The Phoenix Suns are shaking things up. Bradley Beal, a three-time All-Star who is on a supermax contract, will come off the bench on Monday against the Philadelphia 76ers, per Chris Haynes. So will center Jusuf Nurkic, who will return from a three-game suspension (for his role in an altercation during a game against the Dallas Mavericks last week). In their place will be rookie wing Ryan Dunn and veteran big man Mason Plumlee.
The Suns have lost four consecutive games and seven of their last eight. After starting the season 8-1, they have fallen to 15-18 and 12th in the West, half a game behind the 11th-place Sacramento Kings. Relatedly, there is "tension in the locker room," and "certain players are unsure of their roles and frustrated with how they're being used," according to Haynes.
The big news here is that Beal, 31, will come off the bench for the first time since the 2015-16 season, when he was on a minutes limit and Washington Wizards coach Randy Wittman decided it would be easier to manage the rotation that way. Beal did it for four games coming off a wrist injury at the beginning of the 2014-15 season, too, but he has started 95.6% of the regular-season games he has played. If he remains the Suns' sixth man going forward, it will be the first time in his 13-year career that he has played this role on more than a temporary basis.
Individually, Beal has been effective this season. He has averaged 17.8 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 33.4 minutes. It is not particularly difficult, though, to understand why Phoenix coach Mike Budenholzer would want to remove him from the starting lineup. Phoenix has been terrible defensively, and replacing him with Dunn, a long and hyper-athletic 3-and-D wing, gives the team a better chance to get stops (and, ideally, then find easy baskets in transition). Some relevant numbers, per Cleaning The Glass:
- The Suns rank 24th defensively and 28th in the halfcourt.
- The starting lineup they've used the most (Tyus Jones, Beal, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Nurkic) has allowed 122.3 points per 100 possessions and been outscored by 17.7 per 100.
- When Durant, Booker and Beal have shared the court, they have allowed 118.7 points per 100 possessions and been outscored by 6.8 per 100.
- When Durant and Booker have shared the court without Beal, they have allowed 113.7 points per 100 possessions (a league-average mark) and outscored opponents by 7.4 per 100.
- When Beal has been on the court without Durant and Booker, they have allowed 96.9 points per 100 possessions (an elite mark) and outscored opponents by 19.7 per 100 (albeit in a small sample).
At halftime of Phoenix's game against the Indiana Pacers on Saturday, the score was tied. The Suns gave up 40 points in the third quarter, though, and trailed by as many as 20 in the fourth. "We gotta be better at [the defensive] end of the court, give ourselves to get out and play," Budenholzer told reporters after the 126-108 loss. "Play faster, play random. That's when we're at our best offensively, so we gotta get stops to make that happen."
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If Budenholzer, who started his NBA career as a video coordinator with the San Antonio Spurs in 1994 and won four championships with that franchise, can sell him on a Manu Ginobili-type role, then Beal could be the league's best sixth man by a considerable margin. In theory, it would allow Phoenix to feature him as the first or second option in the offense more often, and he could still close games.
Players in Beal's position don't always buy in, though. And players in Nurkic's position generally aren't thrilled. While the big man has only averaged 24.3 minutes per game this season (down from 27.3 in 2023-24), Nurkic has started every game that he's played for the Suns. Before that, he was the Portland Trail Blazers' starting center for six-plus years. He is in the Year 3 of a four-year, $70 million contract, and the Arizona Republic's Duane Rankin reported on Christmas Eve that Phoenix is actively shopping him before the Feb. 6 trade deadline.
Under Budenholzer, Nurkic has attempted a career-high 4.8 3-pointers per 100 possessions, but made only 30.4% of them. It is possible that he's going to the bench because Budenholzer believes he and Beal can feast on opposing second units together. It is also possible that it's because he simply trusts Plumlee more defensively. In a loss against the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 21, Budenholzer closed with Plumlee instead of Nurkic. In a win against the Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 15, Budenholzer subbed Nurkic out with less than four minutes remaining, briefly going with Plumlee before closing without a big on the floor.
Will Phoenix's reconfigured rotation turn the season around? Will Beal be so offended that he tells the front office he'll waive his no-trade clause? The answers are unclear, but, if the coaching staff is trying to get stops, the Dunn-Durant-Plumlee frontcourt is a step up from the previous configuration. It should be noted, too, that wing Royce O'Neale, another potential starting option, is expected to miss his third straight game on Monday due to a sprained left ankle.
It probably helps that the Suns are making this change with a relatively light schedule coming up. In their next 11 games, they will face only one team with a winning record, and the only Western Conference team that they will play is the 9-25 Utah Jazz.
