Internal Development: The Super Seniors

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1:01when it works busy. See terms. Stop wasting your nights on a mattress that doesn't get you. Experience the most comfortable mattress in the world. The sleep number smart bed at the touch of a button. You can personalize your comfort. Choose firmer or softer. Adjust cooler to warmer. And right now, save up to $2,500 during our massive Labor Day event. Hurry into your local sleep number store today because we have your number. The timeline is a blue wire podcast. Welcome to the timeline of Phoenix Suns podcast.

2:11My name is Mike back with Sam. How you doing Sam? Hello, I am doing well. Happy NFL season to all those who celebrate. This year at the timeline, we are sort of just sitting on our hands for a few more weeks and waiting for stuff to kick into high gear. But yeah, I'm doing pretty well, man. How are you? I watch a little bit of soccer. That's the one thing I am doing this time of year. And we'll see if that continues once the NBA season starts. But for now, I have time. It doesn't really overlap as far as the time the matches are. So you know, wake up in the morning and put a match on. It's kind of fun. I understand the football thing when people watching during the day sports during the day is fun. The NBA needs to do more during the day. What I'll say is, you know, to everyone knows we're like very casual NFL fans. Unfortunately, what I appreciate about football culture, though, is just like the once a week schedule, allowing people to like just totally center their lives around it in a way that like if you're a basketball fan, you just sort of have to envy. I think long time listeners would know that sort of tennis becomes my thing in the summer

3:16because I need a sport to follow in the basketball off season. So I get really into it. And yeah, during week one of the NFL, I was watching Ben Shelton the other day lose to to evil at the US Open. So that's what I was doing, unfortunately. Not a lot happening in the NBA right now. There is one story. Actually, I didn't talk to you about this before we recorded, but one story, if you want to even call it that, that is kind of suns related. And that every Warriors reporter that has any sort of outlet is telling people that the Warriors really like Devon Booker and are saving some of their assets in case Devon Booker gets traded. Did you see that? And do you have any thoughts on that? You know what? It's funny because when you just brought that up, I was like, what is he even going to talk about? And then yeah, I did see that and sort of just rolled my eyes and moved on. I'm happy to talk about it for a few minutes if you want. It's I guess. Yeah. I guess like was everyone dunking on that online because probably they should have been

4:17but actually, yeah, I wasn't even partaking in that this time. Yeah, if the Warriors want to put together a package of like three first round picks and brand brand and Pajemski or something like what? You know, they would not be the first team that I would think of as a Devon Booker destination. Also, obviously Devon Booker isn't for sale. But yeah, I sort of just chuckled at that one and moved on. I think that's the right approach considering all the other guys the Warriors have said they're interested in. I do think that the Olympics and Steve Kirk going out of his way to praise Devon Booker and Steph Curry apparently very much loving playing next to Devon Booker. It's not nothing. I'm sure they actually do really like him. And I think you know, it probably says a lot about the kind of player Devon Booker is more than anything else, but other than that, yeah, it's tough to like take any of that seriously. It just doesn't seem to be any desire to trade Devon Booker now. A case can be made that it would be the best thing for the long term future of the Phoenix franchise to trade Devon Booker. I'm not personally making that case, but I understand the people who make that case.

5:22And it's clearly not going to happen. So it was the right the right thing to do to actually sort of roll your eyes and move on from that. Even if you were going to make that case, which I think that's totally understandable, like if you value assets and whatever. The problem is that the sons have sort of dug in their heels on the current timeline now between trading picks for Mark Williams, who we're going to talk about extensively this episode and Miles Bridges. And you know, like they're sort of locked into this timeline now for at least a couple of years, I think, excuse the pun whenever we talk about timelines. But you know, so like what they'd be able to recoup on, you know, a Devon Booker trade is kind of irrelevant, I think, at this point. Like it would really take things falling apart to a massive degree for them to even consider moving on from him, I think, and him wanting a, well, yeah, of course. And that's the other thing is like, yeah, I've Devon Booker at some point was going to be like, this is not working. I'm going to force my way out of here.

6:23Then that happens with star players. But yeah, we're not there yet. Okay. So for this episode, we are going to wrap up the internal development series by talking about the rest of the guys that you could sort of squint and categorize as young guys on the team in little short bursts of internal development. Let's get into that. Now the story about an NBA team that lost everything and the one thing that had no choice but to make them all better. It's internal develop. Okay. The four guys sold this episode to you, by the way, as because we did internal development rookies, internal development softmores. Thank you again, by the way, to Kellyn Olson and Gerald Borgay for the last two episodes. It's just us this week. And I sold this one to you as the super seniors because it's all of the guys who should be flunking out of this segment.

7:23Like we should not really be having to talk about them anymore in this segment. They're kind of if you squint like almost finished products, but they're just young enough. They're like four or five years into their career that you could kind of see it, right? Like we can't do episodes like this about Devon Booker anymore. He's obviously a finished product. We can't do episodes like this about Dylan Brooks or Luke Kinnard or some of the other guys on the team who are like 31 years old. This is sort of the last opportunity. This is a crop of guys. One we're going to talk about today is like 26, 27, something like that. Jalen Green's 24. I mean, Jalen Green and Mark Williams are like 24. But like, okay, no one is six season though. No one is older than 27 and no one is further than five years into their NBA career. And yeah, it's like internal development in I think a very pragmatic, incremental way. It is at least kind of how I think we're going to talk about it.

8:24I'm excited to see what you've gotten store. Jalen Green, Mark Williams, Jordan Goodwin, Colin Gillespie. Those are the four players that we're going to talk about today. I think it's, we have to start with Jalen Green, right? Yeah, I'm down. Jalen Green, so he'll be 24 next season. So just a reminder on what we do for internal development, who they are, how they can improve and how confident are we in those improvements. So we're going to do this. I have very small amounts of stats for each of these guys, maybe a little more for Jalen Green than the others. But we're going to do it a little bit based on vibes as far as who they are as well. We're not going as in depth as the other episodes because then this episode would be three hours long. Yeah, we're going to try and hit the most important points and then move on. Six four hundred and eighty six pounds and turning 24 next season in his sixth season in the NBA has been relatively the same player throughout his career, although I think you could make the case that last season was possibly his worst, maybe outside of his rookie

9:28year because just in a lot of sense, it was pretty bad. But relatively consistent throughout his career. In fact, his field goal percentage average for his career is 42.2%. Last season, he shot exactly 42.2%. So his career average is exactly what he shot last year. And you know, Jalen Green, I think, fits in this probably the most in that he is the youngest of these guys. And you could just make the case. There's still room for improvement. It's tougher to make that case when you look at the stats and you look at how far along in his career that he actually is. So let me ask you this, who is Jalen Green to use him? Oh, and Enigma, still a player who is five years into his career. And yeah, to your point, like hasn't really improved on a whole lot of things. But you can, you can squint and you can like see flashes of really good play.

10:30And obviously the athleticism is there. I thought it was interesting that last year, first of all, let's get this out of the way. We got kind of a limited look at Jalen Green compared to what we were expecting because he was a guy who throughout his entire rookie contract with Houston was super healthy, missed like, I don't know, 15 games total in his first four seasons, something like maybe less. And then all of a sudden had multiple lower body entries with the sons and only played 32 games. He was working off of kind of being on a recovery timeline. So you know, some of his stats at the very beginning of the last season with the sons were affected where he was like coming off the bench or just playing a limited role. And all of that out of the way, like who he ultimately ended up being with the sons. Let me pull up the overall stats real quick because he averaged career lows in or actually he didn't 17.8 points technically not a career low because his work season was lower. But 17.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, only 2.8 assists per game for the sons took a ton of threes

11:36but only shot 31%. Something that I thought was really interesting about Jalen Green last year is that actually he shot really well on mid range. 47% I looked it up. Yeah, he shot really well on long twos. So okay, if you had asked me last year, after year four in the NBA, what did I want Jalen Green to be? I probably would have told you I want him to in fact, I probably did say some version of this. I want him to focus on a shot selection. I want him to take more threes, embrace the modern game and cut out some of the so-called quote unquote junk, the like mid range tough shots. He didn't do that in year five, a limited sample size with the sons. But weirdly, he shot better on mid range like on a points per shot efficiency basis whatever. He was actually more efficient with his like 47 or 48% on 20 footers than he was 31%

12:40on threes. Now granted those three, some of those were very, very difficult shots off the dribble. But still it's just kind of funny. It's hard to understand exactly how this guy's potential can manifest itself in the average game. So I would say Jalen Green, who is he, a volume shooter? If he impacts the game positively is still after five years kind of remains to be seen. 0.7 net rating. The sons had well Jalen Green played 113 defensive rating when he played the only player that's returning on the sons that was worse than that that actually played games last year was Dylan Brooks, which is kind of funny to think about the two Houston guys. The sons play at their worst defensively when they're on the floor. 47% mid range is good 43% from the corners corner threes, but only 27.8% from the top of the key. So the longest threes he's shooting very poorly last year. Yeah. And those definitely being the majority like vast majority of the shots.

