Finding the right balance for Suns’ minutes management

The Big Three are back. Now can the Suns bench step up so they can get some in-game rest?

Injuries are inevitable. There’s no way around it. The NBA has already been riddled with them early this season, and the Phoenix Suns haven’t escaped unscathed. Some of this might be precautionary. After all, it’s still early, and teams may believe pushing players too hard in November could jeopardize their success come May.

It’s a tricky balancing act without a definitive solution. Play it too safe, and your team might falter under minute restrictions. Push too hard, and you risk losing key players to fatigue. Even with the perfect balance, freak injuries can still happen. There’s no formula to guarantee health and success.

All teams can do is monitor the situation closely and strive to maintain a sense of balance. Load management. It’s a necessary evil, but it’s far from an exact science.

Take the Suns. Kevin Durant was putting up MVP-like numbers prior to his November 8th injury. 27.6 points. 42.9% from deep. 7-0 in the clutch. But he also averaged 38.8 minutes a night, which is the most he’s averaged since 2010-11. When he was 22 year old.

Durant is now 36.

You can’t fault the Suns for their approach. They needed Durant. The team simply didn’t function without him, as evidenced by their -16 performance when he was off the floor. With their inability to close out games, Durant was repeatedly forced back into action to shoulder the offensive burden. That workload aggravated an old injury, and just like that, he was out.

Bradley Beal has averaged 34.8 minutes played this season, which is his most since 2021-22 while in Washington. And Devin Booker? He’s at 36.8, which is his most…uh…ever. Phoenix has a Big Three, but they are learning very, very hard into having them on the court, and when they aren’t out there, the team is in shambles.

It’s a classic Catch-22: the team needs them on the floor to win in the short-term, but they also need to manage their rest in the long-term.

With Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal returning tonight against the Los Angeles Lakers, the real question is: what’s the perfect balance? And does such a thing even exist?

From my perspective, anything between 29 and 35 minutes is a win. Of course, even with this target, the unpredictability of the game means injuries can still happen. So why that range? Because it signifies one crucial thing, something I believe is essential for the Suns to succeed: the bench is contributing.

The only way to ensure rest is to have a bench unit that can carry the offensive and defensive load.

If you want to win a ring, you need a solid bench. A team with real depth. Just look at the last five NBA champions. Only one, the 2022-23 Denver Nuggets, lacked a bench unit ranked in the top ten in net rating. And even they had Nikola Jokic, whose advanced metrics were so off the charts that the bench’s impact barely mattered because of his sheer dominance.

Here are the net ratings of the bench units for the last five NBA champions:

• 2023-24 Celtics: +11.7 (1st)
• 2022-23 Nuggets: -3.7 (29th)
• 2021-22 Warriors: +2.6 (2nd)
• 2020-21 Bucks: +0.5 (8th)
• 2019-20 Lakers: +2.7 (1st)

The Phoenix Suns in 2020-21? 1st in the NBA with a bench net rating of +2.8. Damn. Up 2-0. We should’ve won that.

The point is simple: when your team can hold the fort while the starters rest, great things happen. It’s not rocket science. Unfortunately, this is where the Suns are falling short this season, and as a result, they’re unable to manage the minutes of their Big Three effectively.

What is the Suns’ bench net rating thus far this year? +0.3, which ranks them 16th in the league. Not surprisingly, the Thunder, Cavaliers, and Warriors all sit atop this ranking. And they are the teams not only winning games but managing their stars appropriately as well.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is logging 34.1 minutes per game this season. Donovan Mitchell sits at 31.2, while 36-year-old Steph Curry is averaging 29.8. All of them fall within the ideal range of 29 to 35 minutes I mentioned earlier. That’s the goal. But the Suns won’t reach it until their bench can hold the line.