Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
It’s hard to ever say a team that employs Kevin Durant and Devin Booker on it is cooked. But every single day the Suns edge closer and closer to that point.
Just a few days ago we thought the Suns were primed to finally debut the new big 3 of Booker, Durant and Bradley Beal. On Wednesday they were all set to play together for the first time with everyone healthy in the lineup.
But then Bradley Beal’s back flared up. Again. He couldn’t play. To this point, he’s only played in three of the Suns’ 11 games and he’s about to miss a whole lot more.
Fast forward to today and, now, The Athletic’s Shams Charania’s latest report makes things seem much worse than they initially sounded. Beal is out in Phoenix again with what the team is calling a back strain. He’ll reportedly be re-evaluated in three weeks.
Suns star Bradley Beal will be out and re-evaluated in three weeks as he continues to rehab a low back strain.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 17, 2023
That’s not a good sign. There’s no guarantee he’ll be back after these three weeks. It’s just a wait-and-see approach. Meanwhile, the Suns are floundering in a tough Western Conference.
Phoenix sacrificed its depth for a third star when it made the Kevin Durant trade last season. Phoenix followed that up in the summer by acquiring Beal from the Wizards for the few remaining draft assets it had in its cupboard over the summer.
With those two moves Phoenix made a big bet on its star talent. The Suns no longer had depth, but so what? With so much talent between its stars they’d be fine if they could just stay healthy.
Fast forward to today and Kevin Durant is the only one out of the three who hasn’t missed a game. Booker has been in and out of the lineup. Beal has essentially been completely absent and there’s no telling when he’ll be back.
The worst part is there’s no way for Phoenix to get any help in the meantime. The team’s assets are gone. The depth they have isn’t working. But what they’re working with now is what they’ll have to work within the immediate future. The Suns must make do with that.
Phoenix’s gamble was always a risky one. None of Phoenix’s three stars have the best track record when it comes to health. Beal, in particular, hasn’t played more than 60 games in a season since 2021. It doesn’t seem like that’s changing this year.
The Phoneix Suns are the latest cautionary tale on stockpiling star players. Having stars is great. But when you sacrifice the rest of your team to have more stars than everyone else, you’d better make sure they’re reliable.
The NBA’s upside-down West
Speaking of the Suns and their middling record, Phoenix isn’t the only “contender” in the West looking up at everyone else.
If you look at the West right now, the top six only have a couple of teams everyone expected to be in the mix — the Nuggets and the Kings. The rest? Man. If you’d told me the Warriors, Lakers and Suns were all looking play-in-bound bound I probably would’ve laughed at you.
Don’t even get me started on the Clippers. Yikes.
RELATED: Russell Westbrook is going to the bench because James Harden can’t change his game
It’s still early, obviously. But for the bottom of the West to look the way it does is jarring. The Lakers, Warriors, Suns and Clippers all had win total over/unders between 45.5 and 52.5 wins. The under is looking possible for all four of them today.
It looks like this could be the end of an era for some of the NBA’s most legendary veterans. We’ll see.
Throw it in the Louvre
Here’s the jump ball between Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama from earlier this week on Tuesday. No, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
I don’t know if this is what Dr. James Naismith envisioned when he first started throwing balls into peach baskets.
This has got to be the most gigantic jump ball in NBA history. It’s a Kaiju flick on an NBA court. And we get to watch this for the next 15 years or whatever.
Basketball gods, I cannot thank you enough. But I will do my best. Thank you.
READ MORE: Victor Wembanyama has a slight ROY lead on Chet Holmgren but it’s so close
Shootaround
— Draymond Green got the longest suspension of his career for choking Rudy Gobert. Shocking, I know! Bryan Kalbrosky has more.
— Caitlin Clark needs some help in Iowa. It’s time for her teammates to step up. Meghan Hall has more.
— Here’s Mitchell Northam on Raven Johnson’s revenge season in South Carolina. Dishing out 17 dimes is WILD.
— This NSFW but really not NSFW introduction for Gradey Dick’s first start was the best
That’s all, folks! Enjoy the in-season tournament games tonight! We’ve got NBA power rankings coming on Monday. Can’t wait. Til then, peace. We out.
-Sykes ✌️