How Good Are the Bucks and Suns?

Can Tyus Jones and Gary Trent Jr. save their teams' seasons? (Probably not.)

Despite having three of the top 15 players in the world, the two teams from the 2021 NBA Finals have become under-discussed.

They’ve been around a while. They have had very little roster turnover since the Kevin Durant trade one and a half seasons ago. And they have almost zero flexibility to change their rosters moving forward.

For better or worse, the Bucks and Suns are who they are at this point.

But what exactly is that? Let’s discuss.

Milwaukee Bucks

The past two years have seen the Bucks finish first and third in the East in the regular season — only to have the bottom drop out from underneath them with untimely injuries to Giannis Antetokounmpo leading to first-round exits.

They return most of the same roster from last year with the only major move being swapping out Malik Beasley for Gary Trent Jr. and adding Taurean Prince and Delon Wright on minimum contracts. The only other difference is that everyone is a year older.

Despite losing in the first round two years ago, last season felt like the first season where the team just didn’t have enough. They finished with the 12th-best net rating and never seemed to be as good as their place in the standings indicated. Their defense, long the staple of their contending teams, became highlighted by an inability to stop opposing offenses. How much of that was due to the Jrue Holiday-Damian Lillard swap and how much was due to a Brook Lopez step backwards?

Giannis was the same player he’s been for years — a nightmare to defend as soon as he gets a foot inside the three-point line. A battering ram, agile enough to step around defenders yet with the power to go right through them like a two-year-old knocking over a tower of blocks. He maintained his scoring while upgrading his playmaking and efficiency — he shot the fewest three-pointers per game since before his first all-star campaign. He probably should’ve received more buzz as an MVP candidate after dragging this team to the heights that he did.

After Giannis though, my concerns start to mount.

Last year, Dame was very good — a borderline all-star (he did make the team) capable of unleashing terror at any point on his opponent. The Pacers will not soon forget the explosions of Games 1 and 2 where he hit on 12 of 24 bombs. Yet, his defense continued to flounder while the offense took a noticeable step backward on the average night. The night-to-night consistency on offense wasn’t the same.

Brook Lopez was an ironman again, finishing with over 2400 minutes. Yet, his offense seemed to slump as he took the fewest shots in the paint since his first years in Milwaukee. Opponents shot over 8% worse against him at the rim — an elite number but significantly down from the 13% shot against him in 2022-23. (For the record, I think his defense was still elite — the numbers were dragged down by his perimeter defenders being turnstiles.)

Khris Middleton played in only 55 games — and averaged only 15 points per game. That’s not enough as their third option on offense.

Pat Connaughton was a good role player — but he’s not the perimeter stopper he once was. He looked slower and older.

The Bucks core is just old — I fear their best days aren’t coming back and the younger, more athletic teams will pass them by.

That said, they are younger than last year. 33-year-old Jae Crowder has been replaced with 30-year-old Taurean Prince. 27-year-old Malik Beasley has been replaced with 26-year-old Gary Trent Jr.. 35-year-old Patrick Beverley has been replaced with 32-year-old Delon Wright.

Unfortunately, these guys are all on minimums for a reason. The Lakers — not exactly flush with quality depth — didn’t bother to bring back Prince (perhaps they tried and he simply picked the Bucks over them — I’ve seen no reporting on this). The Raptors weren’t impressed enough with Trent after three and a half years in the system to bring him back. Delon Wright has bounced around the league for his entire career.

These minimum signings are classic examples of getting excited about guys we’ve heard of, though are unlikely actually to contribute in major ways. Getting even one of them to contribute in a meaningful way would be a win.

Beyond that, perhaps the most important question for the Bucks is if they can get anything out of their homegrown players.

AJ Green played only 600 minutes last year but shot 40% from three. Can Doc Rivers trust him for 1200 minutes this year?

Andre Jackson Jr. and Marchon Beauchamp have shown flashes of being capable role players. Can they be more consistent?

The hardest part about winning a lot is that you have to draft in the late 20s making it difficult to find quality players that can contribute quickly. It’s even harder on the Bucks as they’ve traded away many of their draft picks to win now — Beauchamp and new rookie AJ Johnson are their only first-round picks on the roster since Giannis was drafted in 2013.

