? Oh my god. I’m hitting you with the numbers. There are hundred. And that’s how many branches there are throughout the West for Mountain America Credit. I’m sorry. Oh my god. It’s all related. Money, pennies, dollars. Mountain America Credit Union. They have more than 1 million members. Somebody was telling me that they didn’t they would didn’t know about Mountain America Credit Union. I was like, how? They have more than a million members. Um, but you can get two times the points on rewards credit card purchases through July 31st. Checking my math again to make sure it’s July 25th still. You only have 6 days left to get on this. You can use your Mountain America rewards card and watch the points pile up. It’s perfect for gas, groceries, travel, home projects, all other purchases, diapers in my case. Um, and this promotion is an easy way to stretch your dollar since you earn twice as many rewards. So, redeem your double points for uh travel rebates, gift cards, event tickets, things like that. Loans on approved credit offer can change or be withdrawn at any time. Limited time offer. Terms and conditions apply. Details at macu.com/double. And Stephen, I need gas. And you know the place that gasses me up like no other. Uh yes, we are in their dojo, the Circle K Studio, America’s thirst shop. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ve probably heard us talk about the inner circle about 5000 times already. Um but you better have signed up by now because that would just be embarrassing if you’re not an inner circle member because it’s easy to download and get enrolled. You can use your phone number to score Circle K deals. Um, you want to hear about some of the current pro promotions that they have for the inner circle members? You want a cookie? Cookie for $1. A $1 cookie. How great does that sound? If you visit four times uh a month, you get 25 cents off per gallon. You can earn once per month on that. But 79 cent Polar Pops, 99 cent frosters. Um, they have a drink for Arizona iced tea, like two for 250 to the 22 oz ones. And they have a Circle K exclusive flavor called Watermelon Dragon Fruit Splash. I have no idea what that tastes like, but I’m intrigued and I want to check it out. So, join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit circlek.com for details. All right, Stephen, we are at the point of the show where I get to hand the reins to you now because you have prepared a little game for uh me and my helpers in the chat for this one. Yes. So, let’s make sure we all get our listening ears on so we can participate and we can kind of make this as seamless as possible. You know, you lost them. Just kidding, guys. You all want to make sure you listen to the questions that I’m asking and then answering in the in the chat respectively as soon as you possibly can so we can kind of compile this data, okay? And uh kind of cycle through these answers. um cuz we got about 7 minutes before we got to go to taking a quick break and then you know doing our job on the logistic side. So pay attention to the polls that come up in the chat while we’re speaking. Make sure you answer accordingly and let’s go ahead and get to trivia time. So a lot of talk about Devin Booker and Kobe Brea having similarities to their game. Both obviously hailing from University of Kentucky spending both one season there. Both also 66 and there’s a ton of other different uh similarities to their game. So, both prolific shooters and scorers while they were in college at Kentucky. All of these stats and all of the answers are going to be deriving from their time at Kentucky in that one season they spent. Okay, first question is who’s who? So, player A shot 41% from three and player two shot or player B shot 43 and a half%. So, you all’s job is to guess who player A and player B is respectively. So, okay, go ahead and cycle through that and we’ll kind of fake the Jeopardy music while I just kind of talk aimlessly as you guys kind of get your answers in. We need like the lights to dim like who wants to be a millionaire. That would be fire. That would be fire. I think the fun part about both of these two though is though they were both held as shooters coming out of college, we’ve seen the trajectory of Devin Booker shift to being an elite level scorer. Yes. No worse than top 14 on his worst day in the entire NBA. I don’t want to put expectations upon Kobe Brea, but he certainly is a player that, like I mentioned, is a scorer that can shoot. And now it’s just about him pairing skills like tightening up his handle, adding a couple more moves to his bag to kind of allow for that scoring to take the forefront over just the catch and shoot and playing off of the catch and things like that. So, all right, answers are in. Get a little drum roll, please. Player A 41.1% from three in his