Will The Suns’ Decision To Bench Bradley Beal and Jusuf Nurkic Pay Off?

Late Sunday night, the basketball world was met with the news Bradley Beal and Jusuf Nurkic would be removed from the Phoenix Suns’ starting lineup and be replaced by Ryan Dunn and Mason Plumlee.

From strictly a wins and losses perspective, this move made perfect sense. After starting 9-2, the Suns have lost four straight and 16 of their last 22 games. But when you look at the stature of the player’s involved — Beal is a three-time All-Star and $50 million man, while Nurkic is one of the more recognizable centers in basketball — it raises some eyebrows.

However, sometimes, the correct answer is merely the simplest one, and in this instance, head coach Mike Budenholzer made a lineup change because it makes the Suns better right now.

The Suns’ Biggest Issue

To win in the NBA, you need talent and lineup balance. But what is meant by lineup balance?

To be honest, it’s not a statistic you can really quantify. It’s more of a nebulous concept that only becomes clearer with hours of thoughtful research and film study. But, in general, a team has lineup balance when they can fit a good blend of creation, ball-handling, spacing, rim pressure, physicality/size, perimeter defense and rim protection into a five-man unit (a la the 2022-23 Denver Nuggets’ starting lineup).

When the Suns originally acquired Beal to solidify their Big Three, they created a roster touting a great deal of talent, but left little room for lineup balance. Despite their individual splendor, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Beal have overlapping skillsets.

So, while the Suns have an abundance of on-ball creation — arguably, the hardest single skill to acquire — they are missing checkmarks in all the other aforementioned boxes.* And since only five players can share the court at once, that puts the onus on the other two players in the lineup.

(*We can quibble about how Booker is an improved perimeter defender and Durant is a good secondary rim protector. But at the end of the day, Booker can’t consistently spearhead the point-of-the-attack and Durant can’t anchor a defense. So, functionally, those boxes get left unchecked). 

Why Make The Change?

Unfortunately, the Suns don’t have any pair of role players who cleanly fill all those gaps. In fairness, there may not be a single team rostering a duo like that. So, to create more balance, Budenholzer removed one of the redundant stars from the starting five and opened up a spot for a player who can cover more bases on our list.

Given Beal is clearly the inferior player of the three, that made him the logical choice to receive a demotion. Now, instead of getting excess on-ball creation from Beal, the Suns can enjoy the benefits of Dunn’s spacing, physicality/size, perimeter defense and secondary rim protection.

So, why did Nurkic also have to fall on the sword with Beal? Simple: the Suns have a replacement who checks more boxes.

While Nurkic continues to be a forceful screen-setter, sound passer and underrated team defender/rim protector, he struggles finishing at the rim (38th percentile among centers, per Cleaning the Glass). As a team, the Suns struggle scoring in the paint (last in rim frequency) and need a way to give more minutes to someone who adequately scores inside.

At this point, Plumlee is comparable to or better than Nurkic in all of the areas the Bosnian Beast excels at (see chart below). More importantly, he’s a much better finisher at the rim (79th percentile among centers).

Will This Work?

Predicting if these changes will pay off hinges partly on whether Budenholzer is really committing to Beal in a bench role.

Will Beal and Nurkic really be part of the team’s second unit? Or, is this more of a way “wake up call” for the two veterans in hopes they’ll buy in more heavily to Budenholzer’s philosophy? If it’s the latter and Beal and/or Nurkic still consistently close games for the Suns, I have a hard time seeing this move make any meaningful difference.

But if Budenholzer is serious about this benching and Beal/Nurkic won’t be guaranteed spots in the closing lineup moving forward, the Suns could become noticeably better in the short-term.

Earlier in the season, I wrote about the team’s detrimental reliance on Tyus Jones. The Suns needed the ball-handling and spacing Jones provided, but, at the time, they didn’t have the infrastructure to handle his shortcomings. I specify “at the time” because I never imagined Budenholzer would bench Beal when I wrote about Phoenix’s dilemma.

Budenholzer has now proven his boldness. The Suns can put better defenders (like Dunn) around Jones to hide his weaknesses and showcase his strengths. 

With that said, I doubt this shakeup is enough to springboard a team with the Suns’ luxury tax bill into title contention. Yes, their rotation theoretically start to make more sense. But in practice, these role players still have flaws you just don’t see on top-flight contenders like the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder.

Jones is a moving target on defense (sixth percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus). After a strong start to the season, Dunn has seen some serious regression in his 3-point shooting (30.2 percent). Plumlee is a good rim protector, but he’s far from an elite defensive big (ninth percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus, per Dunks & Threes). The list goes on and on. 

Still, the decision to demote Beal and Nurkic as starters make the Suns a better team, which is all Budenholzer can reasonably be asked to do.