I’ll be honest — I’m a little skeptical of the Bucks. Of the top four teams in the East last year (Boston, New York, Milwaukee, and Cleveland), I think they’re most at risk of losing homecourt this year. With Philadelphia, Indiana, and Orlando all coming (not to mention the Heat), it wouldn’t shock me if the Bucks fell back into the play-in. They simply do not have great players outside of Giannis anymore.

Yet, there’s a world where Dame and Middleton bounce back, Lopez hangs on for one more season, one or two of the young guys hit, and Giannis does Giannis things to lead the Bucks back into contention. Time will tell if the skeptics or the optimists are proven accurate.

Phoenix Suns

After trading almost everything for Kevin Durant in 2023 and then trading everything else for Bradley Beal that summer, the Suns have been a disappointment. They’ve been a good team — 67-45 since the beginning of February 2023. But, when you trade everything, you expect the team to be the best in the league. Or at least to be real contenders. When you have two consensus top 15 players, you expect more than finishing sixth in the West.

Will a summer of continuity help?

The Suns retain most of their core this season — Devin Booker, Beal, Durant, Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, and Royce O’Neal — while adding two true point guards in Tyus Jones and Monte Morris.

I expect the Suns to be better — where 35-year-old Eric Gordon played almost 28 minutes per game last year, those minutes will be replaced by 28-year-old Jones.

Jones and Morris are two of the most turnover-allergic point guards in history — they should help the Suns improve drastically from their 27th-ranked turnover rate last year. New coach, Mike Budenholzer, has traditionally excelled at developing great offenses — the Bucks finished with a top-ten offense in four out of the five seasons he led the team. He excelled at getting the Bucks to modernize and shoot more three-pointers. With the continuity, lessened turnovers, and a better offensive coach leading the way, I would expect the Suns to move from ninth in offensive rating to somewhere in the top five.

Defensively, I have a few more concerns. The Suns finished with 13th best defense at the end of the season — largely on the back of limiting opponent free throw attempts and contesting shots. While Budenholzer has coached outstanding defenses — the Bucks finished in the top five in defensive rating three out of the five seasons he was coach — he is not known as being as much of a defensive wizard as former coach, Frank Vogel.

During his tenure in Milwaukee, Coach Bud employed a drop-style defensive scheme, anchored by Brook Lopez and Giannis Antetokounmpo with two of the best on-ball defenders in the world, Eric Bledsoe and subsequently, Jrue Holiday. I would guess the Suns will continue that trend with a lot of drop defense given Nurkic is a little too slow-footed for other schemes. My concern is that effective drop defenses are predicated on intense on-ball pressure and fearsome rim protection (see: 2023-24 Minnesota Timberwolves). The Suns will have neither of those.

(Coach Bud’s teams have always excelled at not fouling on defense. The Suns already finished seventh in opponent free throw rate last year though — that takes away some of the low-hanging fruit to improve the defense.)

Adding to the skepticism, last season was the first since 2018-19 that Durant managed to play more than 55 games. It’s hard to believe that he will be able to last 75 games again like last year — particularly given his increased summer load playing on Team USA during the Olympics. If Durant doesn’t cross the 60-game mark again, can the Suns keep their head above water?

Overall, I think the Suns will be better this year. They have more continuity (though the coaching change undermines that slightly). They went from 6.5 players who I would trust to 7.5 in swapping out Eric Gordon for Tyus Jones and Monte Morris. Mason Plumlee is probably(?) an upgrade from Drew Eubanks at backup center — though he is seven years older and on the downslope of his career. Their offense will be better even if the defense moves down the ranks.

Yet, the Kings, Warriors, Grizzlies, and Rockets should all be better (though the Clippers will likely be worse) and are coming for the Suns spot. The Nuggets, Timberwolves, Mavs, and Thunder all should maintain their place in the West as locked-in playoff teams (though one will probably disappoint). I would hazard that despite the Suns slightly improving, it will result in a similar finish to last season — on the borderline of the play-in if not having to participate in the play-in tournament itself.