13:43He's taking difficult shots from the top of the key. If he gets a shot from the corner, then that's probably just a basic like spot up or whatever but those don't happen that often. There were 20 guards. I did this on stat heads. So I'm just going by the guard categorization by basketball reference. There were 20 guards in the NBA who shot 15 or more shots per game last year. You know, Devon Booker being one of them, of course. Jalen had the fifth worst assist percentage of those guys like, you know, the guy that was the worst was like Norman Powell just to kind of picture the kind of guys that they don't even really dribble the other guys that are above him. And only John Morant had a worse effective field goal percentage of those guys than Jalen Green. The fifth worst and assist is not as bad as I thought. Fifth worst and assist. But factor in that like Anthony Edwards is above him. You know, like it's it's the guys like Anthony Edwards and and Norman Powell that the other guys are just catching shoot three point shooters and then aunt.

14:46So there's a case to be made based on that of the 20 guards who shoot 15 or more shots per game that Jalen Green was the worst volume shooter of any guard in the NBA last season. You know, only John Morant had a worse effective field goal percentage than him as far as efficiency, but John Morant's a much, much, much better passer than him. And then he's still one of the worst of those 20 guys in passing in the bottom fourth. And defensively the sons were not good when he played. You know, like you it's really tough to have this conversation about Jalen Green because last year he was really bad. He was just bad by the stats. If you try to make a case for him statistically, you can look at his shooting at the rim, which was okay. And it's probably the worst of his career and could get better and 47% for mid range, which I think is very good. If you can continue to shooting 47% for mid range, what he's asked to do as far as creating shots, that's really going to be helpful for him.

15:47It's just that because the son's lack guys who can get to the rim, it's hard to ask for more mid range shots from one of the few guys that can actually get to the rim. But if that's an effective shot for him, he needs to take it. If he keeps shooting 47%, that's Devon Booker numbers. He can do that more as far as I'm concerned. But you know, he needs to improve defensively. We can talk about the improvements too, of course, here, but he needs to improve defensively. He needs to improve offensively. There's it's what's tough. Once again, is to make the case that he's going to dramatically improve his passing, for example, the assist percentage. He's never has had a great season passing. His turnovers are high compared to his assists. That's over his career. They're almost equal. And his efficiency has never been great. So it's really, if you're really talking about who he is, he's a volume shooter in the NBA who's very fast. He's very, very capable of getting down the court really fast. Whether he's off the ball or on the ball, he's fast with the ball as well. But the efficiency has not been good. The defense has not been good in the passing is not good.

16:50And that's the reality of who he is, statistically, at this point of his career. Now it's tough to face that reality because I think a lot of sunspans will listen to this and say, yeah, but, and those, yeah, buts are often fair when talking about him because it's like he's also very fast. He also can shoot better than he did last year. There's an assumption he will. And maybe he will. And the potential, the concept of potential with him can be considered to be high. For me, what's tough about the conversation of potential when talking about who he is, is there's not a lot of flashes of that passing. There's not a lot of consistency of that passing. There's not a lot of consistency of that efficiency. The numbers seem to level off where they are every year of his career. And that's been who he's been throughout his career. Yeah, so the thing about Jalen is he makes $36 million this year. He's got a player option for $27.28, which for again, $36 million that I'm sure he'll pick up.

17:51After that, like surely he must have the self-awareness or I don't know, he must have some level of understanding. Like to me, it's one thing if your efficiency is not the greatest. If you're trying to create space consistently and trying to be a shot creator for yourself, like, okay, even if your efficiency isn't the greatest, I've always had an understanding that that is a role that someone needs to play on every team. That by itself holds some value, maybe not $36 million worth of value, but there's some value to being the guy who's trying to make the ball go in the basket versus role players who just want to sit in the corner and only shoot when they're wide open, right? But surely someone needs to talk to Jalen Green and say, hey, look, guys who have the ball in their hands a lot, who average three assists a game, don't make $40 million. Guards who have the ball in their hands and average three assists a game. They don't make $40 million, right? Like he must know that next year he's going to opt into this $36 million contract.

18:55And after that, what is going to separate his ability to get another contract where he again makes $35 plus million for the next four years and unlocks like that next level of generational wealth, or if he's kind of doomed to become, you know, his generation's version of Jamal Crawford or Colin Sexton or whatever, you know, who makes like $15 million or something fine, right? It's going to be if he actually puts some level of effort into his vision and not just trying to create for himself, but also trying to create for others. Like he has to understand that, right? Uh, or at least hopefully someone is is trying to have that broached that conversation with him. Um, because like what do I expect to see from Jalen Green this year? Again, we're five years in. I will always want him to have slightly better shot selection and whatever. And, and you know, I think there's some really interesting lineup optimization stuff that Jordan not can do. I think him, uh, playing more with Oso and less with Mark Williams could actually help

20:00boost his efficiency a lot because the stats point to exactly that happening last year. So I think there's some interesting stuff like Jalen could learn to develop better chemistry. He'll have more minutes played with Tevin Booker. He can play more with Oso, etc. But if he's not trying to create both for himself and others on a team where we know there is so little playmaking like this roster is screaming for someone in the starting five other than Tevin Booker to like take the reins and trying to assume some of that playmaking responsibility. If Jalen miraculously could do it and there's not a lot of historical evidence of guys who just like go from three assists per game guys to plus playmakers overnight. But if he could do it, then he could still make all the money in the world. It's just like, I don't know, a lot of the stats are pointing towards the other path happening. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's funny because I was trying to figure out like what does the team look like when Jalen

21:01Greens on the floor, Devin Booker is not and maybe Colin Gillespie is not. There's not a ton of minutes with that. But I just like when he has the full playmaking responsibility, what does it look like? Like on the floor right now when he plays with Colin Gillespie or Devin Booker, the sons are in the positive. Like they're still fine. Like it's not like he sinks any lineups. He's not been terrible for the sons. But I think the putting too much on him is probably not the smartest way to think about this team. In my opinion, based on what we've seen. I mean, so far. You know, when Jalen was in those sorts of situations last year and I should have pulled up those splits I didn't think to, you know, I will point out the fact that he never played next to a stretch five last year. Again, a lot is hanging on the idea that maybe come on Malawatch is a stretch five this year because if that happens, you have the opportunity to maybe put Jalen as you pointed out one of the only guys on the entire roster who can really attack the rim relentlessly and finishes at a pretty good rate, not an amazing rate, but like better than a lot of

22:01these other guys that we have to talk about. So like if Mala watch is actually shooting threes and he plays, you know, a decent amount of minutes with Mala watch. And then he plays next to guys like Luke Kinnard and I don't know, we're sheer Fleming. It doesn't really matter who the other guy is. The point is you can put shooters around him, space the floor out, five out and sort of let him attack. Right. But still it's a little bit like will there be defenses that if that's the sun strategy that are just happy to be like, okay, we're going to let Jalen green get his 30 points because we know he's not going to pass out to to shooters. And sometimes that will be the strategy and it's on Jalen to prove the scouting report wrong in those cases to prove that he's not as one dimensional as other teams think he is right now because right now that's what the scouting report says is that this is a one dimensional player. Yeah. It's essentially the difference between a star guard or a six man. And he has to separate himself from the guys who can be a six man, the Malik monks,

23:04if you will, and become something closer to what a star can be. And it's hard to envision that based on what we've seen of his career so far. When you look at the line up data, when calling Gillespie, Devin Booker, Jalen greener on the floor, the best of that is when Gillespie and Booker on the floor without Jalen green, that's plus seven net rating. When Booker and green are on the floor without Gillespie, it's still plus 5.8. When all three of them were on the floor, it was plus 6.8. And no Devin Booker and Gillespie and green playing together, which was 256 minutes. So quite a bit of minutes. It was plus 1.6. So not very good. And you know, Devin Booker makes the biggest difference of all these guys. Of course, that makes sense. Yeah. Only 50 still okay though. There's only 55 minutes of Jalen green without the other two guys. And it was minus 14.8 net rating. It's very small amount of minutes, but I was trying to look at it to see if there's anything there. And it's really, really tough to look at any of the light of day. There's a reason there's only 55 minutes of this, I guess, is the way to think about it.

