Eric Bledsoe, Sun On The Rise

It got lost amid the return of LeBron James to Cleveland and Steph Curry's ascent to sci-fi dominance, but a fascinating exercise in 21st century basketball began and mostly ended in Phoenix last season.

In a league that's progressively friendlier to smaller lineups, the Suns decided tried taking this idea to its logical extreme. Blessed with starting playmakers Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas and Eric Bledsoe, the Suns decided to keep… all of them. It was a bold choice, and something of a weird one, but after a surprise 48-34 season in 2013-14 in which the team that finished eighth in offensive efficiency and fourth in three-point attempts, Suns coach Jeff Hornacek saw it as a logical way to take the offense to another level and keep everybody fresh for later in the season. And so: the Suns signed Thomas to a four-year deal, Bledsoe to a five-year deal, and tried to keep Dragic.

Early on, the numbers were awful when all three played together—an imperative for that roster, particularly with high draft pick and fellow point guard Tyler Ennis also in need of minutes. Just when it seemed like they'd finally figured out how to make it work on the court, however, everything fell apart off of it. After publicly feuding with Suns management, Dragic was dealt to Miami. Thomas was sent to Boston. Ennis was shipped to Milwaukee in a deal for Brandon Knight. Overall, the Suns saw their offensive efficiency drop to 16th in the league last year, and their three-point accuracy fell from eighth in the league all the way down to the 21st spot. The experiment was over, and when all the broken test tubes got cleaned up it was clear that the Suns were now Eric Bledsoe's team. So far, that's working out pretty well for both Bledsoe and the Suns.

"I'm just trying to be a leader on the court," Bledsoe said earlier this month, following shootaround at Barclays Center ahead of a game against the Nets. "We've got a bunch of young players. We have veterans, but point guard is the most dominant position in the game right now. And I'm just trying to be a great leader out there."

Bledsoe's always been a plus defender, a relative rarity among the NBA's current bumper crop of elite offensive point guards. That hasn't changed, even with the strain of increased usage and his leadership role—Bledsoe's averaging two steals per game, and ranks third in the NBA in steal percentage. He's combined that with a complete game on the offensive end, and the total has him seventh among all NBA guards in win shares so far, and even higher among just the point guards.

Bledsoe also has the ideal coach in Hornacek, whose NBA career is well-suited for managing a combination backcourt. Hornacek played next to Kevin Johnson for years on some very good teams before the Suns traded him to Philadelphia in the Charles Barkley deal, and the Sixers played him as an early co-point guard with Jeff Malone. Accordingly, Hornacek twice topped 31 percent assist percentage in his career despite being known primarily as a shooter.

Hornacek also sees the Suns as Bledsoe's team in a fundamental way, and believes that makes a difference. "That's part of it," Hornacek said last week in Brooklyn. "But he also saw what happened last year. It's his first year starting. He's got to be in better shape, so he can go out there, night in and night out, against these great players. He got himself in shape over the summer, he worked on his shooting. So when he comes off those pick-and-rolls, those 15, 18-footers, it's automatic now. That makes teams get up on him, and then he can drive."

The numbers back Hornacek up: Bledsoe's accuracy has improved from 3-10, 10-16, and 16 feet to the three-point line. And the extra space provides Bledsoe with more open looks from beyond the arc, too: his three-point percentage is 38.2 percent, easily the best of his career since he started shooting multiple threes per game, with the most per game he's taken in his career. His 22.6 Player Efficiency Rating is a career best by a wide margin and, yes, leads the team.

And, quietly, the great multiple-point backcourt experiment has come back to life. Knight, never a comfortable fit as a primary point guard in his NBA stops, is thriving as well in a Hornecek-as-player role, with a PER of 19.0. The Suns' offense, too, is functioning as nearly ideal so far. The team is eleventh in efficiency overall, despite a perceived lack of star-grade scoring talent. Part of this is the addition of Tyson Chandler, whose reputation for defense obscures the fact that he's one of the most efficient interior scorers of this era, as well as a slashing point guard's friend on the pick-and-roll. And shooters like Mirza Teletovic and Jon Leuer are taking advantage of all the open threes that creates—as a team, the Suns are second in the league in threes made and third in three-point percentage. They're fast and fun-to-watch, in part because of how much fun they seem to have playing together.

The reason the Suns are just 11-14 so far, though, has to do with the sustainability of it all. Bledsoe pointed out that teams have to honor the Chandler pick-and-rolls, which leaves space for him to pull up and sink those more accurate midrange shots. But Chandler has not been nearly as accurate finishing as usual, with a shooting percentage of 45.8 that's well below his career rate of 59 percent. He's also missed significant time with injuries already. Chandler plays so hard that in recent seasons, he has tended to wear down over the course of the year. It's worrying to see him scuffling so much, so early.

The Suns also need Chandler on the defensive end as a failsafe against the defensive lapses of their team of gunners; without him at peak strength, the Suns are 18th in the league in defensive rating. Given all that, and given that they compete in the ultra-stacked Western Conference, this may not be the year that Eric Bledsoe gets to show off his all star level game in the playoffs.

There's plenty of time, though. Bledsoe turned 26 just last week. He's in the second year of a five-year, $70 million contract that looks like good value now and which, once the new salary cap jump kicks in next summer, should look like an absolute steal. And the Suns aren't saddled with many bad deals going forward, either, although that will change if Chandler fails to recover his peak form.

Now, Hornacek has a different task with his point guards than he faced a year ago. Instead of figuring out how to shoehorn all four of them onto the court, he needs to figure out how to get through portions of games without his breakout star. "You know, we've played him a lot of minutes," Hornacek said of Bledsoe. "We're trying to lower the minutes a little. It's a long season—it's early, so we can afford to do it. But as we get to the middle of the season, we're going to have to find him some rest."

It won't be easy. When a player can do it all to the extent that Eric Bledsoe has this season, it's hard not just to let him do it.