Welcome to ‘Inside the Suns’, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.

Each week the Fantable – a round table of Bright Siders – give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.

Fantable Questions of the Week

Q1 – What is your opinion of David Roddy following his Summer League play?

OldAz: From what I read, he had a couple of nice games. However, he is still the last guy on the roster with the easiest contract to dump if something better comes along. If he can hit his 3s with any consistency, then he moves up in stature quickly as he is a big (although short) body and the Suns do need physicality. If he can’t shoot, then he will remain that last player on the roster until something better does come along.

JV3: Roddy showed promise in Summer League, but I just can’t get myself to believe that he is an asset for the Suns roster. He’s got the drive, he’s got a three-point shot, but I just see a poor man’s Ish Wainright. Which makes him an unhoused version.

The best-case scenario is that his performance in Vegas caught the eye of someone who thinks he can add value to their club. Because, on a team like the Suns that are in “win now” mode, I don’t think he helps in any capacity. Sorry to all of the Big Body Roddy stans out there.

Rod: After his first SL game, I was ready to just cut him but in the following games he proved to be an example of why you should never overreact to one bad game. He steadily improved and has shown that he has a place in the NBA although right now I believe that place is as a fringe rotation player, an 11th/12th man who can come in and play when necessary.

Although he doesn’t seem to excel at anything, he also doesn’t seem to have any glaring weaknesses which makes him useful as a deep depth player. And if he can hit his three’s against real NBA level competition as well as he did in SL (36.7%), then he might fit in pretty well in Bud’s offense schemes and get spot minutes during the season.

Q2 – Other than Dunn, Ighodaro and Bridges, who else on the Suns’ Summer League roster do you think showed any possible NBA promise?

OldAz: Didn’t watch more than a few minutes, so I am not a good source for this, but it is summer league so I can confidently say that there probably isn’t anyone else outside of these 3 and Roddy (see question #1) that are going to make this or any other NBA roster anytime soon. Devoe put up some nice all around numbers, but he was undrafted 2 years ago in 22 and hasn’t sniffed the NBA yet. I think a lot of the Summer league players will fall in the same category.

JV3: Is it Wong that I really want the Suns to give Isaiah Wong a two-way deal? I liked what I saw, and I know that depth at the point guard position is limited for Phoenix. This is where I’m stuck. Because that final two-way should go to a big. But Wong showed promise. He was like Saben Lee, but with a better offensive game that didn’t involve always attacking the basket. If Phoenix could get him on the G League Suns, it’d be a win.

Rod: Isaiah Wong has impressed me the most but at the moment I would at best peg him as an end of the bench guy with some potential to someday be a fair to solid rotation player. He’s a nice shooter with some crafty moves around the basket but he’s going to need to become much more than that to go any farther as a point guard in the NBA.

His ball handling and scoring are nice but he needs to become a better playmaker (only 1.2 apg) and defender as well (his DefRtg of 114.2 was dead last for this roster). He’s not a bad defender but not an especially good one either which could make the difference between being the 9th/10th or the 11th/12th man in a team’s player rotation. And although his 3-point percentage was good (40.0%), he was 10th on the team in attempts (only 5 attempts in 5 games) which makes me wonder why he didn’t shoot more of them. Regardless of that, he was still the team’s 3rd leading scorer with 12.0 ppg.

If the Suns hadn’t already signed Collin Gillespie to a two-way contract, I’d push for them to sign Wong to one but I doubt they’ll use 2 two-ways on point guards. He’d also be a nice addition to the Valley Suns but I think he’s already got enough talent that he’ll be offered something better than a G League contract, either by another NBA team or perhaps playing overseas somewhere.

Other than Wong, Boo Buie and Michael Devoe are the only two that have impressed me enough to believe they might someday develop into fringe NBA players, mostly because they can score… at least against Summer League level talent. They both should at least find spots on someone’s G League roster this year.

One other player that I was interested in seeing was Tyrese Samual who for some reason didn’t get much playing time in SL (34.2 minutes total). I expected to see much more of him since the Suns have already signed him to an E-10 contract.

Q3 – Mat Ishbia recently said that the Suns will operate over the 2nd apron for the next two seasons, but will work to exit it in 2026 to avoid having the Suns’ draft picks staying frozen/moved to the end of the 1st round. What are your thoughts on this?

OldAz: I have 2 thoughts:

First, the Suns currently clear a lot of salary for that season, but there are a LOT of free agents that will be available. It is a good position to be in for salary reduction (at this point) but that will be a lot of temptation for him as an owner to sit back and reign in spending.

Second, with all these new revenue deals for the league and the damper the apron put on this off-season, I am dubious that the league will be able to follow through on their plan to throttle the cap increases. I can see them holding to it on the actual cap, but the players, union, and teams with extra money are going to become awful noisy about the few teams sitting under the cap that get to collect all those extra tax payments when everyone knows they are sitting on unspent TV revenue. I suspect something happens to the apron structure between now and the 2026-2027 season.

JV3: This fortifies the fact that this was a two-year window the Suns were in. The crazy spending, the reckless abandon in building a roster…it’s not sustainable. Due to the penalties, Ishbia stating this is a fortification of his understanding of that. They are taking a big shot now, and if it doesn’t work, Durant will be gone. Beal could be enticed to go elsewhere. A full reset isn’t in our future, but a restricting is.

Rod: This wasn’t unexpected (at least not by me) but it was good to hear him actually say it. He’s basically all in (for now) on rolling with a team built around Book, Beal and KD for the next two seasons but isn’t planning to push it past that point. With the new TV deal in place, the projected 1st tax apron is just a bit under $216.2 million and the 2nd TA will be $229.2 mil. With KD’s contract off the books, it certainly shouldn’t be difficult to get below the 2nd TA and maybe even the 1st.

Hearing his plan also gives me some hope that if things don’t go well this season, he might even decide to try to cut his losses following 2024-25 or at least attempt a lateral move by trading KD in the offseason and try a partial reset of the roster before then. By that I mean using KD’s salary to attempt to trade for some solid vets (on short or expiring contracts) mixed in with hopefully at least one younger player that has some promise and/or some future draft picks. Of course, that partial reset requires a willing trade partner which may be difficult to find but we won’t know until we get to that point.

As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!

Last Week’s poll results

Last week’s question was, “Who are you most interested in watching play in the Suns’ Summer League games?”

66% – Ryan Dunn.

21% – Oso Ighodaro.

09% – Jalen Bridges.

04% – Someone else.

A total of 193 votes were cast.

Suns Trivia/History

On July 26, 2010, the Suns waived Taylor Griffin (the older brother of Blake Griffin) whom they had drafted with the 48th pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. Taylor turned out to be nowhere near the player his soon to be NBA All-Star younger brother would become and played in only 8 games for the Suns (averaging only 4 minutes per game) throughout that season. He would not play in the NBA again although he was briefly picked up by the Charlotte Bobcats for 9 days in December before being waived yet again without seeing any court time there.

Taylor did actually make the Suns’ highlight reel once though… and it was against his brother’s team.

The hoop above was one of only 4 he made as a Sun.

This week’s poll is…