24:05And it's not to say it's easy for any player to play without another playmaker. It's always better to play with another playmaker. But I was just curious what the team looked like when, you know, the entire offense was sort of placed on Jalen green shoulders and it's not. It's not good. And that's not a surprise. It's not really that guy right now. But more of that is what he needs. He has to get better at running an offense. If he wants to have the ball on his hands enough to shoot 15 to 16 times because at this point of his career, if you want somebody, do you have multiple guys on this team that can shoot a lot that can't pass and it's Dylan Brooks and it's Jalen green. And there's a case to be made based on the stats that if you want one of those guys to shoot a ton of times without passing, it's going to be Dylan Brooks because he's making a lot of those shots. And whether or not that continues next season will be kind of an interesting test, especially with the changes on the roster and maybe some of the young guys actually getting some more minutes for this team. But but Jalen green has so much more with the ball in his hands as far as dribbling and

25:06like getting to spots on the floor than Dylan Brooks could ever do. So like as far as like seeing a version of one of those two guys who could improve their playmaking, it's obviously Jalen green because you play make with your feet first and Jalen green can move his feet a lot better and a lot faster than Dylan Brooks can. So it's just I don't know like for me, when we talk about the confidence and their ability to prove I have zero confidence that he can improve his playmaking. I really do. I think he could get a lot better at his efficiency. He had a career worst year in efficiency, probably likely because of the injuries last year, you know, only 30 something games or whatever. So I do think that can get a lot better, which is something he can improve on. But I really don't have a lot of confidence or faith that the playmaking is going to take any sort of leap at any point of his career. It's hard. Is floor vision like kind of that skill that we're talking about there is that arguably the most you either have it or you don't skill in the NBA. I think that like just there are certain things where when you're trying to project like even

26:09a guy coming out of college, what can he improve on? You know, maybe he has great athleticism, but we're talking about like, yeah, how do we give him more tools? How do we give him more skills? Yeah. And there's certain things that you can just like if a guy has no jump shot, okay, we'll rebuild his jump shot. But if a guy has never shown the capacity to try and like involve his teammates in the AAU level or high school or college or whatever, right? It or NBA in Jalen Green's case. It's just like there are some skills where it's like how how do you even how do you even build that once a guy gets to 25 or 24 or 25 years old? Is it possible to bring it out of someone? I debar to Rosen. Yeah, that's that's a decent example. Yannis? You know, like, no, I feel like Yannis. Yannis came. I feel like Yannis, I'd have to look. I feel like it sort of just grew organically out of like him dribbling the ball more and

27:12like changing roles from a guy who like wasn't trusted with the ball in his hands to suddenly he could dribble without turning it over five times a game. Those are like the only two guys that had like dramatic increases of playmaking over the course of their careers and and it just it's just a rare thing. It's just a rare thing. It's not to say that there must be more, but it's a rare thing for. Well, players do get better. It's just dramatic leaps in playmaking are very rare are very rare. I think that's that's probably more than more so than even like shooting. There's like, there's example a lot of examples of guys who just got way better at shooting throughout their career and a lot less examples of guys who just got way better at passing the ball. It's often and that's why it's very predictable who's going to be good at passing in the NBA and who's not right. And that's why I would say again, like if we're talking about like what can Jalen, like how or where it already sort of in the confidence conversation, but last year, it had true shooting percent in the career low, 52% sure shooting. But I really do think there's a world where Jalen just plays much more efficient basketball

28:14this year. He just makes more threes. He takes more easier threes, maybe from the corner. He gets to the rim more by virtue of like playing with a stretch big or playing with oh, so, et cetera. And maybe it's true shooting gets up to 56, 57%. I do think that's entirely, you know, possible. But probably without the playmaking leap that people would hope for, it would probably still be like he's averaging 20 points. He's averaging three assists per game. He's definitely more efficient. But yeah, if he suddenly started averaging five or six assists per game, then it would be massive cause for all of us to celebrate because we'd be seeing something pretty, um, pretty unheard of. It would be great. And I do think he could be a difference maker, um, next year and be a positive impact to the suns, even without like a dramatic increase in playmaking, but nothing would affect the suns in a more positive way than if he did have a dramatic, uh, improvement of his playmaking next year.

29:15So that would be a really great thing for the suns. And I hope it's something that can happen, even just a slight increase where he's, you know, five assists a game to two and a half turnovers would be really nice, uh, to see, uh, for him next year, that would be very helpful, very beneficial for the suns. Even if it comes at a decrease of the amount of shots he's taking, I think that would be totally fine. It would benefit the suns more positively. But you know, like a lot of this, that's sort of say for the suns this year and then for his time in, uh, Houston, where it's just like, it's hard to make the case that they wouldn't be exactly the same if they were to give a lot of other guys the same opportunity that they're giving Jaylen Green, you know, in the same place. He has to separate himself from those groups by being dramatically better at something. It could by the way be defense. If he got much better at defense, which is something that guys can improve on over the course of their career more likely than even, uh, assists, uh, that could be one of the things that actually separates him. If he becomes someone who locks in defensively and has, and he's athletic, he's fast.

30:16He's not very strong. He tends to get pushed around and often loses his place defensively off the ball. But if he can lock in much better defensively, find ways to get into the passing lanes, you know, create some possessions for the team, that would be the type of thing that could help separate him from the pack as far as like these sort of mid efficiency volume shooting guards that exist in the NBA where you can make the case that maybe they'd be better off giving more of those shots to calling the last beer or something like that, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I do think he was pretty competent on defense for the record. We haven't really talked about it. Just the fact that the defense didn't fall off when he played. It's taken about the same spot. But yeah, he could be much better. It did technically get worse. You know, by like half a point or something, I looked at him. Yeah, it's not, it doesn't stand out much because like the guys who are like shooting guards that played power forward for the suns always look worse like Gray Snellan and Roy Sonya. Like those guys are always going to look worse as far as like the on off stats when it comes to defense because they are playing out of position. But for him, yeah, it was a little bit worse, but not a lot worse.

31:18You're right. Anything else on Jaylen Green? I don't think so. I guess there is still a group of like Jaylen Green truthers out there. I obviously wouldn't help myself among them. I hope they're right. I hope they can dunk on this podcast specifically next year because I really want them to be right. I would love to see, by the way, some great dunks from Jaylen Green this year, just like hyping up the crowd. That would be fun to see. I feel like we didn't get that much in his limited time. But obviously he was still kind of easing himself back in. And yeah, I guess my final assessment is like, you know, there's a world, by the way, where Jaylen Green is like a contributing sun for a long time. I think I'm just saying a lot wouldn't need to change for him to be doing that and also making 35 million dollars. Like I'm not saying this because I hate Jaylen Green. I'm critiquing Jaylen Green because I want to help him. Jaylen Green, I want to help you make another $200 million in your NBA career.

32:23But a lot needs to change for you to get to get to that level, man. Just going to point out that a few years ago when Deandre was on a max contract and still on the sun's, Sam said, if Deandre doesn't fix these things, his next contract might be a minimum contract. And you were so close to being right. You were so close to being right. He ended up getting like eight million from the Lakers or something, right? Yeah. So not a minimum. But people were mad at you when you sent that to and you were right. You were essentially right. In my opinion, you were right. That contract was still too much for him. It should have been. Okay. Last thing I'll say to tie it back to something we were saying about Jaylen. We were always so frustrated with Deandre. It was like he just does not have the force. Ironically, that was the whole thing with Monte Williams that played with force. Like he does not have the wherewithal to put the ball on the floor, like dribble the basketball and just like shove it down someone's throat. And that's another one of those skills that I'm now firmly convinced you either have

33:27or you don't. Right? Like if a prospect is coming out of college and they're just like afraid to face the basket and attack it, I now recognize that that should just be something you can instantly see in someone. And like either they're going to have it or they're not going to because that was so obviously the case with Deandre. But yeah, with Jaylen, that version of what we're talking about is the playmaking. Show button here. Football season is finally back. And prize picks is bringing out their best offer yet. New users who sign up will get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. That's right. If you win your first $5 lineup, you'll get $150 in lineups. And prize picks, you simply pick two to six players, pick more or less on their staff projections and submit your lineup. Then sweat it out as you watch your picks play out live. It's the best way to get more locked in on game day. Make all the picks you want. This football season, all in the same app. Also, prize picks is going crazy with the deals to start the football season, giving

34:30users a new promo every day during stack September. And now, prize picks is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Back in for kickoff because everyone and everything is on prize picks. What you want? Download the app today and use code BlueWire to get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, run your game. Stop wasting your nights on a mattress that doesn't get you. Experience the most comfortable mattress in the world. The sleep number smart bed. At the touch of a button, you can personalize your comfort. Use firmer or softer. Adjust cooler to warmer. And right now, save up to $2500 during our massive Labor Day event. Hurry into your local sleep number store today because we have your number. You've heard us talk about alchemy roast before, but if you still haven't tried them, consider this your reminder. One of the things I appreciate about alchemy is that they're focused on the coffee itself.

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36:35On prize picks, you simply pick two to six players, pick more or less on their staff projections and submit your lineup. Then sweat it out as you watch your picks play out live. It's the best way to get more locked in on game day. Make all the picks you want. This football season, all in the same app. Also, prize picks is going crazy with the deals to start the football season, giving users a new promo every day during stack September. And now, prize picks is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff because everyone and everything is on prize picks. What you want? Download the app today and use code BlueWire to get $150 instantly in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, run your game. This podcast episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies.

