November 04, 2024

Previewing Sixers-Suns with Mike Vigil

Breaking down the Phoenix Suns' strong 5-1 start to the season ahead of their Monday night matchup against the Sixers.

By Adam Aaronson
PhillyVoice Staff

Eric Hartline/Imagn Images

Can the Sixers finally grab a win in Phoenix, where they have not won a game since 2019?

The Sixers are set to begin a three-game West Coast road trip on Monday night, as they head to Phoenix to battle a Suns team that has gotten off to a strong start under new leadership in 2024-25.

Here to talk all things Suns is Mike Vigil, host of The Timeline Podcast. Let's get to it:

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Adam Aaronson: The Suns made a coaching change for the second straight summer, replacing Frank Vogel with Mike Budenholzer. What specifically did the Suns need Budenholzer to accomplish early in the season to establish better habits, and how has he fared so far?

Mike Vigil: The minute the Suns were swept last season, Shams Charania posted the Frank Vogel story that detailed the players ignoring him (sometimes to the point of laughing at him) and their distaste for standing around on offense. It was pretty clear that whatever message he was preaching, they were not hearing it. For a team that won 49 games last season there sure were a lot of embarrassing losses, including some memorable embarrassing losses to the Clippers, then of course capped off with the whole…not winning a single game in the playoffs after trading every asset they have for this team.

Budenholzer's job is to maximize this roster by bringing the offense into the modern era. The Suns did not shoot enough threes last year, finishing the season 25th overall in attempts. They turned the ball over too much, they stood around too much, they played slow. Budenholzer's mantra is to play fast and play random and his teams shoot threes. The team needs him to be who he has always been, which by the way also includes being a defensive-minded coach. His teams tend to finish top 10 in defense, which if he can do with this Suns team, might make him a miracle worker. The results are good so far as they are 5-1.

AA: After lacking "traditional" point guard play for much of last season, Phoenix added two veteran ball-handlers in Tyus Jones and Monte Morris over the summer after reportedly missing out on Sixers guard Kyle Lowry. With Jones slotting into Budenholzer's starting five, how has the longtime floor general impacted the Suns?

MV: The Suns finished 25th in turnovers per game last season and that turned into transition offense for the opposing team almost every time. They needed to find a way to not turn it over. Devin Booker’s best years have been with point gods…I mean guards by his side and (channeling my best Billy Beane voice) we are attempting to create Chris Paul in the aggregate.

Both Tyus Jones and Monte Morris are top of the NBA in assist to turnover ratio and that stat alone will transform this team’s ability to be effective in the half court. Budenholzer said with these point guards “the scorers can go back to being scorers” and that has played out so far this season. Booker, Bradley Beal, and of course Kevin Durant can now focus on doing what they do best without the constant distraction of trying to get everyone else involved.

AA: Perhaps the most interesting NBA rookie to date during this young season has been Suns wing Ryan Dunn, the No. 28 overall pick last June. How has Dunn become such an impactful player right away, and how can anybody explain the ridiculous improvement he has shown as a three-point shooter?

MV: It’s clearly some sort of voodoo. As of my writing he has the most three-pointers made of all rookies and is shooting 43 percent on those shots. In his first four games in the NBA he made as many threes as he did in his last full season in college (34 games). He was projected as the best defensive player in the draft, and quite possibly the worst offensive player. So far he may be the best at both? Of course, that is as a traditional '3 and D' player, a designator that he embraces.

In his first four games in the NBA, Dunn has been tasked with guarding LeBron James, Anthony Davis, James Harden, and Luka Dončić. The Suns even started him in the one game Beal missed. To say that he’s been immediately thrown into the fire almost feels like an understatement. Confidence is an underrated trait of an NBA player and the most important thing for his young career so far appears to be that he is confident as a defender and has zero hesitation as a shooter. Can it hold? I guess we’ll see, but for now it seems like the Suns got THE steal of the draft.