After the Phoenix Suns‘ 120-101 win over the Los Angeles Lakers Monday night, 21-year-old shooting guard Archie Goodwin almost seemed surprised when he turned away from his locker and found a small group of reporters waiting to interview him.
It had been a good night for Goodwin, who tied his season high of 12 points for the third time this year, but Brandon Knight‘s monster 30-15-10 triple-double and T.J. Warren‘s career high 19 points were the bigger stories of the game. Still, after that initial surprise subsided, he did his best to shake off the rust that comes with not having done a postgame interview in quite some time.
“We all play well together,” he began generically when asked about how everyone seems to be having fun and enjoying one another’s success.
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Almost on cue, Eric Bledsoe — who has never been one to hesitate when it comes to clowning Goodwin in the middle of his rare interviews and had just exited the shower to stand silently behind the media scrum — mockingly interjected with a straight face: “Uh huh, ‘we play well together,’ huh?”
Goodwin grinned and laughed, “Get away from me, bruh!” and as Bledsoe busted up laughing, Goodwin finished, “I think we play well together. Everyone out here is wanting the other guy to do great and I think it’s just something that rolls off of everybody. As long as we continue to keep that attitude, which I’m sure we will, we’ll be fine.”
The whole thing was a perfect testament to not only the Suns’ newfound chemistry in the locker room, but also to just how far Archie Goodwin has come as a former afterthought in the rotation who was known more for rare highlight plays than anything of substance.
As a rookie, Goodwin was unable to crack head coach Jeff Hornacek‘s rotation, averaging a meager 3.7 points in 10.3 minutes per game. Though he shot 45.5 percent from the floor, he was only 19 years old, could hardly defend anyone and shot 13.9 percent from three-point range, making it hard for Hornacek to play him on a team that won 48 games and fell one shy of the playoffs.
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After the team traded for shooting guard Reggie Bullock in Goodwin’s second season, the young wing quickly voiced his displeasure with the move, saying, “I don’t know what they’re doing,” in reference to the front office.
As his minutes dwindled even further, Goodwin got more vocal with his dissatisfaction.
“Of course it is frustrating for me, because I am a competitor,” he told the Sporting News. “I have enough confidence in myself to believe I can play right now. A lot of guys, once they get here, they sort of feel like, ‘Well, it’s OK, I will get my opportunity eventually.’ That’s not me. I feel like I could be playing right now. In that sense, it is very frustrating.”
After a major roster shakeup at the trade deadline last year, Goodwin’s opening arrived, giving him more opportunities for a shorthanded Suns team that closed the season on a 1-10 note. Goodwin wound up averaging 5.6 points in 13.0 minutes per game on the season, but only appeared in half of the team’s games.
Still, there was plenty of evidence that if Goodwin could work on his defense and improve his perimeter shot, his inherent athleticism and slashing ability would pave the way to regular rotation minutes.
This season, especially after the drafting of three-point marksman Devin Booker and signing of Sonny Weems, it felt like a make-or-break year for Goodwin. Early on, he barely saw the floor aside from a 12-point, 17-minute outing in the team’s miserable season opener, which saw the Suns routed by the Dallas Mavericks at home.
Over the next five games, Goodwin played a grand total of six minutes and it seemed like he was once again the odd man out of the rotation. To his credit though, Goodwin stayed prepared for the moment his name was called, which has been happening a lot more often over the last few games.
“Just always being ready,” he said. “At that point in the season when I wasn’t really playing, I just started coming in early and working even harder and just staying positive. I’m playing good right now, I’m trying to keep it up, play good for my teammates so we can get more wins.”
In three of the last four games, Goodwin has been Hornacek’s first sub off the bench. That may have something to do with Ronnie Price (concussion) and Markieff Morris (knee) having missed Phoenix’s last two games, but Goodwin has responded to the call with a respectable 6.8 points and 3.5 rebounds in 18.8 minutes per game while shooting 50 percent from the floor.
Those aren’t eye-popping numbers, and Goodwin is shooting only 25 percent from three-point range in that span, but he’s gotten to the foul line 3.5 times a game and with so many more shooters to space the floor, his attack-first mentality gives opposing defenses a different look.
“We like just the enthusiasm and the energy level and his ability to get to the basket,” Hornacek said. “We’re not looking for him to shoot threes, we’ve got a lot of outside shooters that we need those guys that will take it to the basket. He’s long and he can get to the basket and get some easy buckets for us.”
It’s not just the offensive end where Goodwin is showing improvement, however. Defense was always Goodwin’s Achilles heel when it came to earning minutes, but he hasn’t been burned off the dribble or left dazed and confused on backdoor cuts like he often was before. The slasher mentality is useful to this Suns team, but his defensive progress has actually made him playable.
“He’s done that, and then his defense has been pretty good,” Hornacek said. “We always told him that’s gonna be the thing that keeps you on the court is your defense. Again, tonight I think he got another steal out of the — when we trapped, he shot the gap and got one. He’s been giving us a lift.”
In an admittedly small sample size, Goodwin has posted a defensive rating of 96.8, the fourth best mark on the team. He only has one steal on the season, but he’s been helping on the boards (5.5 rebounds over his last two games) and as a result, he’s earned 29 and 25 minutes in the Suns’ last two contests.
“I think I’ve been doing good,” he said. “The thing I’ve been really focusing on is help defense. I think my on-ball defense is pretty good, so help defense is where I wanted to make an improvement. I’m overemphasizing it when I’m playing, just always making sure I’m always in the right spots and just getting out and contesting shots.”
It remains to be seen whether Goodwin’s newfound playing time lasts once Price and Keef are back in the lineup. His long-term future with the team isn’t clear either, since Devin Booker is only going to get better and next summer, overseas draft pick Bogdan Bogdanovic is set to join Phoenix’s already crowded backcourt.
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But at the very least, Archie Goodwin is doing what he has to in order to remain relevant in the conversation. It was always far too early to give up on a guy who just barely became old enough to legally purchase alcohol, but now he’s starting to find his footing as an NBA rotation player.