FanPost

Empires Slowly rise

After years of spreading wisdom on social media, finely one NBA franchise owner recognizes your hidden talent and decides to appoint you as GM of the team. First things first, you take a peek of the team`s roster, to understand what exactly do you have to work with.

Among the different players, you find 3 impressive young players from the categories A-C listed below:

Per 36 minutes

Player

Season

Age

FGA

FG%

3PA

3P%

FTA

FT%

TRB

AST

STL

BLK

TOV

PTS

James Harden

2012-13

23

16.1

.438

5.9

.368

9.6

.851

4.6

5.5

1.7

0.5

3.6

24.4

Player A

2018-19

22

20.2

.466

6.6

.329

7.3

.863

4.3

6.9

0.9

0.2

4.2

27.3



Category B (Rookie players)

Per 36 minutes

Player

Season

Age

G

FGA

FG%

3PA

3P%

FTA

FT%

ORB

DRB

TRB

AST

STL

BLK

TOV

PF

PTS

Anthony Davis

2012-13

19

64

13.2

.516

0.1

.000

4.4

.751

3.2

7.0

10.2

1.2

1.5

2.2

1.7

3.1

16.9

Player B

2018-19

20

71

14.3

.585

0.1

.000

3.1

.746

3.7

8.3

12.0

2.1

1.0

1.1

2.1

3.4

19.1



Category C (Rookie players)

Per 36 minutes

Player

Season

Age

G

FGA

FG%

3P

3PA

3P%

FTA

FT%

ORB

DRB

TRB

AST

STL

BLK

TOV

PTS

Kawhi Leonard

2011-12

20

64

9.5

.493

1.0

2.6

.376

2.1

.773

2.4

5.2

7.7

1.6

2.0

0.6

1.0

11.9

Player C

2018-19

22

77

8.3

.428

1.6

4.8

.332

1.7

.792

0.8

3.2

4.0

2.7

2.0

0.6

1.1

10.1

You are thrilled and excited by the combination of James Harden (after his fourth season), Anthony Davis and Kawhi Leonard (after their rookie seasons), counting through your mind all the rings and glory these players will bring you over the next few years.

Only that after a few minutes, your future to be assistant calls you and informs you of a major error with the roster you received, when instead of Harden, AD and Kawhi, the real roster includes Player-A (also after his fourth season), Player-B (also, a first pick rookie) and Player-C (also, a middle first round pick rookie).

You take a second look at the statistics, and starting to feel the error is not that significant. Player-A, is 1 year younger than Harden was after his fourth season, passing 1.4 more and scoring 2.9 more points with much better percentages from the field and from the line.

Player-B scored 2.2 points more than Davis did in his rookie year with much better percentages. He also delivers one more assist and absorbs nearly 2 rebounds more than rookie Davis did.

Player-C holds a pretty similar stat line to Kawhi`s rookie season one, and you are told that their body structure and playing style are surprisingly similar.

You rush to call your future assistant and ask for the names of players A-C, only to discover they are…. Devin Booker (Player-A), Deandre Ayton (Player-B) and Mikal Bridges (Player-C).

At that point, some of you would might announce a quick resignation, or alternatively start looking at 2022 prospects, assuming the Suns will draft high at that stage also. As the Bible say: "What has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9), so why with the SUNS should it be different?

After all, despite Booker`s historical statistics in his first four seasons (for example - the only one alongside LeBron James and Oscar Robertson with 26.5 points, 6.5 assists and 4 rebounds per game under the age of 22), all these seasons ended up with disgraceful records Of: 23, 24, 21 and 17 wins (as for now).

Similarly, it is easy to get carried away with Luka, Young and others from the 2018 insane draft class, and ignore the historic stat line that Ayton have thie season (the only rookie, 20 years old and under, alongside Shaquille O'Neal, Karl-Anthony Towns and John Drew, with at least 16.3 points and 10.2 Rebounds per game. While Ayton shoots significantly better than all), not to mention the 10th overall pick of that class.

But before you start laughing and calling Booker an empty stats player, Ayton a 1st pick bust and Mikal as not worthy of the Unprotected 2021 Miami`s pick, and before you keep on saying that the Suns will never get anywhere in the foreseeable future, let me remind you a few things:

Stephen Curry`s records in his first 3 seasons were: 26, 36 and 23 Wins. Only in his fourth season (Klay`s second, Green`s & bogut`s first) the warriors got to 47 wins and reaches the playoffs.

Similarly, Kevin Durant did not enjoy immediate success, with 20 and 23 wins in his first two seasons in the league. Only in his third season (Westbrook's second, Harden`s and Ibka`s first) the team climb to 50 wins.

Booker? While in his case, it has already been four disappointing seasons record wise, let`s briefly counts what he went through these seasons:

55(!!) different teammates;

4 different coaches (all rookies);

3.5 busts with top-10 selections (Len, Bender, Chris and probably JJ);

2.5 General managers (all rookies);

And 1 Robert Sarver.

On top of that, in most of these seasons, the team actually tried to lose, in order to better the chances come lottery time. Basically in all these years, Booker, got the optimal condition for a magnificent failure.

This current season, Booker had started with a surgery-required injury, which made him miss training camp (which was especially important due to the arrival of Igor Kokoskov - a new head coach who came with a long and complicated play-book - and of the team`s second cornerstone, Deandre Ayton).

Adding all the little irritating injuries during the season, the disgruntled veterans (Ariza, Chandler and Anderson – all gone by now), lacking a PG and PF, and especially the fact that Booker had to deal with a particularly young team, and there you have a recipe for another failed season.

So why the optimism? Because unlike any of the last seasons in the last decade, finally, the team has a clear direction where it goes, and finally they have a core to build around next to Booker:

Deandre Ayton – though he didn’t contribute much to the winning column (same like Anthony Davis, who improved his team record in his rookie season by only 6 wins), still holds an historic rookie stat-line, which puts him in one line next to hall of famres, such as Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson.

Even when you compare him to the modern day centers, Ayton post up efficiency (53%) has been better than Embiid (48%) and Towns (52%). His defense also improved after the tough start, when his 47.5% DFG since Nov.1 his Higher than other great rim protectors such as Davis, Embiid and Gobert.

Ayton still hold some trick up his sleeve, mainly three pointers shoots, which this season was intentionally limited to none, while Igor askes Ayton to emphasis his work on fundamentals and defensive awareness. One can only imagine where Ayton will take his game after adding a 3-point threat to his arsenal.

Adding Mikal, Oubre (assuming signing him back), and the High draft pick (Zion? Ja?) to the mix, and we might announce that after a decade of walking in the desert, we finally found the core of the next great Suns team.

With a bit of luck in the upcoming Lottery, stability in the GM and coach positions and with the proper use the team`s assets (Jackson, Warren, Melton and future picks), we might as well witness the rise of the great Phoenix starting next season.