37:35The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Central savings will vary, not available in all states. Okay, we have three other guys to talk about here. Colin Gillespie, Mark Williams, and Jordan Goodwin. Who would you like to cover next? Let's go Mark Williams because I actually don't know if this is the case. Colin Gillespie may have played more minutes. In fact, I'm sure he did play more minutes in Mark Williams last year. But Mark Williams was a starter and Mark Williams for anyone who is not a patron. Didn't get to hear us talk about the Mark Williams injury in the past few days. I think he's top of mind for everyone. Yes. Mark Williams, it sucks that he's injured. Don't get me wrong, but we did have a conversation on our Patreon that we can just briefly touch on here about how it opens up minutes for Come on, Molo Watch and Osuikidaro.

38:38I personally was even if Mark Williams played this year and was fine to start the season to me. He was third string still. And it wasn't about how he played last year entirely. It's more about Come on, Molo Watch and what the future of the sun's team is and how important it is to give him an opportunity after he's played so well in summer league and improved dramatically by the end of the season. We covered that on the Come on, Molo Watch episode. Feel free to listen to that if you want to hear some of my thoughts on that. Yeah, it's still not good for the sun to lose any depth because their depth is put one of their main strengths. But yes, Mark Williams, 7, 1, 240 pounds. I think it's important to remember how huge he is too because we talk about how huge Come on, Molo Watch is too. And last season, he played a total, let's see, of 1400 minutes, which was the most he's ever played in his career and then was injured, played 60 games total. Obviously going to miss five months at least to start this season. He averaged 11 points per game, eight rebounds on a per minute basis, not his best rebounding

39:42season that we've seen of him. But when I ask you, Sam, who is Mark Williams, what's your answer? I think an effective vining zeter. You know, I don't think anyone was really like, wowed with Mark Williams and what he did in, say, 24, 25 minutes of game last year. But I think everyone can agree that he was just competent. He brought like a soothing level of competence to the center position for the suns. He ensured that they just weren't a total joke of a roster when it came to rebounding. That's like his number one absolute a skill and low key one thing. Kind of worried about because like a torn labor in your shoulder that, that just seems like it would be important to rebounding for me. So the biggest thing for Mark Williams is just to get healthy and come back five months from now and still be able to like affect the game at the things we've been able to trust him to do, like rebounding. He was a really good rebender.

40:43But yeah, just like really good transition finisher. The defensive stats with him weren't very good and the rim protection in particular was disappointing. I think a lot of that is why the two of us were sort of harping on like Mala watch needs to play this year because Mala watch looked a lot more promising in that role. But even so, like I even post injury. I don't think the sun's extending Mark Williams for another three years was some terrible decision. I just want him to be able to come back and play some sort of role where he's not dead money. He needs to not be 13 million additional dollars of dead money on their salary cap because Lord knows I can't afford it. He, yeah, when he played of the three centers that played last year, he had the worst defensive rating. So the suns were at their worst by far of the three.

41:43Yeah, by far worst defensively when he played, but he also was not so also a guitar was the best in both of those stats, right? He was the best defensive, the best offensive rating of the three centers that actually, no, I'm sorry, come on Mala watch had a better defensive rating actually, but just such a small amount of minutes that it's hard to really factor in how much that means. But the defense was worse when he played compared to the other centers on the court, but the thing that really stuck out to me as far as how he played last year was how much he ran. And he actually did have a positive effect on the pace for the suns when he played the suns played at their fastest pace. He had the like largest impact on pace of any player on the suns. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it is cool. And like he deserves credit for that because it was visible. It made a difference. It opened up shots from people at the rim, but it opened up a lot of threes in transition when he just ran down the court and then players sunk down into the paint with him because they were so afraid of a lob or a dunk by Mark Williams in transition. And that opened up threes for guys like Royce O'Neill and Grayson Allen and Colin

42:46Lesby and Devon Booker. And that mattered. And it mattered when he played that he did that because it's entirely effort based and conditioning based. And he did it pretty consistently. And I appreciate that about him. He is a good rebounder. Did not have his best rebounding season last year. And yes, you're right that the torn labor is a concern as far as the future of this. And we were talking about this. He's probably not going to play much games for the suns next year. We can just factor that into this. If we're talking about how he can improve getting that rebound percentage up to being one of the better rebounders per minute in the NBA would have a dramatic impact on the rest of his career. I do think what he showed us last year is that if he's a starting center, he would probably be number 30 or 29. I don't think he'd be numbered. Yeah, I don't think he'd be number 30. It would be in the top two thirds. Let's say that. There are some bum centers who play 20 minutes a game. But yeah, he's definitely not in the top two thirds. He's somewhere in the 20 to 30 range. I think everyone realises that.

43:46Where he sits. And what he was was one of the bottom third of the starting centers or like he would be a good backup center. If you had him as a backup center, that's what he'd be good at. He's paid at about the rate of a good backup center now. And I think that's about where he deserves to be contract wise. And I think the expectations for him probably should be something like that. Like I said, he's healthy. Once again, I do not think he should start. I would rather see. I would rather see Oh, so in there, that's where I'm leaning. And it's not the best for every match in the NBA, but he's the best of the three centers. And and he has the biggest positive impact on the guys that would be playing in that starting lineup. Jalen Green, Devin Booker, whoever else you want to talk about. He has the best, most positive impact of that. But then come on, Malow, it should be coming off the bench form because that's the future. That's the future. So you know, with Mark Williams, he can do things that improve. Sam, I know you want to say it. Can he shoot threes? Yes. That's exactly where I wanted to go. That's what I looked up.

44:47Are you going to let me get on my soapbox? Oh, yeah. Or do you have the stats? I think if Mark, so if Mark Williams keeps going at his current trajectory and he's just like a really good finisher, a good rebounder, but an iffy defender, like not really much of a difference maker at least, then he's going to have a difficult time when he comes back from injury, clawing minutes back away from Malowach and also he just is. And so maybe that forces a situation where he's like, you know, not really a piece of the sun's future anymore, right? But one thing that could save him, the curve ball, since I was saying he's an innings eater, make a more baseball references. The thing that could save Mark Williams is what if he just broke Lopez himself at this point in his career? And if he really locks in over the next five months and just becomes a volume three point shooter, do you think there's any chance that this could happen? Mike, I wouldn't rule it out. No, I wouldn't. Here's what. There's guys who do it that you don't expect. Channing Fry was the original guy that you just didn't expect, you know, and so it happens

45:48sometimes. First of all, Mark Williams made a three last year. He only attempted one three and he made it. I will just say that percentage wise, the best three point shooter on the sun. Yes. But also, you know, people always say that free throw shooting is the thing that correlates with your ability to be a three point shooter the most. And Mark Williams now, after the last two seasons, he shot 80% from the free throw line his last year in Charlotte. And then he shot 77% last year with the suns. So that's a couple straight years of not consecutive years of free throw improvement, but two straight good free throw shooting years to where the point to the point where his career figure for free throw shooting is now 76%. That's good for a seven footer. 76% is good. I looked up the stat also using stat head similar to how you did with Jalen Green. Here's what I looked at for Mark Williams on stat head 14 centers last year in the NBA made at least 100 free throws on at least 75% free throw shooting.

46:48Okay. 14 centers. Mark Williams, of course, was one of them of them. Only Mark Williams and Jonas Valentinus, so two of the 14 centers, those were the only two who didn't take at least one three point attempt per game. All of the other 12 guys who made at least 100 free throws, so some level of minutes volume on at least 75% free throw shooting. All the other guys were taking at least one three per game. And of those 12, only one of those centers didn't shoot at least 30% from three. When you guess who that center was, the center who took at least one three per game at less than 30%, the only one in the NBA to also not nick Richards to also shoot well as a free throw shooter, I should say, which makes this kind of hard. I don't know. It is Derek Queen, the rookie. We would not have guessed that. But that's more of a you have the green light thing than anything else.

47:48Oh, for sure. And I think Derek Queen, his percentage will hopefully improve. But most of the other guys in that range, you know, I mean, you had your, I don't know, Yokeches and Carl Anthony Towns and guys who are like, you know, just chucking chucking and making a ton of them. But then most of those guys were in like the 33 to 35% range. And statistically, I don't know what Mark Williams three point release looks like in practice. I don't even know if it's something that he's like taking in practice or in scrimmage. But I just know these stats say or suggest that his peers who can also make their free throws are doing this in game and are making threes in game. And I just, I have to believe that somewhere in there is like a 33% three point shooter. Now you could say, is that enough to justify him taking the shot? Because this is always the given take when you decide to bring a center out to the top of the key and officially run a five out offense, you're taking away a lot threat. And you're taking away specifically and Mark Williams, a really good lob threat who's

48:50going to shoot like, you know, 60 to 70% whenever at the rim, which on a point per shot basis is way more efficient than 33% from the top of the key or whatever he could shoot. But the difference could potentially be made up in all of that additional space and the additional driving lanes and how the other players like Devon Booker, Jaylen Green could take advantage of those driving lanes. So I don't know, I just, I think the calculus of it is interesting like I'm sure the analytics guys and the sons have thought of this and maybe they could go either way. But for Mark Williams's career, it's just about finding, you know, another separator, finding something that separates him from other guys. If it's, if he's not going to separate himself as a rim protector and it certainly looks that way, then he needs to find other stuff. And I think this could maybe be it. I'm just really curious if he locked in in a closed gym over the next five months and just like what I mean, it's going to take him like three months before he can even shoot a basketball probably or two months. But then if he just shoots 5,000 threes, what would happen?