one year in Kentucky was Devin Booker. And player B obviously shooting 43 and a half% in his time at Kentucky was Kobe Brea. So two players shooting especially relative to the times they were in college elite level volume of shooting and the efficiency to match that being significantly ahead of average. So um again one of the many similarities that those two both have. Yeah absolutely. And if you were paying attention earlier when we went through some of the stats, you would have known the answer to this question. I think most of you got it based on what chat got 92%. Got that right. There we go. 92%. Let’s go. Let’s go. There we go. Love to see it. We’re one for one for sure. I didn’t let you answer though. I kind of went I already knew it cuz I think on our other stat we had had 43.5% and I had had it in my notes. For sure. For sure. I have like a very shortterm uh photographic memory when it comes to stats. Okay. Because then like 24 hours later, it’s like um what’s that movie with Adam Sentlet? 51 First Dates. Gotcha. Got like 24 hours, my slate is wiped clean because it’s input like new numbers come in and replace the old ones from the day before. I was like, “Yep.” 43.5%. It was like 49.8% at Dayton. Mhm. So, I kind of not cheated, but I already knew that one. So, for sure. For sure. Let’s see if we can challenge number two. Which player had the higher assist performance in their time at Kentucky? So this is on an individual game basis. Who’s careerhigh in assists at Kentucky? Who had the best assist kind of? Okay. So the highest like the highest assist game. Okay. So um obviously we’re just going to go with the two players being Booker and Brea. We’ll get to the answer shortly. But as we kind of let you guys get your answers in on that. Just some kind of fun information with both of those two. More of overlap. Both were very efficient with the ball in their hands. Neither was a primary creator per se. They both very much played shooting guard and literal shooting guard while they were in college. But once they did get the ball off of any type of screens, they were very good at making plays off the dribble. Booker going to his right and Brea going to his left. Um, so fun to see again that that kind of parallel of both of these players. People make the comps and it’s funny to actually look at the film and look at the numbers and see how much they do hashtag align with one another. Now hopefully you hope you all we hope that kind of bows well for Brea going forward, but it’s fun to see that. Yeah. So, this is a tough one because I think like the the sensical answer would be Booker just based on what he’s grown into. But I think the answer might actually be Kobe Brea because I think like Book played on as a six-man on a loaded Kentucky team. Correct. So, I think a lot of his function was mostly just six-man spot-up shooting. Kobe Brea was like their second leading scoreer. I’m guessing he probably had a higher usage. So just by default, I’m going to guess Kobe Brea. Okay, Eric, we feel like we got some answers in the chat already. Yeah. All right, let’s get a drum roll, please. Devin Dang it, Armani Booker. And it’s just by one, so it’s not like a significant difference between the two, but Deon Booker has seven assists in one game in his collegiate career with Kentucky. Kobe Brea had six was as his careerh high against uh South Carolina. So again again both players that have they have more playmaking than their maybe uh skill set suggests coming out of college. Yeah, something Devin Booker has clearly grown into in an elite manner as we’ve spoken to all week. Uh Kobe Brea has depths of that that he can kind of lean into more going forward as well. Uh you want to go ahead and go to overtime first before we get to the last one? Oh yeah, we want to thank all of our TV listeners for being here with us. The party always continues at gophnx.com and that means it is time for overtime. All right, Stephen. So, one- one, lost one. It’s a tie game. We’re going to overtime. Real match. This is this going to be a good one right here. I’m two two for two right now. We got 68% on that. 68%. Good job, guys. One shy of the big time. Good job. All right, question three. Uh, take a guess at how many games Devin Booker and then Kobe Brea had with two or more free throw attempts. Oh man. So for each of these two players, what do you think their total of games with two or more free throw attempts was? Free throw attempts are naturally a number that speaks to aggression, ability to self-create, attention that you garner from a defense, and how you kind of leverage that into scoring opportunities for yourself. I feel like this number is going to be low, but just for context purposes, Devin Booker in his one year at Kentucky played 38 games. Okay. Kobe Brea played 36 games. Okay, good