It only makes sense that the G League team would play the same style as the NBA team it will eventually feed players into.
What you’ve seen with the Suns in Phoenix is what you’ll get with the Valley Suns, head coach John Little said at Media Day on Wednesday.
“We want to be pretty much right in line with them. We want to play the same style of play. We want to play fast, play together, we want to be unselfish and we want to compete at a high level,” Little said. “Those are very important to the Suns’ core principles.”
The two-way players who will shuttle between the Phoenix and Valley squads, such as guards Collin Gillespie and Ty-Ty Washington Jr., already have a level of familiarity with the system from their time spent with Phoenix.
Washington even more so because of his time playing for both Phoenix head coach Mike Budenholzer with the Milwaukee Bucks and Little with the Wisconsin Herd.
“Our system hasn’t changed from Day 1 all the way to the last day of training camp. So coming out here, it’s pretty much just implementing the same stuff that I learned there,” Washington said.
suns two-way point guard collin gillespie on the alignment of philosophies between coach bud and coach lit, as well as his comfort level in the system from spending time with phoenix to start this season. pic.twitter.com/l6VQ4uIxTT
— Damon Allred (@iamdamonallred) October 30, 2024
Watson echoed the 3s motif that Budenholzer has established when he said Little has emphasized shooting in the early conversations about what his role will look like.
“(Little) wants me to shoot the ball quite a bit, a lot of 3s. I know that’s been the talk especially with the Phoenix Suns, and they want the same thing done here,” Watson said. “Just a lot of 3s and continuing to bring energy on the defensive end and just try to be a leader in any way I can.”
Moses Wood could help in that department too, as the rookie wing who spent the preseason with Phoenix shot 41.2% on 5.8 attempts per game over his final three collegiate seasons.
“We’re kind of running the same style of offense and just the same type of calls. So even coming into this training camp, it’s been nice already knowing the system and what we’re doing,” Wood said. “As far as NBA skills, I’d say (my shooting) is the most valuable for sure.”
Little also said the G League is a place where Budenholzer can have Little try different things with the Valley team to see if they could potentially work for the Phoenix team. The experimentation aspect extends to the players, Gillespie added.
“We have Book, KD, Brad in an NBA game, and then down here you have a little bit more room to kind of work on what you want to work on, do some different stuff that you feel like you might not be able to do up there,” Gillespie said.
The Valley Suns begin their inaugural season with a back-to-back against the Santa Cruz Warriors on the road Nov. 8-9. The home opener at Mullett Arena on Arizona State’s Tempe campus will be Nov. 11 against the Stockton Kings. Get tickets here.