49:51I'm really curious to know. Was his left shoulder at least, you know, he's right handed. So maybe he can get in the gym and start working on one handed three pointers for a while just to really get the rhythm down. Yeah, it's, it's one of those things where you're right. A separator is a good way to say he needs to find something to separate himself from where where do you stand on the whole like, you know, four out and I know like basketball is dynamic and a guy doesn't stand in the same spot on the court all the time. But like the four out offense with a really good lob threat center versus a legit five out, you know, floor spacing center. If you could run your ideal offense or kind of build a roster towards like what you think is the perfect spacing convention. Do you have a horse in that race? Well, let's think about the previous few NBA champions. They all had it. They all had an opportunity or a version of their lineups where they could go five out.

50:52I think in the NBA, you have to have that in the future where Victor Wimbanyama is the guy that's in the paint. You kind of need it more than ever. If that's the guy that you're facing now, the sons of course aren't at the level where that's going to be as big of a problem. But if they ever want to get there, you have to have something to counter that. And one of the only ways to counter that would be first of all pull up threes by guards, which the sons are also struggled to do. And then the other one would be having a big who can bring him out of the paints a little bit and force them to defend a little differently. And yeah, I think a five out. I mean, the Pacers went to the NBA finals by having that as an option. The nicks of course have that as an option with Carlisle and TNT and went to it regularly. We know the Celtics with Porzingus had that as an option. You know, it's just we know the warriors, of course, the other example. It's just something that teams have that they that they good teams. I should say great teams always have an option to do that. And the sons have in Devon Booker's career, the closest they ever got to that was either

51:56Dario Sharj or Aaron Baines. And they have had nothing else. So, you know, I would really like to see it. I would really like to see what Devon Booker looks like with four guys around him who could shoot threes. And one of those big enough to get a rebound. There's a big difference between like, you know, Carl Anthony Towns or Victor Wembudyama who were, you know, shooting 37 38% on like heavily contested threes from 28 feet out versus like town specifically is insane versus Mark Williams who, you know, I'm asking him to shoot 33% on a wide open shot. And the worry is if he can't even do that, then it's like he can stand out there all you want. No one's going to guard him. And so it doesn't actually do anything for your offense. So there's a fine line to where a guy really has to achieve a certain level of shooting talent to make it worth it for your offense. And it's hard to ask Mark Williams to try and buy into that and really sacrifice other elements of his game. But I do think it could take him to the next level of everything panned out.

52:57Here's what I'll say. Him becoming a three point shooter would be awesome. The best way for him to have a positive impact on the future of his careers to get better at the rim defensively. I haven't lost all the faith that that's something that's possible. But that would be the thing because he just wasn't good at the rim as a defender last year and hasn't really had a lot of great stats throughout his career. He tends to chase blocks a little bit and often is out of position as far as being a little too deep in the paint which opens up floaters. Guys tend to hit floater. Wait you to him a lot. Way too deep with him like the too deep in the paint thing was so consistent because he's not slow. Like he's not slow. He's not unethletic. So it really just is positioning like what else is there as to a reason. Yeah, I don't want to. I'm too. Mark's vertical. I think his verticality is pretty good too when he gets in those positions and has to you know keep his body vertical.

53:57So he's got the other fundamentals. It's his feet. His feet are he's consistently two feet too deep into the paint and then he just he can't get back into position fast enough to contest a shot. I think that's I think we wrapped up Mark Williams there right. Everything else. Yeah, he's going to be broke. Lopez next year when it comes back. What if he comes back for 20 games in March and April and just rip off a hundred threes just like that. It'd be amazing. It'd be like one of the most miraculous changes in a career in history of the NBA because 103s is a lot in what would be like 30 games. Show button here football season is finally back and prize picks is bringing out their best offer yet. New users who sign up will get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. That's right. If you win your first $5 lineup you'll get $150 in lineups.

55:00On prize picks you simply pick two to six players pick more or less on their staff projections and submit your lineup. Then sweat it out as you watch your picks play out live. It's the best way to get more locked in on game day. Make all the picks you want this football season all in the same at also prize picks is going crazy with the deals to start the football season giving users a new promo every day during stack September and now prize picks is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff because everyone and everything is on prize picks. What you want? Download the app today and use code blue wire to get one of your $50 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. Prize picks run your game. This podcast episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket.

56:04Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary not available in all states. Do you hear that? That's how it means that summer is officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, Mid-Mobile has a better tree. Every plan including unlimited is $15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture does anywhere have any cash. Give it a try at minmoble.com slash switch. A front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12-plank plan required $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes me slow when network is busy. See terms. Hey, it's Kelly Rolla. You may not know this, but I have eczema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about eczlas? Eczlas, Lebrichezema, LBKZ, a 250-mg per 2-mg leader injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 pounds

57:08or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Eczlas can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to eczlas. A allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have newer worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with eczlas. Before starting eczlas, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Pay partnership with Lily. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about eczlas and visit eczlas.com or call 1-800-LilyRX or 1-800-545-5979. Call and glass me or Jordan. Call and glass me. Call and glass me. Well, if we do Jordan Goodwin, we get to end with call and glass me. Okay, let's see. We can do Jordan Goodwin. Okay. Let me start here. Jordan Goodwin was the, if you were to rank the best players on the sun's last year,

58:12where did Jordan Goodwin rank? In terms of talent or impact. Best players. Best players. Okay. The best players. Just last season. Uh-huh. The best players on the sun's, okay, how about this? Players who contributed to winning last year on the sun's Jordan Goodwin is top five. I think so. Players who you like put in a vacuum and think like this guy can win one on one to 11 points. Like obviously Jordan Goodwin is like 13th at that point. But yeah, like he, he really to help the sun's win a hell of a lot of basketball games. If the philosophy was, are we answering like, who is Jordan Goodwin right now? So if the philosophy of the sun's last year was we are going to maximize possessions because we recognize that we don't have the talent to beat other teams. So we need to give ourselves more chances to score than than they have. And that's how we're going to rip games out of their hands.

59:13That was a sun strategy. Jordan Goodwin exemplifies that like no one else. He was 99th percentile in deflection, 6.2 deflections per 75, 99th percentile, 3.3 offensive rebounds per 75 possessions that was 100th percentile among guards in the NBA, which I think literally just means he was the best guard in the NBA at offensive rebounding. He saved them possessions both offensively and defensively. Like no one else, no one else can do what this guy does. I mean, and we've seen hustle guys before with the sun's obviously right. Like we're not stranger to these types of players. We've applauded. I don't know, Javon Carter. Colin Gillespie. Colin Gillespie's and give me other examples. There have been other examples. DJ Tucker. Yeah, sure. PJ Tucker and Kogi. Oh, Josh Kogi. That's a great one. Yeah. Like, okay, there are guys like a Javon Carter and Josh Kogi who are fun in this way and like have some really great highlights.

1:00:14Those guys weren't doing what Jordan Goodwin did last year. Like Jordan Goodwin took that archetype and maxed it out. He truly maxed out what was possible of just taking a six foot three guard and saying, go get the basketball, go and kill everyone else on the court and get to the basketball before they can get to the basketball. Just a pure delight to watch. In that way. Third on the Suns and Vorp. That's so fucking stupid. That's really after Colin Gillespie and Devon Booker. Colin Gillespie number one, by the way. Vorp is not a perfect stat. Don't get me wrong, but I just think it's fun to look at it. He's tied with Grayson Allen and Roy Soe Niel. Two guys traded, by the way, for third, 1.5 Vorp last season. The reigning timeline Dan Marley Hussleplayer of the year of the week of the year award winner. He won last year. He snatched it from Colin Gillespie in fact, as a guy who didn't even play the first few weeks of the season and then came in and took that award directly from him.

1:01:20He is a guy who I think his career has really had a boon from the fact that he makes threes now. Oh, for sure. You know, it's like so huge. We talk about it with Josh Kogie. Like, if he can make threes, if he can make threes, which he occasionally makes wide open corner threes or whatever, but good one is different. In fact, good one shoots 35% from the corners and 38% from above the break. Yeah. That's so huge to have a guy who not only can shoot threes now, but doesn't have to just stand in the corner and shoot wide open threes. And he's shooting pull up threes. He shot 59 pull up threes last year. Only shot him at 32%. But that's a valuable shot still just because of the pressure it puts in transition on defenses and the green light to do it just makes teams a little more panicky when he catches the ball at the top of the key in general. And he said it. He was on a podcast in the middle of the season. It was the old man and the three feed, whatever that it's called now.

