TORONTO -- Isaiah Thomas is trying to get used to his new station. After three seasons in Sacramento, the Phoenix Suns dynamo has wound up in a three-point-guard experiment that is both promising and perplexing. Last year, Thomas finally broke out as the unquestioned Kings starter, averaging 20.3 points and 6.3 assists per game. Now he’s a sixth man, putting up even better per-minute numbers but seeing less playing time thanks to the presence of Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe. While he’s looked great when he’s been on the floor, he’s more often been on the bench.
Not quite a month into the season, Thomas sat on the sideline after Monday’s shootaround with his surgically repaired left wrist wrapped in ice. He was not upbeat, but spoke positively about the situation. All of the Suns like playing with each other, he said. It’s a great organization, the city is nice.
Thomas continued: The players joke around on the plane. They eat together. Swingman Gerald Green is the life of the locker room, and he’s “definitely the highest jumper in the NBA, by far.” It took Thomas a while to tell the difference between the Morris twins, but it’s easy now -- Markieff’s face is a little bigger, a little fatter.
Back in Sacramento, former teammate Ben McLemore has taken over Thomas’ role as spokesman for local chain Pizza Guys. Thomas hasn’t seen the new commercial, but said he’s “happy for him to take the reins.” He then qualified the statement.
“I’m the one and only Pizza Guy, though,” Thomas said. “I’m the first and the best one. He’s doing the best he can.”
Following Phoenix’s 104-100 loss to the Toronto Raptors, Thomas’ tone shifted to serious. The Suns had fallen behind by 17 points and needed a fourth-quarter run led by Thomas to get back into the it. In a 64-second span, Thomas made three consecutive 3-pointers. In 22 total minutes, he scored 16 points on 10 field goal attempts.
A reporter began to ask him about the backcourt -- Dragic played a season-low 21 minutes, and sometimes it’s Thomas in that position.
“It’s always me,” Thomas interrupted, looking and sounding frustrated. “It’s always me.”
Dragic said last week that the offense hadn’t clicked yet “because there’s only one ball and we’re all point guards,” via the Arizona Republic. Thomas said playing off the ball wasn’t new to him because he’d done it in college, but the minutes were an adjustment.
“As long as I’m in the game, I’m happy,” Thomas said. “That’s the biggest thing. I know everybody wants to play. I feel like I can help this team in a big way.”
With the Kings, he was shuffled in and out of the starting lineup, especially in his first two seasons. He watched Tyreke Evans, Aaron Brooks, Greivis Vasquez and Jimmer Fredette play the point in front of him. Thomas has learned that he can’t worry about the things he can’t control. Still, this is challenging. Thomas has proven he’s capable of producing like an All-Star, and so have Dragic and Bledsoe.
“It’s a tough situation,” Thomas said. “But you’ve just got to be ready for whatever circumstances coach puts you in. You gotta be ready when your name is called, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s tough.
“It’s not what I expected,” Thomas continued. “But coach has a tough job. Putting all of us on the floor and trying to mix up the minutes, it’s tough for him. So it’s not just tough for us as players, we just gotta be ready when our name’s called and just know, I mean, coach is trying to do what he thinks is best for the team to put us in a position to win. But the key word is it’s a tough situation. For all of us.”
Phoenix head coach Jeff Hornacek has used the three of them together when he’s wanted to push the pace. Offensively, that’s a lot to handle. The strategy has obvious defensive drawbacks, though, especially when the opponent has a post-up threat on the wing. Finding the proper balance has been tricky.
“They’re all used to having the ball in their hands quite a bit, and they’re still trying to figure it out,” Hornacek said. “And so are we [the coaching staff]. It’s not just those three guys — we have Gerald Green at the guard position also. And everyone goes, ‘Ehh, we can just slide him over to the 3 spot,’ but then we have P.J. Tucker and Marcus Morris.”
The idea, for Hornacek, is to keep everybody fresh. Whoever’s on the court should be putting out “full energy every minute they’re out there.” If everyone buys in, he thinks the depth should be an advantage.
When you’re winning, that sounds just fine. When you’re losing, it’s a different story. The Suns are 9-6, which means they're ninth place in the cruel West. Thomas played only 17 minutes in a double-overtime loss against his former team a few weeks ago. He played only 20 when Phoenix coughed up a lead in Charlotte. Dragic and Bledsoe’s usage rates have dipped.
“We have a lot of talent on this team,” Suns forward Anthony Tolliver said. “Guys are going to have it going and we’re going to have to cheer those guys on and everything else. I think that they understand that and they understand that some nights, it’s going to be their night, some nights it’s not.”
Thomas, like everyone involved, surely does understand this. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to handle.
