Veteran sports journalist J.A. Adande was a guest on the Goodword with Goodwill podcast. The podcast is hosted by Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports.
On this episode Adande and Goodwill were talking about the build of NBA championship teams. They were discussing the Los Angeles Lakers and how usually having two stars the caliber of LeBron James and Anthony Davis would make your team a championship contender.
The discussion of a team being built around their stars in that way brought Adande to the Phoenix Suns.
“I just can’t buy into Phoenix, as strong as they can look at times, as well as KD (Kevin Durant) is playing at this stage of his career,” said Adande, “Can they get through without one of those guys being hurt and is the model back to big men?”
Adande May Have a Point
Adande raises some valid concerns. The NBA season is just over a month in and Bradley Beal has only played three games due to back issues. Devin Booker has been in and out of the lineup with a variety of injuries. Kevin Durant has missed the last two games with foot soreness.
These injuries would not be concerning if these players didn’t have a history of missing games. Beal missed 72 games in the previous two seasons. Durant only played in 47 games last year. Booker has been mostly durable during his career but did miss 29 games last season. Hopefully this is not the start of a trend for Booker with the games he already has missed this year.
Adande also brought up that the way to win in the NBA may be to have a dominant big man like the Denver Nuggets have with Nikola Jokic or the Philadelphia 76ers have with Joel Embiid. The Suns do not have that with Jusuf Nurkic. Nurkic is a solid player but not a Most Valuable Player level type player like Jokic and Embiid.
Will the addition of Nurkic be the answer against Jokic if the Suns play the Nuggets in the playoffs again? J.A. Adande’s concerns may be foreshadowing of a disappointing playoff run for the Phoenix Suns.
