What’s noteworthy, and what’s not so far.
Week one of the Suns 2024-25 regular season campaign is officially in the books. They beat the Los Angeles Clippers on their opening night, lost to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday, and beat the Dallas Mavericks 114-102 Saturday night. All three of their games were against playoff teams from a year ago; they were favored in just one of their contests.
It’s only one week of the season, but the analysis has to start somewhere! Here’s the something, nothing, and everything from the Suns’ first week of the season.
Something
Ryan Dunn’s continued solid three-point shooting.
After an impressive preseason where he hit more threes in five games than he did in his 65 games in college, the rookie continued his sharpshooting. In his first start of his career on Saturday, he made three of his six triples.
Ryan Dunn with 13 points while going 5-for-8 from the floor.
He’s looking confident on the one-dribble pull-up from above the break.
About 8 months ago, I wrote a piece about why he’d translate to the NBA, with a clear lack of confidence at Virginia being a large part of it. pic.twitter.com/NXR1uzxqvY
— Ersin Demir (@EDemirNBA) October 27, 2024
It’s three games, but he’s shooting 46.2 percent from deep on 4.6 attempts per game.
With his defensive chops unsurprisingly on display already, if he can continue to knock down the three at an efficient, respectable clip, he becomes the surefire second wing off the bench next to Royce O’Neale. This play gives head coach Mike Budenholzer another reliable forward to trust on both sides of the ball, something the Valley lacks.
Nothing
Bradley Beal missed Saturday’s game due to right elbow soreness.
It was just one game, and it was off of a back-to-back, and yes, the multi-time All-Star has a lengthy injury history, one that’s already been on display during his Suns tenure, but there’s no reason to worry about Beal’s health.
Players will miss time during the season because of various, short-term injuries; this isn’t any different. His absence was due to soreness, nothing crazy.
Everything
The Suns’ increase in three-point attempts per game from a season ago.
Last year, the Valley put up just 32.6 threes per game, the 18th most on a per-game basis. This year, they’re shooting 38 a game, good for 10th. After an offseason full of talks of increasing their triple attempts, Phoenix has done so early on.
There’s also a good chance that the attempts increase. Grayson Allen has played just one game so far and his healthy diet of triples along with the spacing he creates should open up more open threes for the team.
It’s a good sign that the Suns are taking more threes, and it shows a contrast from how they played from a season ago.