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[Phoenix Suns]

How will it work for the Phoenix Suns when everyone is healthy?

With the return of Jalen Green imminent, how will Jordan Ott and his staff allocate minutes to everyone on the team? What exactly will everyone’s minutes look like and whose minutes are up for grabs?

There are 48 minutes in an NBA game, with five players, so that gives us 240 total minutes to play around with.

Lets start by getting the easy minutes out of the way:

Devin Booker will play 36 minutes every game. The combination of Mark Williams, Oso Ighodaro, and spot Nick Richards minutes will eat up 48 minutes at center. Now we are left with 156 minutes to divvy up.

Without a true power forward on the roster, those minutes are going to Dillon Brooks, Ryan Dunn, and Royce O’Neale. Each guy has their own strengths and weaknesses and Brooks’ minutes are not going to be cut, nor should Dunn’s minutes. Brooks will remain around 30 minutes a game, and Dunn will stay around 18 minutes. 132 minutes down, 108 minutes to go.

This is where it starts to get hard because Grayson Allen, Collin Gillespie, Jordan Goodwin, Jamaree Bouyea, and O’Neale have all played extremely well this season. When Green is fully healthy, he will play roughly 28 minutes a game. Now we are down to 80 minutes. Gillespie’s playmaking and shooting have earned him at least 24 minutes a game, and he probably deserves more. However, Ott has elected to go with Allen over Gillespie late in games so far this season, and did so against the Knicks most recently; therefore, we’ll keep his minutes as is. That leaves us with 56 minutes left for Allen, O’Neale, Goodwin, and Bouyea.

Allen’s ability to shoot the ball and create his own shot this season has earned him 24-28 minutes. Since returning from injury, he has been a menace at getting loose balls and forcing deflections, in addition to his elite 3-point shooting abilities. We’ll go with 26 to keep the math easy in my brain. Next up, O’Neale is too good a shooter and connector to play less than 20 minutes a game. He is averaging 2.9 3-point makes per game on 42% shooting from long range. O’Neale should continue to play 20 minutes a night, and even that feels too few.

So where does that leave us?

16 minutes left with two players who have more than earned minutes, Goodwin and Bouyea. I am even leaving out Isaiah Livers, who has played spot minutes all season long. Not only that, Rasheer Fleming has just barely cracked the rotation in the last couple of weeks.

But for now, the minutes should go to Goodwin, who is one of the best rebounders and loose-ball magnets in the NBA. He embodies what this Suns team is at its core. Bouyea has played efficient, exceptional basketball and will be the first guy Ott turns to when other players get injured. As Rod Argent pointed out in an article on Bouyea, extending his two-way contract for as long as possible is helpful towards keeping the Suns under the luxury tax this season.

This is a great problem the Suns have. A team that many thought had the bleakest future in the NBA has assembled a roster where every player 1-to-15 deserves minutes. Ott has more than earned the benefit of the doubt so far this season, so how he ultimately decides to deploy lineups and rotations, I trust him implicitly. Ott has already shown this season that he is not afraid to be fluid with the rotations, and so far everyone has accepted their role happily, whether it be on or off the court. But there are also certain lineups and combinations I am very excited to see, including:

Jalen Green and Mark Williams are the two newcomers who can help each other the most. Green’s ability to get to the rim should create more opportunities for Williams to get easy putback dunks and lobs. Green’s speed in transition will also be a weapon, and the Suns’ leading rebounder needs to find Green for early outlet passes to get into transition.

Assuming Booker’s usual rotation of playing the first 10 minutes of the first and third quarters of basketball, Green will likely be staggered to finish those quarters. Will the Suns go ultra athletic with Ighodaro-Dunn-Green-Goodwin-Gillespie five-man group? Throw Brooks into that mix, and it would be one of the most athletic lineups in basketball.

Last but not least, will Green and Gillespie mesh? Gillespie’s ability to run the offense and set Green will work if Green allows it to happen. If Green is always on the floor with Booker or Gillespie, he will never have the responsibility of being the lead ball handler and decision maker on the floor. His role will be simple: defend at a high level and get buckets on offense. To become a superstar, Green will have to develop his playmaking, but this season, his role will be to not mess up what this 23-15 Suns team has going right now.

Source: https://www.brightsideofthesun.com/...n-minutes-jalen-green-return-jordan-ott-depth