1:02:22He said it. Jordan is telling him to shoot those threes. Shoot it. When you're open, pull up shoot it. Those threes are yours now. This is a different time of your career. This team is yours now. Jordan Goodwin. Yeah. The future of the suns is in your hands. And with Goodwin, it's one of those things where like when you're talking about these guys and maybe this will be the case when we talk about Colin Gillespie too, but when you're talking about Mark Williams and Jalen Green or come on, Mollawatro, we're sheer Fleming or Ryan Dunn, there's like so much left on the table for those guys. Goodwin, no scraps. Like it's actually hard to say how he can improve. He kind of feels like he maximized what he could do last year and like confidently and say he could do more. It's not to say he's perfect. There's a lot of things he could be better at, but it just feels like a guy who said, here's the things I'm good at. I'm going to maximize all of them. And then he did 100% I mean, first of all, let's point out the fact. So Goodwin doesn't have a ton of NBA years of experience, you know, just like everyone

1:03:26else were talking about on this episode, but he is almost 28 years old already. So you're not going to get like a sudden burst of athleticism from this guy in his year 28 season. Similarly, his rebounding is just not going to get better because it can't. Because it's insane. It's already so good. His ability to like be an interceptor defensively or a point of attack defender. Again, you're right. He's already maxed that out. Maybe corner threes is an interesting area that you could circle there because you're pointing out like most guys, he's, he's an interesting inverse of the typical situation. Usually because the corner three is the shortest shot. You'll have a guy who's an iffy shooter and he shoots 40% on corner three is in like 32% above the break. In fact, we talked about that the last two weeks with both Ryan Dunn and reshare Fleming are two guys who fit that. That's it's actually just as an example, Jalen Green shot 43% from the corners, but 27% from the top of the key. So yeah. And and with Jalen, you know, shot selection and shot difficulty is part of it too, but, but for sure,

1:04:31I think that does apply to him as well with good win. If he's, if he can keep consistently shooting above 35 on above the break threes and lift his corner percentage to something more in line with what you'd see from an elite shooting role player. Yeah, like 40. Yeah. Like maybe, I mean, he already shot 37% from deep last year. Maybe you can get that to 40. Yeah. Do you imagine a season of Jordan Goodwin legitimately shooting 40% from deep on several attempts and being an awesome rebounder and awesome defender? That's just like, I don't want to, I don't want to overly pick on Jalen Green in this episode. But when you think about the fact that Goodwin just signed an extension where he's making six million dollars a year and what he's bringing to the table for the sons for six million dollars a year versus what Jalen Green is doing at 36 million. That's kind of the tough pill to swallow, right? When you're deciding who should be playing more minutes. So yeah, it's, it's, it's hard to, it's hard with Goodwin because what I would really

1:05:31like to see out of him is, can you just give me something inside? Like, I don't expect him to be a playmaker. I expect him to not turn the ball over like to have decent instincts with the ball in his hands, but I don't expect him to be a real playmaker in like a point card situation. But I do wonder just like, you know, now that you've become a better three point shooter, now that you're even entrusted by Jordan out to take pull up threes, can you leverage the, the slight amount of gravity that you're getting now and get to the rim a little bit more often. Like give us something at the rim. He shot 55% on layups last year at the rim, which is not good. And if he could just have a little bit more of a balanced shot profile where it's a little bit more inside outside versus just outside, then that would be another way for him to improve. Just going to read a selection of tweets that I had about Jordan Goodwin this year. Just to really signify when we're talking about who he is, just how much he, he, he meant to me last

1:06:34year, Jordan Goodwin was the best player in the Bradley Beale trade. Donovan Mitchell is just bad Jordan Goodwin. We have to do everything we can to keep Jordan Goodwin and Colin Gillespie next season. This was from February 11th. I said, okay, now leave Jordan Goodwin in the starting lineup for the rest of the season. From February 21st, sometimes Jordan Goodwin is just the best suns player. Sometimes he is on night's watch 12th. Jordan Goodwin is a center now. Yeah. If Devon Booker had like a five for 18 shooting night, then there was a decent chance that Jordan Goodwin was the best player that night. March 31st saved me Jordan Goodwin in the gift of the guy holding his hands up. And then April 17th, Jordan Goodwin is my favorite player. This is what Jordan Goodwin did for me. And it says something about him. It says something about the suns as well and just how desperately they needed some of the stuff that he did for them. And then when he was hurt because he only played 70 games, he missed some of the games towards the end of the season.

1:07:38They looked worse and then he was hurt and going into the playoffs. Yeah, what are the what are the net rating stats here? Say, do you have those on hand by any? I did. They were they were like positive for him, but they weren't like overly positive. Let me bring it up here. Net rating. Let me filter by games played because otherwise you see like Isaiah livers and CJ Huntley at the top of this. Maybe 30 games or so. And he was one, two, three, four, fifth. And I think that's about when you're trying to say like best player on the suns. That's about where he probably was last year as far as important players on the suns. But reshare Fleming was number one, which I think you could even write the reshare Fleming minutes off to because those are in short little bursts. But outside of that, Oso I guitar, Devon Booker, Colin Gillespie and Jordan Goodwin, which I think is the order that you really have to think about this team. Oso I guitar being that he's a center. So he only plays at the same time as no other centers. So he was the best of the three centers. Those guys often rise to the top of these lists. That outside of that, it's Devon Booker, Colin Gillespie, Jordan Goodwin.

1:08:40So positive, positive impact. I mean, specifically defensively, of course, but even the offense doesn't get terrible when he plays to thank God that they brought back both him and Gillespie, just like you were saying and for for not that much money, man. I mean, especially in the case of Goodwin. I'm really excited that he's back. I look, there was some belief when he came into the NBA that he can shoot mid-range shots. I don't want him to. That's not it. It's not who he is. Like you can say that's where he can improve. I don't care. Like I guess if the shot clock's winding down or whatever, like he can take a few of those. I just don't think that's what he is. I'd rather see him shoot a pull up three and then chase the offense rebound. And like I look, this is who he is. If we could do exactly the same thing. This coming season as he did last season, that would be great. You know what I mean? I would feel pretty great about that. Yeah. I think with this one, it's just like sort of acknowledging technically he is young enough that he could improve and that would be just more of a cherry on top. It would be. But if he's just exactly, if he's just exactly this player for three more seasons at six

1:09:42million a year, then that's an incredible value. Yeah. And you know, he's got a little bit of juice with the ball where he can make some plays occasionally for other guys. But that's not something I expected him either. You know, if he does a little bit more of that, another cherry on top, just like he said, other than that, I think he is in, you know, pole position, if you will, to win another timeline, Dan Marley, Husza player of the year of the week of the year award next year. I think he's the guy to beat next year. That's a good point. I mean, I don't think anyone else off the top of my head, there's no one else with the suns brought in. Yeah, Rochelle will. Rochelle is another guy who could get who could win. I think next year, but like of the other guys they brought in this summer, right? Miles Bridges, Luke Canard and co-op Pete. I mean, I don't, I don't really see any of those three guys as competing for that award. So I think it's going to, going to be good wins to lose again. I really thought Brooks was going to win at the beginning of last year, though. And then good one just snatched it. So you really never know other guys can show up and do things you don't expect. But good one was obvious that he could have done that, but I just didn't expect him to be so good that he had to be played the whole season.

1:10:44Like he had to be played and then earned the starting spot by the playoffs and started the games and the playoffs. So, you know, excited to see Jordan Goodwin. I don't have much else to say anything else. Don't think so. Show button here. Football season is finally back. And prize picks is bringing out their best offer yet. New users who sign up will get $150 in lineups. If you win your first $5 lineup, that's right. If you win your first $5 lineup, you'll get $150 in lineups on prize picks. You simply pick two to six players, pick more or less on their staff projections and submit your lineup. Then, sweat it out as you watch your picks play out live. It's the best way to get more locked in on game day. Make all the picks you want. This football season, all in the same app. Also, prize picks is going crazy with the deals to start the football season, giving users a new promo every day during stack September. And now, prize picks is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff.

