What Does Shutting Down Brandon Knight Mean For The Phoenix Suns?
Brandon Knight has been shut down for the rest of the 2015-16 NBA season, but what does that mean for the Phoenix Suns moving forward?
Nine more days. After a 2015-16 campaign that’s watched more like an episode of Game of Thrones than a season of NBA basketball, nine days are all that separate Phoenix Suns fans from a temporary reprieve from this barrage of injuries, embarrassing losses and, most of all, disappointment.
None of these wounds will heal overnight, or even over the course of an NBA Draft and a summer of free agency. Those injuries will take time to mend, the losses will mark this as this sixth consecutive season the Suns have missed the playoffs and, like it or not, there might not be much that general manager Ryan McDonough can do in the offseason to raise the team’s ceiling as a bottom-rung playoff team.
But after hearing that Brandon Knight will be shut down for Phoenix’s five remaining games due to a sports hernia, as first reported by the Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro, the nine days separating Suns fans from the end of this forgettable season can’t pass soon enough.
On the surface, this injury seems like a blessing in disguise. Sitting Knight is the best thing for his health, and will allow him to get a second opinion to see if surgery is required.
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“It’s vague,” interim head coach Earl Watson said before Sunday’s game against the Utah Jazz. “They really don’t know what’s wrong until they open you up and that’s the dynamic end.”
Though injuries are never a positive, especially for the lone starting-caliber point guard on an injury-depleted team, it’s no secret that the Suns aren’t playing for anything other than pride right now. Watson may be trying to prove he deserves the job past this season, but Phoenix is really eyeing their standing against the Brooklyn Nets in a tank race.
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As of right now, the Suns (20-57) hold a slight edge over the Nets (21-56) for the third-worst record in the league, thereby giving them the third-best odds at landing the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft if the season ended today. With Brooklyn shutting down their two best players in Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young, Phoenix losing a streaky shooter like Knight who’s capable of going off on any given night isn’t all bad news.
With Knight out for the rest of the season, the Suns will continue to rely on a hodgepodge of Ronnie Price, 19-year-old Devin Booker and an out-of-position Archie Goodwin to run the point. Price is a useful veteran who plays hard and Booker is making strides as a playmaker, but with Knight done for the season, there’s a decent chance the Suns could lose their five remaining games to the Hawks, Rockets, Pelicans, Kings and Clippers.
However, for those Knight critics rejoicing at the prospect of giving more touches to Devin Booker, losing out to secure better odds at a top draft pick, and simply not having to watch Knight play his feast-or-famine style of basketball, this injury really isn’t as beneficial to the Suns as it seems.
For starters, even the staunchest of Knight supporters will have to admit that his durability is becoming a point of concern, especially after signing a five-year, $70 million contract last summer. That deal won’t look as bad if he stays healthy under the skyrocketing NBA salary cap, but it’s downright alarming that he’ll have missed 46 of a possible 109 games since he was traded to Phoenix in February 2015.
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Knight’s left ankle was the issue last year and he was shut down to close the 2014-15 season before undergoing arthroscopic surgery in April. This season, Knight missed seven weeks and 21 games from late January to early March due to a groin injury he originally sustained on Dec. 31 in Oklahoma City.
He had tried — unsuccessfully — to play through the injury but, according to Coro, re-aggravated it on a dunk attempt on Jan. 19. Upon returning to the lineup in mid-March, Knight was only able to play 10 games before re-aggravating the injury once again.
There’s also the issue of Knight’s long-term future to consider. At age 19, Suns rookie Devin Booker has far surpassed anyone’s wildest expectations and it’s only a matter of time before he makes Knight expendable. That day might not have officially arrived yet, but McDonough should know from firsthand experience that when you have three starting-caliber guards in the same backcourt, it’s only a matter of time before there aren’t enough touches to go around.
Booker might already be too good and too important to the future of the franchise to come off the bench, so unless Knight is willing to embrace a sixth man role, he quickly becomes the odd man out (assuming Eric Bledsoe can return healthy).
Included is how similar Knight's stats are to some great microwave scorers when they were his age. pic.twitter.com/YZZU1Aemkx
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) April 3, 2016
Given what we know about Knight’s desire to be a starting point guard in this league, it seems unlikely he’d be willing to embrace a bench role, even if it’d empower him to take as many ill-advised shots as he seems to want to take now. His streaky scoring could make him Gerald Green or Mirza Teletovic-esque, but Knight plays with pride and envisions himself as more than that.
If the Suns are unable to sell him on being one of the league’s highest paid sixth men, moving him makes more sense than trading Bledsoe or Booker, even if Bledsoe is a few years older and arguably just as injury-prone. The only problem is, Knight’s trade value was close to zilch before this season-ending injury added another red flag to the list.
For those not paying close enough attention, Knight’s 2015-16 averages of 19.6 points (a career high), 5.1 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game don’t seem bad at all. But when you factor in his 41.5 field goal percentage, his 34.2 three-point percentage and his career-high 3.4 turnovers per game, his value starts to diminish a bit.
Throw in that sizable contract, his injury-proneness, his horrendous defense and his questionable shot selection and you’ve got a player whose trade value has never been lower. A season ago he was nearly an All-Star in Milwaukee; now he’s close to being expendable for the third time in his first five seasons in the league.
Trading Knight after trading away Isaiah Thomas and a potentially valuable top-3 protected pick from the Los Angeles Lakers isn’t even the most pressing area for concern either — it’s the added knowledge that only a team desperate for a point guard would entertain a trade for him at this point.
Most teams understand that the Suns are coming from a place of desperation unless they commit to a full-scale, long-term rebuild centered on youth and draft picks. They won’t be rushing to acquire a flawed floor general without added incentives thrown in, something that McDonough has been resistant to do during his tenure.
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Shutting down Knight gives Booker more of a chance to develop his game as a ball-handler and it might help the Suns secure the third-best odds at the No. 1 draft pick. But with his trade value taking another major blow and Phoenix looking at yet another stint of injury rehab for their second starting point guard, Brandon Knight’s sports hernia is just another pain in the groin for this Suns season.