The Phoenix Suns — at least one of them — threw in the towel Wednesday night.
Literally.
Gotta appreciate the headline: "Suns, Markieff Morris throw in towel." Story/video/photos: https://t.co/cgwZLmXcrJ pic.twitter.com/g8FxJzUBOz
— Paul Coro (@paulcoro) December 24, 2015
The Suns suffered one of their worst losses of the season Wednesday night at home to the Denver Nuggets. The result didn’t just put the Suns seven games below .500; it didn’t just push Phoenix beneath Denver in the West standings; it laid bare the folly of an organization which dared to think that an angry player could become a productive player.
Markieff Morris throwing (in) the towel at embattled head coach Jeff Hornacek marks the culmination (on multiple levels) of a journey the Suns organization thought it could make… but must plainly abandon now.
There’s no going back for Phoenix. The Rubicon has been crossed with the other Morris twin. Hornacek’s job might be in jeopardy, a few short seasons before he improbably took the Suns near the 50-game mark and the playoffs. However, there’s one play to make before handing Horny a pink slip, and that’s jettisoning Morris so that the locker room and the level of harmony on this ballclub can potentially improve.
*
Sunday, the Suns lost at home to the Milwaukee Bucks. It was fitting that two teams several games under .500 — and both among the season’s foremost disappointments — met at such an unstable point in their respective seasons. The Bucks, without an injured Giannis Antetokounmpo, were able to rally and beat the Suns, giving Phoenix yet another bad loss. With a healthy Giannis, that wouldn’t have been a horrible result for the Suns, but a limited Bucks roster should not go into the Valley of the Sun(s) and prevail.
The point of mentioning the Bucks — beyond the fact that they continued to plunge the Suns into misery — is that their transaction with the Suns, sending Brandon Knight to Phoenix as part of a three-team deal, substantially altered both franchises in ways neither one hoped. The Bucks have never been the same team since the Knight deal, and the reconstructed Suns, as Bryan Gibberman details here in this excellent piece, do not get the best version of Knight on a consistent (enough) basis.
Knight deserves blame here, but the Suns’ attempt to put two ball-dominant players on their roster cannot be viewed as a move which has made this team better. It was a not-that-common maneuver, and we’re seeing why: 12-19. That’s one move the Suns must re-think going forward.
Phoenix tried to do unusual things in altering the composition of its roster. It’s so hard to find the right mix of players in any sport if you lack them. Pulling in all the right pieces is very difficult, so it’s not as though Phoenix made a lot of decisions from a position of great strength or leverage. The Knight deal was not bad in the sense of being poorly-thought-out; it seemed unusual but ambitious and aggressive at the time. There’s no shame in being aspirational. It was a good try, without the good result.
Now the Suns have to reconsider their position.
A discussion of the Suns’ moves, though, must pivot to Markieff Morris — not because he is the player most responsible for the team’s troubles (that’s probably Knight or Eric Bledsoe or both), but because his presence on the roster should have been a no-go as soon as Marcus Morris went to the Detroit Pistons.
Markieff Morris isn’t as important to the Suns as the team’s backcourt. However, on a potent emotional and symbolic level, the troubled forward most centrally represents the broken nature of this season.
Markieff was angry when he was separated from his brother. Yes, this is professional sports, where athletes have to live in — and with — less-than-ideal organizational situations all the time. The compensation’s pretty good. However, when separating two brothers, leaders in an organization’s front office ought to realize that the psychic blow of such a parting likely carries more impact than other instances in which Player A and Player B are separated from each other. Phoenix never seemed to realize this, and now the Suns have a miserable player who represents a wasted roster spot.
The Suns could have made a transaction months ago to ensure they’d have a player happy to ply his trade in the Valley, but they didn’t. Morris throwing a towel at his head coach puts a visual stamp of affirmation on the foolishness of refusing to deal Markieff for a more veteran asset, a role player who could stitch together a lineup with two young guards and Tyson Chandler in the middle. At the 31-game mark of the season, it’s not too late for the Suns to make the playoffs in a much weaker West. However, the team’s window of opportunity is shrinking with each additional loss… and the lack of transactions to establish balance and harmony on the roster.
It’s not a Merry Christmas in Phoenix.
The Suns, having made an unforced error by not shipping Markieff Morris, need to shake up the roster and see what they can accomplish. At the end of the season, they can revisit the question of whether or not to sack Jeff Hornacek.
It would be unfair to give Hornacek — a talented coach — a lump of coal in his stocking before the 12 days of Christmas end on January 6 with the Feast of the Epiphany.
The epiphany for the Suns? Don’t keep players who throw in the towel.