1:11:44Because everyone and everything is on prize picks. What you want? Download the app today and use code BlueWire to get $150 in lineups. If you win your first $5 lineup, prize picks run your game. This podcast episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates potential savings will vary, not available in all states. Calling Gillespie. Villain Jr. Villain Jr. The very very first junior on basketball reference now. Not sure how long that's been there. It is he is the player of the initial, the inaugural, if you will, winner of the timeline's

1:12:50Dan Marley, hustle player of the year of the week of the year award. So another hustle player. We're talking about who he is. Now here's my favorite stat and then I'll let you talk about him. Last year calling Gillespie shot 50% from the left corner and 48% at the rim. He shot better from the left corner than he did at the rim last season and that really solidifies who calling Gillespie was for the suns last year and somehow he turned that into being maybe the second most important player for the suns last year. And I'm not at all explain why more, but I'll talk to you about it first. I'll let you go above, above Dylan Brooks. It's just the net rating number. I agree. Here's the stat I want to say when Devon Booker was on the floor last season without calling Gillespie. The suns were plus 1.8 net rating. When they were on the floor together, plus seven, he just had this huge impact on when

1:13:53the suns were good. And when he started struggling, the sun started struggling and that was not coincidence. Yeah. I mean, he just needs to be guarded from 25 feet out. He needs to be guarded from 40 feet out. Yeah. And he was at the bottom. And he was at a split second. He touched the ball. He had to be guarded out there. You could not leave him open. It really was really fun, really, really fun for the suns. They, they, they, they, they, they sons haven't had a player like this. Maybe ever, you know, obviously Steve Nash, but this is different. Obviously, this different, but like just a guy who's that kind of like off the ball, menace offensively. I don't know. I haven't had a guy like that. Off the ball. Really fun. Manace, off the ball, menace offensively. Now you're getting me thinking, I mean, they definitely have, right? Like, you know, a lot, I think if you think about Gillespie and here's, I don't want to get into improvements, he could make too fast here. But if you think of Gillespie almost as like a shooting guard on the suns, because that's basically what he is, unless of like a point guard, then you know, there have been guys in the past like Dan Marley, obviously Joe Johnson, you know, who are maybe kind of

1:14:55Rajabell, who are kind of maybe similar and kind of just being off screen shooters in a way that could, but, but Gillespie has a pull up element to his game that none of those guys had, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he started to, I mean, struggling with that. And that got way better as the season, you know, went on. And I remember we were vindicated because we had that conversation about him where at the time he was shooting like 24% on pull up threes. And we just said, yeah, never stop calling. Keep shooting them. They did. They did. Well, so Colin was just such a fun player to watch last year because, you know, I think we, we went into the season thinking this was a guy who's going to hustle his ass off. He had won the hustle award the year before. And like clearly he's going to score more than six points or whatever he did in his limited season with the suns because he just has that capacity to shoot off the ball. But I don't think either of us going into last year, like we didn't see that, okay, there's like a 15 to 20 point per game ceiling here.

1:15:57And he didn't get all the way there last year, right? He finished at like 13 points per game. You know, he wasn't always starting. He hit a wall in the second half of a season and his splits declined and all that. Yeah. And he was injured a little bit. But like, I think both of us recognize here that there's, he could, he could continue to go up in terms of his scoring volume. Now how much further can he go up in terms of his scoring efficiency? I think that's a really interesting question to try and gauge. But just in terms of volume, Gillespie's ability again, the fact that you have to guard him from everywhere or from anywhere, the only thing holding him back from like an 18 to 20 point per game season is just him having the confidence to take that many shots. And they get in the green light. He could 100% do it durability to, I think. And I say that knowing that he played the second most games for the suns last year. So I got to give him some credit there because he played through it. But you have to stay in shape and like healthy in order to continue making shots the way

1:16:59he was. And we saw it when he wasn't as healthy as he was to start the season where the shots stopped falling a little bit, but he still ended the season insanely efficient. So it's, it's, it is true that like expecting him to be more efficient than he was last season is probably pretty unlikely. If he continues to take the types of shots that he's taking, which is, you know, 57% true shooting, which is good. But like if he continued shooting like he wasn't the beginning of the season, that would have been over 60 pretty easily. It was just the top stretch where he missed, you know, there was one point where he missed like 24, three's in a row over the course of multiple games. And he was just really struggling to make some shots. Maybe it was less than that. I don't remember the exact number. But he was awesome last season. And you know, he's also on the podcast. It should shout that out too. Shout out calling the recipe being the first son active sons player to join us on the podcast. Very fun. Defensively, how do you feel about him defensively?

1:18:01Good. He competes. And they didn't give up anything easy when when he was on the floor defensively. Another good guy in terms of his like ability to be an interceptor and and and get deflections and whatnot. Is he a lockdown point of attack guy? No. Can he guard five positions? No. He might be able to guard three. I don't know. How do you feel about his defense? There's really no stat that says it's bad, which when you watch him play, you just think it would be bad. And this is not to say that he looks like a bad defender when he plays because he actually doesn't. He does compete. He has really great hands. And he's just not afraid to get in there. Like he will get caught on a switch sometimes and get punished on that switch. But oftentimes the switching that the sons are doing in that moment has a positive impact on the defense, even if he's getting picked on, which you know, sometimes it just changes the way teams plays to play to try to pick on the mismatch in a way that actually benefits

1:19:02the sons sometimes. And you know, that's not going to work against every team. There are going to be teams that punish that pretty harshly. In fact, the thunder, who the sons struggled with last season, they punished him more than any other team. They really, really took him to task and he struggled against them pretty consistently just because of their strength and length. And yeah, it's a good have that are going to are going to punish him a little bit more. It's a good point. He had a horrible playoff. Yeah. It was really effective in any of those four games, although how many of the sons really were, but but Colin in particular did now these being paid more will be expected to take on a bigger role against some of those elite teams in a way where, you know, the gap really starts to be felt with like his lack of size and athleticism in some of those situations. So that'll be interesting to monitor for sure. Mm hmm. Yeah. I agree. I think it's just one of those one of those things with him where he's small. You can't fix that.

1:20:03He's just the smallest guy who's going to get minutes on the sons and that means that he has physical limitations in the NBA that are going to impact him negatively against certain teams. And it's about finding the ways to maximize what he does in order to make his impact more positive than it was negative in those moments. And last year he did do that and the sons did that pretty regularly. Some of the advanced stats and look, once again, advanced stats are not perfect. Some of the advanced stats say he had a bigger impact on the team's ability to win less season than Devon Booker did. Now he clearly didn't. You know what this team is without Devon Booker? They're like a 18 win team. They would be really, really bad. But it just goes to show that when he played, the whole team played better throughout the entire season and he had a positive impact on it. What he does is not just shooting by the way, he has some scoring juice with the ball that helps him from mid range. He can get off little short jumpers. He's actually, in fact, the short mid range shots in particular, he's very, very good at

1:21:04he shoots them at it in the paint, but not in the restricted area. He's shooting at 47%. So he gets into the paint and he can score. Same as his layup. Yeah, exactly. It's like better. He just shoots that. Well, he can, so that's he can, that's a thing right? He passes to guys. He can get assists from that dribbling as well, which is very important for his team that is so desperate for that. Here's what I'll say about Collins playmaking, right? He is just, and maybe this is the Villanova in him or maybe that's not even giving him enough credit for who he is as a basketball player, but he's just another smart decision maker. He's always going to make the right play. Now he's not like a manipulative playmaker and the way that like Devon Booker is, right? But he's not going to turn the ball over. I think maybe that again, part of that comes down to a size like he doesn't really probably have the size or the strength to throw like crazy cross court passes or like, you know, some of the other passes that other star players can.

1:22:06But he's going to make the right read. For Collins to take the next step this year, we know that the shooting is going to be so good. He should have the green light at all times. Always be willing to take that shot. In order to balance that out a little bit, I'm not asking him to be a good finisher at the rim. He just will never be a good finisher at the rim by virtue of his size and whatnot. Can we be better than like worse? He's got to get better than that. He's got to get better than that because it's like, okay, now everyone on the scouting report knows that you're a shooter at all times and is going to be afraid of your shot. Can we leverage that to your advantage? And again, you don't need to be a 70% finisher at the rim, but I need you to shoot better than 50% on layups to have a fully well rounded offensive game that kind of allows you to take the next step and maybe be like a true starting level combo garden then be a for years to come. He absolutely has the talent to do it. But I think it's about finding the confidence and the right balance and again, not hitting

1:23:08that wall in the second half of the season. Maybe fatigue had had a part to play there as well. And he only shot 58 shots in the restricted area. So it's not like a huge sample size, but like that's less than one per game. He played 80 games, but it's not just that he has to make more, taking more would be nice to you're right, using the gravity to not just help other guys score, but help himself as well. I think would be really beneficial. He's a really good free throw shooter too, but he never gets to the free throw line, right? Like if you get fouled, you're an 87% free throw shooter, but he's never putting himself in that position. So we need a little bit more confidence out of his ability to attack to basket. And when you talk about that too, it's like the difference between him being like a good player and then him being like a you have to start him and play him all the time kind of player. Because if he adds those things to his game where now all of a sudden he's shooting closer to 60% at the rim and getting, you know, five free throws a game, that's 17, 18 points a game.

