Absence of Devin Booker, Chris Paul pushes Suns’ depth to its limits

PHOENIX — When Chris Paul was ruled out for at least 6-8 weeks out of the All-Star break due to an avulsion fracture in his right thumb, it was easy to see how the closing stretch of the regular season for the Phoenix Suns could wind up being a good thing.

More opportunities for players in smaller roles to see growth before a playoff run where that said growth could pay off.

That’s still the case as Devin Booker enters health and safety protocols on Wednesday, but now we’re swan-diving into the great unknown of how the Suns will play and who is going to step up.

“Might be a little bit uncomfortable but it’s making us better,” guard Landry Shamet said after shootaround on Wednesday. “Forcing us to deal with something now that will hopefully make us better in the long run. So it’s a good opportunity.”

No team is fortified enough to hold the weight of losing two All-Stars. With that in mind, the Suns’ roster construction was direct and intentional, placing supplementary pieces around Booker and Paul that could co-exist with them.

Could many of them take a handful of possessions on? Get 15-20 shots up every now and then? Sure!

A third banana, though? Another high-usage player? That’s not how this team is built.

We don’t know how long Booker is going to be out. There is no concrete answer or information to provide because of how constant the change has been in the league’s COVID-19 regulations this season.

JaVale McGee joked but not really joked about just that the morning of the Suns’ game on Wednesday against the Portland Trail Blazers.

“I don’t know how long he’s out or if the protocols is 10 days or what it is because sometimes you go protocols for one day and he might play today,” McGee said. “You just never know.”

To McGee’s point, reserve guard Elfrid Payton dipped in and out of the protocols on two separate occasions across less than 48 hours in late December.

Here’s what ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said on what Booker needs to do to exit the protocols:

.@wojespn on ESPN's NBA Today on what Devin Booker would need to do to exit health and safety protocols: "Essentially consecutive negative tests over a 24-hour period. He's gotta be asymptomatic. Can't be coming out sneezing all over people. Or 10 days."

— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) March 2, 2022

If Booker misses more than a few days, it’s a tough blip in the schedule for that to occur. An afternoon game in Milwaukee on Sunday starts a three games in four days stretch that ends in Miami, and the Suns play against two of the league’s best teams across an irregular road trip.

So, let’s see how this goes. Cameron Payne’s presumed return from a 16-game absence after spraining his right wrist is big-time. He’s the only other guard on the team that has proven capable of taking on that high workload.

Shamet will get even more of a shot now to snap out of his season-long funk. It’s more time for him and Aaron Holiday on the ball.

Shamet reiterated that a team-oriented mindset is not going to become more individualistic just because Booker and Paul are out.

“It’s not about me,” he said. “My job is to come in and do the same thing every time. That’s my approach regardless if I’m playing 40 minutes or not playing or whatever. It’s not about me. It’s about us as a collective. How do we handle this and find a way to get better?”

Beyond that, the same themes from lessening Booker’s workload before his absence apply to the likes of Mikal Bridges, Jae Crowder, Cam Johnson and Deandre Ayton. The wings will surely run more ball screen actions now and have more sets run for them off the ball, while Ayton’s consistent presence on the interior can become more of a go-to on the block and in the midrange as well.

Head coach Monty Williams is upfront with his players and has maintained relationships that should benefit his team for times like this.

“Having a coach like him when you know what you’re going to get, more than anything I think that goes a long way,” Shamet said. “But honestly, playing time — we got a group of guys here who, nobody cares. It can be one guy one night, somebody else the next. Different guys filling in different spots. We’re just trying to win games and we have a true collective.”

This spurt of games is the reason why the Suns’ 48-10 record before the All-Star break was such a big deal. They’ve got a comfy cushion for the top spot in the league and Western Conference, and fortunately for them, the Golden State Warriors have lost six of their last eight games and still sit 6.5 games back despite Phoenix dropping its last two.

McGee echoed a few of the aforementioned sentiments for how this could really wind up helping the Suns down the line.

“I don’t want to say we’re dependent on those guys but those guys add a lot to our team,” he said. “So I feel like this is a practice just in case in the playoffs something happens to where we’ll be able to understand what we can do without them also and realize that we’re all part of this team and we’re all major pieces in this puzzle.”

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