Suns’ recent struggles prompt key player to address diminished role

Since November 29th, the Phoenix Suns have lost 8 of their last 11 games, bringing their overall record for the season to .500 and causing frustration to begin to mount among the players.

After the Suns were blown out by the Sacramento Kings on Friday, Eric Gordon explained how he would like to have an expanded role with the Suns.

According to Chris Haynes at Bleacher Report, Gordon remarked, “Early on in the season, it was better. And lately, there just hasn’t been an emphasis [to get me more looks].” “So, it’s definitely different. Lately I haven’t been getting hardly any touches really.”

In response to this comment, Suns head coach Frank Vogel explained, “I got to keep moving the pieces around in terms of how we’re using certain guys. Can we get Eric Gordon more involved than I’m doing? I’m not doing a good enough job in making sure he’s involved in the offense. He’s a guy that can really help us.”

Gordon, who is playing in the 17th season of his NBA career, is averaging 31.5 minutes per game, which is right around his career average, and is even more than he has seen since 2018.

However, while on the court, Gordon has seen fewer touches, especially recently. While this can be attributed to the fact that Devin Booker and Kevin Durant are shooting the majority of the Suns’ shots, it has been obvious that Phoenix has struggled when Gordon is not playing a large part in the offense.

Thus far in December, Gordon is averaging less than 10 points per game. Against the Kings on Friday, Gordon had his first game of the season where he had 0 points as he shot the ball just twice.

Gordon also told Chris Haynes, “We go from winning seven in a row early on in the season and now we’ve lost eight out of 11. So, it’s just tough with the type of team that we have. We just have to figure out the different sacrifices that we need to try to win a game.”

The Suns will look to break their current two-game skid against the Dallas Mavericks on Christmas Day.