1:24:08I mean, then he's one now he's one step away from being Jalen Brunson at that point, you know? Right now, I'm not saying he will do that, but I'm saying if he added those things, then he could be that right now calling a lesbian to me, you know, a name that I've thrown out multiple times before is he's dangerously close to being in the Fred Van Vleet zone, where it's like, okay, this guy can like this guy small. We all recognize that he's small, but he just has to play a lot of minutes and he's going to play a lot of minutes and then be for the next decade. Fred Van Vleet actually did have one all star season, his last season with Toronto. I think part of that was because the Eastern Conference was a mess and I don't know, like they needed to put another person on the roster. But part of that was because that was the season I remember that Fred Van Vleet was like kind of taking layups and he was making layups, you know, normally that's another guy who's a really, really disasterously bad finisher. But if Colin can kind of scratch that that part off his game, then absolutely he could

1:25:11be a 20 point per game score. There's no doubt about it in my mind. I don't know if the next level beyond that, like I look at Colin and I'm like, this guy could score 20 points in an NBA game with NBA level defense and refereeing and all that. To get to the next level beyond that where he's like leading an NBA offense, I don't know if that's possible. That would be like really mind blowing. Yeah. I don't think it's likely at all. Just talking about confidence levels here. But like if he could continue doing the off ball shooting stuff that he was doing last season and even find ways to get more shots off if possible, maximizing the amount of time he plays with Osuukidaro would probably help that, which is tough because we keep saying that about everybody on this team. Everyone needs also. Jalen Green needs also Devon Booker needs also Colin Gillespie needs also. Well, guess what? One of those guys has to start. I personally, if I were coaching the sons once again, I would start Colin Gillespie and bring Jalen Green off the bench next season as early as next season. Now this is, it reflects my lack of faith in Jalen Green to be the guy that they kind of

1:26:14need him to be and giving him that opportunity, which the sons are up here to be poised to do for Jalen Green may end up being the right choice. It may end up being the right choice. But if we're going off of what happened last year and who had the biggest impact on winning, it was Colin Gillespie. And when Colin Gillespie plays with Devon Booker, he has the largest impact on making Devon Booker better and making the team better when the two of them play. And that's why when Jalen Green came back, Colin Gillespie continued to start. Now whether or not they start Colin Gillespie, Jalen Green and Devon Booker next year, I don't think so. I think they specifically traded for bridges so that they don't do that. And I'm not fully confident in that working. I think Colin Gillespie needs to play a lot of minutes for the sons next year if he plays anything like he did. This year and it's going to be interesting to see what decisions Jordan ought makes in order to get him onto the floor. Because to me, he played well enough to start. He played well enough to start.

1:27:15Yeah. I mean, if you just think about, think about it on day one, right? Let's think about opening night. So if Devon Booker and Jalen Green are going to start and we anticipate that those will be the starters on opening night, if both of those guys play 33 minutes, ish, that leaves you 15 open minutes at each position, right? That leaves you 30 open minutes at the reserve guard spots on night one. Now you could say all 30 minutes of those just go to Gillespie and he would deserve it. But then you're kind of cutting Jordan Goodwin who we were just talking about and praising and lauding. You're cutting him out of the rotation. You're sort of cutting Luke Kinnard out of the rotation who they just paid to get and who I think they're going to need to benefit from his spacing as well. So it's like, I don't know for Gillespie to play as much as we think he deserves to, which is close to 30 minutes per game. I don't know that there's a way for him to get there without Jalen Green, you know, being in the high 20s or something, right?

1:28:16Like, you can't have, or, or, of course, like if there's an injury, then that opens up a lot of minutes. But you can't have Jalen Green playing 36 minutes in congillespie playing 30 this season. That's just not going to happen. No, not based on last year. Like if something changes and, you know, the stats changed, then, then yeah, but like, right now congillespie scored less, five points less per game, but rebounded more, assisted more, got more steals higher, three point percentage, higher free throw percentage, higher effective field goal percentage, higher BPM, higher, more, like however you want to say, congillespie was better than Jalen Green, except for like, maybe field goal percentage because congillespie got so many trees. You know, just lost scoring total, you know? But, you know, the, the effective field goal percentage, the true shooting is dramatically better, you know, when he was on the floor, and defensively he's a better defender than Jalen Green right now. Now whether or not Jalen Green could be better, he has the physical tools to be better. So I do think he can be. But right now congillespie last year was better.

1:29:17And you know, with Jalen Green so much of this season will be informative for us as far as if he's healthy because we saw a version of him that was really bad when he came back from injury and then got slightly better as the season progressed. And if Jalen Green could start from a better place and then get better from there, that would be really healthy, helpful to understand what he really could look like on this team going forward. But to me, if you're going to start one of those guys, you start Jay, you start calling. And it's right, I don't know how we got into this conversation. It's my fault. Sorry. But really with Colin, getting better under the three point line is the main thing. And finding ways to leverage that into more playmaking for other guys is going to be a huge difference maker, continuing to shoot the way he could last season and maybe even improving on that because he did have that stretch where he got worse, being more consistent over the course of a longer season. It'd be pretty remarkable. Like what he did last season was kind of unprecedented already for a guy who came, you know, undrafted. Exactly.

1:30:17Fred Van Blee was undrafted too, wasn't he? That's why I mean, I really think those two guys, their careers so far mirror each other's pretty well. Yeah. And so was Van Blee undrafted or was he just, yeah, he actually was undrafted. That's right. He was a second round pick. No, you're right. He is undrafted. Yeah. So, you know, it's already pretty remarkable what he did. And if you can continue to do that and improve and there's no reason to think he can't improve because he just hasn't played much in the NBA. He is old enough that you could kind of assume like, like we're not factoring in like athletic improvements for Colin Gillespie. We're just talking about second-appeter decisions. Yeah. Well, well, well, well, the one caveat being conditioning, like we're asking him to come in to the season in great shape so that he can play an 80 game season and not hit a wall. I think that's a reasonable ask. It's something that he had never experienced before. So I think it's totally reasonable that that happened to him last year. But no one's expecting him to be like 20 pounds stronger or significantly faster with his burst or yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

1:31:18That's all small improvements. Anything else? Oh, man, I don't think so. Yeah. It's so out of Jordan Goodwin, Colin Colisbee and Jaylen Green. Who do you think I almost am afraid to ask you to rank them in terms of their importance to the sun's next year? Who do you think is going to add the most wins? For sure. Colin Colisbee is number one just based on last year, but like for the future of the sun's, there's nobody more important to this team outside of Come on, Malawatch, I guess than Jaylen Green. Because if Jaylen Green puts it together, it would have the largest impact on the sun's event. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, if Jaylen, I think everyone recognizes if Jaylen Green could unlock that level, that kind of Houston fans were always hoping for and anticipating, then it boosts the team sealing it a ton. I mean, again, like he has the same season again, by the way. Because he has had the first five seasons of his career, we're never doing this conversation again.

1:32:19We cannot have. Of course. Can he improve conversation anymore? I think he is. No, no, no. If he has the same season, then he's going to opt into his player contract and hopefully the sun's tried to trade that contract next summer, although they may be unsuccessful, but that's kind of end of it, right? Like you can't just, you can't just keep having the same conversation over and over again. He could still be a good player in the NBA, but what the expectations are of his role will dramatically change. Yeah. And they could. You know, and it's up to the suns to find that with him, but yeah. I mean, for Gillespie and Goodwin take layoffs, just a couple. Like don't reinvent your entire game, especially if I'm asking Mark Williams to come back and become Berk Lopez, which, you know, is kind of facetious of me when I say that, of course. But like if we think, come on, Volo Watch, can shoot threes, right? Take advantage of this spacing. Take advantage of the work that other players are putting in. If you're Gillespie and Goodwin, there's going to be more space on the floor. You guys need to seize it a little bit. So that's the last thing I'll say about those two.

1:33:21I think that's all I got, too. So that's good stuff. That's the end of internal development for this season. Any final thoughts on internal development for the suns? It's clear. The most important player for the future of the suns is C'mon, Volo Watch, followed by some version of Jalen Green and Rocher Fleming and Osuigidaro is probably the next few guys, right? I mean, next week, not with Danny. Yeah, for sure. I think it was a good series. Not to pet ourselves on the back. I always enjoy doing this series every year. I'm glad that it's lasted this many years. How about my elevator pitch for next week? We start internal regression where we take all of the players who are at least 30 years old. This year, that would be Booker Dylan Brooks and I think Luke Cunard. And next week, we'll be listing all of the things we think they're going to get worse at. Thank you. And how confident we are that they'll get worse at them. I will not do that.

1:34:22Feel free to feel free to find a guest for that. That's fine. Truth be told, we're still a couple weeks out from media days. We need to figure out what the hell we are going to discuss next week. But hey, you guys will hear from us next week. Both of us will be out of town after this episode posts, basically. So no Patreon episode this week. And then it probably a later episode, maybe around this time next week or possibly Tuesday of next week. But we will be back with the main feed episode once we're back in town. And yeah, that's all I got. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for this series. Great work, Sam. Shout out to Kellyn Olson and Gerald Borgay. Check out their stuff. Subscribe to Gerald's Patreon as well. We appreciate everyone. And yeah, thanks a lot.