Phoenix Suns: 5 Adjustments That Need To Be Made

2. Play. Dragan. Bender.

Part of the reason the Phoenix Suns are so maddening is that they’re 8-21 and have gotten there while riding veterans like P.J. Tucker and Tyson Chandler to 30 minutes a night. Maybe Watson owed it to himself and the team’s most experienced guys to see if this team had the chemistry to make a surprise playoff run, but it’s become increasingly clear that isn’t happening.

A look north to a similar rebuilding franchise like the Minnesota Timberwolves shows little difference record-wise, with the Timberpups sporting an ugly 9-19 record.

But at least Tom Thibodeau can say his team got there by playing its young cornerstones. The Suns have no such luxury, especially when it comes to 19-year-old Dragan Bender.

To be fair, Watson has made his fair share of decisions in favor of the team’s youth. He made Devin Booker the starting shooting guard from day one, bumped Warren into the starting lineup because of Tucker’s injury and kept him there once the defensive ace returned, and moved 19-year-old rookie Marquese Chriss into the starting rotation ahead of fan favorite Jared Dudley.

But Knight has been an outright disaster, making the Booker decision look like a no-brainer in retrospect; Tucker is still playing 26.6 minutes per game and somehow still kept Bender away from significant minutes when Warren was out; and Chriss is still only averaging 18.2 minutes per game to Dudley’s 23.8 since Watson made the swap.

The worst part of Watson’s rotations has been Dragan Bender’s confounding lack of minutes. This problem doesn’t figure to improve now that Warren is back, further clogging Bender’s opportunities for minutes since the Suns insist that their 7’1″ rookie is actually a 3.

The No. 4 overall pick in this year’s draft is averaging 2.6 points 1.5 rebounds in a negligent 11.0 minutes per game. He’s only shooting 35.9 percent from the floor and 30.2 percent from deep, and he’s prone to many of the rookie mistakes you’d expect from the youngest player in the NBA.

But he’s also been one of the few Suns this season with a positive plus/minus, and though that’d undoubtedly change the more he plays, he’s shown far too many flashes — especially with his versatility on the defensive end, where the Suns need him the most — to be racking up DNP-CDs.

For example, against a team like the Rockets that has so many forwards who can spread the floor to three-point range, you’d expect Bender and his exceptional defensive footwork to get a crack at containing Houston’s pick-and-pop prowess.

Nope.

Bender played a grand total of two minutes and 19 seconds, all of it in garbage time against the Rockets’ C-team. That would’ve been inexcusable before Watson said the Suns needed to find more opportunities for Bender prior to the game.

"“He’s been on his own since he was a teenager so he has the mental toughness, now it’s time for him to get the physical toughness through the game,” Watson said. “We have to find way to get him experience on the court, not just in practice.”"

At this point, “DNP – CD” might as well stand for “Did Not Play – Croatia’s Dragan,” since he already has six of them through the first 29 games of the season.

Even if Bender hadn’t shown signs of competence on defense, and even if he hadn’t posted such a successful stat line in his NBA debut (10 points, 4-of-5 shooting), playing the No. 4 overall pick such sparing minutes for a rebuilding franchise is unacceptable.