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Phoenix Suns: The first 2 pillars of The Timeline are set

By Gerald Bourguet

Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images /
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The losses continue to pile up for the Phoenix Suns, but at least The Timeline has its first two pillars in place with Devin Booker and Josh Jackson.

At 19-45, the Phoenix Suns have more losses than any team in the NBA. The only team with a worse record is the Memphis Grizzlies, who have dropped 12 straight games after losing a head-to-head matchup with the Suns in a battle between two teams on 10-game losing streaks.

From the outside, the situation in Phoenix appears as dismal as it has since Steve Nash led the Suns to the 2010 Western Conference Finals. That may have been the last time they made the playoffs, but good things are worth waiting for, and simply making the playoffs is no longer the goal for a 50-year-old franchise.

As The Timeline takes shape, the first two pillars are already in place in Devin Booker and Josh Jackson.

From the outside, Booker looks like a “good stats, bad team” kind of player, while Jackson is an unproven rookie who can’t shoot. For those actually paying attention, something special is taking shape thanks to these two 21-year-olds.

Since the start of the 2017-18 campaign, Devin Booker has been the Phoenix Suns’ guiding light. He’s the new face of their franchise, their best scorer, their best playmaker and a bona fide stud, averaging a monster line of 25.2 points, 4.8 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 0.9 steals per game on .433/.382/.885 shooting splits.

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The Suns are losing, sure. But put any established superstar on a team that’s started Tyler Ulis, T.J. Warren, a 20-year-old rookie, Dragan Bender/Marquese Chriss and what’s left of Tyson Chandler for most of the season, and they’d struggle to win games too.

Devin Booker is not the guy putting up empty stats in double-digit losses; he’s the one carrying Phoenix on a nightly basis until he and his teammates are simply overwhelmed by superior talent, experience and floor-spacing.

Anyone who says differently has not watched Devin Booker play enough.

For every night where he puts up inefficient shooting lines or fills up the stat sheet in garbage time, there are three more games where he’s the only thing preventing Phoenix from yet another 40-point dismantling.

In Phoenix’s most recent win, Booker led the way with 34 points. The game before that, he put up a gargantuan 40-10-7 stat line that went under the radar because he just so happened to be going up against Anthony Davis and his 53-point, 17-rebound masterpiece in a victory for the New Orleans Pelicans.

After the Grizzlies win, Booker looked like the best player on the floor for most of the night against the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder. He finished with 39 points (a career high at Talking Stick Resort Arena), eight assists and six rebounds while shooting 16-of-28 from the floor and 6-of-10 from 3-point range. He also disintegrated Paul George, one of the NBA’s best wing defenders.

The final result was a loss, and Russell Westbrook’s 43-14-8 stat line grabbed the most attention in the end. However, after yet another eye-opening performance, Booker became the third-youngest player in NBA history to reach 4,000 points, trailing only LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

Not bad for a player who many still question as a No. 1 option on a playoff team.

The OKC game marked Booker’s fourth straight 30-point game, giving him the longest such streak by a Suns player since Amar’e Stoudemire back in 2004. It was also Book’s 20th 30-point game of the season, the fifth-most in the association … despite the fact that he’s missed 15 games.

Interim head coach Jay Triano summed it up best, both for the Thunder game and the season at large:

"“He’s carrying us. He’s proven that he’s an elite scorer in this league.”"

Over his last six games, Booker is averaging 33.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game on .444/.390/.830 shooting splits.

He may not be a stout defender, but neither are superstars like James Harden and Russell Westbrook. All signs point to Booker being an elite scorer, an underrated playmaker and a cold-hearted killer in big moments, which is more than enough for the Suns as long as they surround him with the right amount of defense, floor-spacing and complementary talent.

Enter Josh Jackson, the second pillar of The Timeline.

Despite a rocky start that had many labeling him a draft bust, the No. 4 overall pick of the 2017 NBA Draft has completely turned it since the calendar flipped to 2018, averaging 16.2 points, 5.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.7 blocks and 0.7 steals per game on 45 percent shooting in that span.