to know. So, that narrows it down. I do want to take into account the types of usage that both of those two players had as well. This one is a little tricky and that’s why me and Aronson agreed that this was a great one to include as the final one. Yeah, I think we’re gonna lose this overtime grudge match here. But, uh, all right. So, for book I’m gonna say I don’t know. I feel like I’m gonna be lowballing him, but I’m going to I think the purpose of this type of stat might be shock and awe. So, I’m going to go with five for book. Okay. And with Brea, I’m going to go I’m going to go four. Okay. We got answers in the chat. We all good? Okay, let’s get the drum roll then. So, with 20 20 20 games with two or more free throw attempts. Wow. Devin Booker. Wow. I lowballed. Again, you talk about players that are deemed shooters but can go and create for themselves and the pressure that puts on the defense. That’s a clear indicator right there. And that’s for someone that was playing a very ancillary role in his collegiate career. Devin Booker was. Mhm. Kobe Bray on the other hand, 12 games out of his 36. Okay. With uh two or more free throw attempts over the course of his uh collegiate career at Kentucky. So, just kind of fun to gauge that, see the trajectory that both of those players were at in their one year that they spent. Yeah. And ultimately, we know how Deon Booker’s career has gone, what that might suggest for everything that Kobe Bray is looking to establish in his rookie year and going forward. Yeah, absolutely. you you can see some type of foreshadowing with just the seven assists game, the fact that more than half his games he was getting at least two attempts per game and we’ve seen the way that he’s been able to attack the foul line. So if Kobe Brea uh lower percentage obviously when you’re looking at the 12 out of 36, but if you’re looking at potential silver linings for a guy that can shoot the lights out is going to get run off the free throw line or the three-point line. um if he can find a way to get to the mid-range, find a way to draw fouls going to the basket because finishing at the rim is not his best thing. Um yeah, you’re looking at a potentially dangerous Kentucky backcourt duo despite the fact that Brea starts the year on a two-way. Yeah, and I think uh naturally us at PHNX will be using the Spider-Man meme a whole lot going into this upcoming season and potentially going forward throughout the throughout their respective careers, too. So, no, that was fun. We should do more of that despite how horrifically off I was on the last the last questions especially. Apparently I was not going back and watching uh Kentucky footage from Book’s time there. But no, that was good. We’re going to have to bring this uh this format back. That was a fun game. I think Book is going to ask you. So five, huh? I know your favorite ice cream flavor. I don’t know how many times you shot two plus free throws at Kentucky. Very sorry. I’ll get my uh my my priorities in order. I think that’s going to do it for this episode of the PHNX Suns podcast. Thank you everyone for being in here with us. We did not set a like goal today. That’s my bad as the host, but make sure to hit the like on the way out. We’re well short of whatever our like goal would be. Um and it really does help us out. We appreciate all of you being in here with us. Uh a lot of you are in here with us every single day. It means a lot to us. Trust me. Um years ago, I could have never predicted that people would show up and listen to what I had to say about basketball. So, uh means the world to us. You can follow uh the freckled mamba who has been putting together all these amazing graphics and audio graphics that you’re seeing. The show doesn’t exist in this format without Eritton. So follow him at freckledmamba. You can follow me at Gerald Borgay. You can follow Stephen at StephenPG3. Uh have a good weekend everybody. Hey, I’m going to go play some Donkey Kong. [Applause] [Music]

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After a report that Jalen Green will be the Phoenix Suns’ starting point guard this season, it’s time to reopen the Point Book debate and decide whether JG or Devin Booker should be running point! On the latest PHNX Suns Podcast, Gerald Bourguet and Stephen Pridgeon-Garner give their thoughts on how the Suns’ offense should function with its two combo guards, and why Point Book makes a lot more sense than putting the ball in Green’s hands full time. Plus, the duo takes a look at Koby Brea’s game, with insight from Suns coach Jordan Ott, GM Brian Gregory and Kentucky coach Mark Pope!

0:00 – Intro
2:25 – Point Jalen Green???
33:00 – Koby Brea is Next Up, And Kentucky Head Coach Mark Pope Agrees.
52:40 – Trivia Time!!!

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