Ten games is a thin number to place beside the word familiar.
Only 10 regular-season games included appearances by all three of Phoenix’s key perimeter players: Dillon Brooks, Devin Booker and Jalen Green. That is a count of games in which they all took part, rather than a measure of their minutes together. It nevertheless shows how limited the opportunities were to use the whole group.
Booker’s Monday media-day comments made a reasonable case for the value of returning teammates and a familiar coach. He also acknowledged the condition that gives that preparation practical value: the Suns have to stay healthy enough to use it.
Booker’s case for familiar habits
Booker, entering his 12th season, pointed to the value of returning players and returning coach Jordan Ott. He described team gatherings in Las Vegas and Flagstaff, recent open gyms occurring about three times a week, and Brooks hosting teammates in Toronto. He also acknowledged that the Suns need to stay healthy if those shared repetitions are going to matter.
That final point carries more weight than the itinerary. A team can improve its vocabulary away from the schedule. Players can learn where a teammate prefers to receive the ball, which defensive calls require an immediate switch and when a possession should move away from the primary scorer.
But those lessons become valuable only when the same players have to execute them against a prepared opponent, with the clock shrinking and mistakes carrying consequences.
Booker averaged 33.5 minutes across his 64 appearances last season. His workload was substantial, but his individual availability did not produce a similarly large number of games involving the full trio. That helps explain why retaining familiar names is only part of Phoenix’s continuity problem.
Shared preparation should help players learn preferences and communicate more efficiently. The test in games is what happens when the first option closes. Who takes over the next action? Where does the ball move? How quickly can the group recognize a defensive change? Those questions need repeated competitive possessions, not simply repeated assurances that everyone knows one another.
There is also a practical benefit to having the same players available often enough to review their work together. A mistake can become something the group addresses at the next opportunity. Interrupted availability makes that learning cycle less straightforward, because the next combination may be different. That is one reason to care about continuity without treating it as a magic source of better results.