Though he’s not a good perimeter shooter by any stretch, he’s adjusted his game accordingly, taking a higher percentage of his shots at the rim as the months have waned on. He’s still prone to rookie mistakes and needs to continue to improve when it comes to help defense, turnovers and ill-advised step-back jumpers.

However, those drives to the rim that looked more like runaway trains in his first few months are no longer so reckless. Now that the game has slowed down for him and he’s adjusted to the level of talent in the NBA, he’s thriving on those attacks on the basket.

"“I think for him, we’ve said all along his basketball I.Q. is extremely high,” Triano said. “Early it was trying to figure the NBA out, and he even told you guys and he said to us, ‘I didn’t realize that everybody was so good.’“He could use his athleticism to be better than people when he was at Kansas, but now, he was going and playing at one full speed and people were matching that speed. Now he’s learned how to pick and choose when he can attack.”"

The results speak for themselves, as Jackson finally looks like a top-five rookie and second pillar for The Timeline.

In the Suns’ recent win in Memphis, Jackson complemented Book with a career-high 29 points, seven rebounds, four assists, two blocks and two steals. Against the Thunder, he followed that up with 19 points, five rebounds and four assists off the bench. Like Booker, he also eviscerated poor Paul George:

Since the start of February, Jackson is averaging 17.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.0 blocks and 0.9 steals per game on .460/.256/.652 shooting. His 10 20-point games since the start of 2018 trail only Donovan Mitchell. He’s playing with more confidence than ever and is becoming a two-way force for Phoenix.

It’s a good thing a player’s career isn’t defined by the first two months of his rookie season at age 20.

With Jackson’s competitive fire and his drive to be great fueling his month-over-month progress, he and Booker’s chemistry is coming along at an encouraging rate. Plays just like these ones are what Suns fans can look forward to for years to come.

Since Jan. 28, the Suns have posted a net rating of -2.8 with Booker and Jackson sharing the floor. That sounds bad on paper until you realize Phoenix has won two games in that time, with an atrocious -13.6 net rating to boot.

The point is, Booker and Jackson have quickly established themselves as more than just young players with potential. They represent the foundation of The Timeline, and Phoenix’s greatest hope for returning to prominence in the future after a franchise-record eight-year playoff drought.

"“We knew it would happen, it was only a matter of time,” Jackson said of his burgeoning chemistry with Booker. “But there’s still another couple of steps that we can take.”"

With two franchise pillars in place, it’s up to general manager Ryan McDonough to surround them with talent for both the short-term and the long haul. It’s been the theme for 3-4 straight years now, but this actually is the most important summer yet for McDonough. The bright side is the plan is starting to take form, even if all those assets still need to materialize:

Not only do the Suns have their own 2018 first round selection (which will likely be a top-five pick and could be the No. 1 or No. 2 pick if everything falls into place), but they could also have extra first-rounders inbound from the Miami Heat and the Milwaukee Bucks.

There’s the restricted free agency of Elfrid Payton to address, to say nothing of attractive restricted free agents on the market like Clint Capela and Aaron Gordon. There’s the question of Tyson Chandler’s long-term future in the valley and Alex Len‘s unrestricted free agency, especially if the Suns select a center like DeAndre Ayton, Mohamed Bamba or Jaren Jackson Jr. in the draft.

In any case, between two sure things in Booker and Jackson, plus T.J. Warren’s scoring punch, Dragan Bender’s 3-and-D skill-set in a complementary role and that 2018 first round pick, the Suns are starting to build something special, even if the win-loss column doesn’t reflect it yet.

Next: 2017-18 Week 20 NBA Power Rankings

Even if Payton, Len, Marquese Chriss and Tyler Ulis never pan out as part of The Timeline, the Suns have at least two franchise pillars in Devin Booker and Josh Jackson. These two 21-year-olds aren’t ready to carry the load yet, but give them time, and this duo will prove itself as one of the league’s most promising up-and-coming cores.

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