Luke Kennard said Monday that Phoenix has urged him to take more attempts and accept more difficult shots. That is a sensible request for a player who made 117 of 245 three-pointers last season, good for 47.8%, while splitting the season between Atlanta and the Lakers.
It is also a request with a built-in danger: asking a precise shooter to create more difficulty can eventually make precision less precise.
The Suns begin camp Tuesday with Kennard’s role still a question of fit rather than a number on a shooting leaderboard. His accuracy offers an obvious potential benefit; the more demanding question is how that accuracy travels when the assignment includes tougher looks, less time to get set and fewer opportunities to wait for the ideal pass.
Phoenix’s own numbers explain the appeal. The Suns attempted 40.8 threes per game last season and made 36.1% of them. Kennard’s 47.8% gives the team a strong reason to make room for more of his shots.
It does not, by itself, establish that he should take every difficult attempt offered to him. A defender’s aggressive closeout can turn a three into a drive, a pass or a better shot for someone else. The best version of this experiment includes all four decisions, including the occasional refusal to fire.
The comparison with Collin Gillespie clarifies the choice without settling it. Gillespie made 232 of 578 threes for Phoenix at 40.1%. Kennard was more accurate; Gillespie operated at far greater volume.
Those figures speak to different things. They do not tell us that the two players faced identical shot difficulty, nor do they establish who is the better shooter overall. They show why percentage and workload have to be read together before anyone starts handing out minutes with a calculator.
Gillespie’s broader offensive workload gives Phoenix a counterweight to Kennard’s efficiency. He averaged 10.5 field-goal attempts, 7.2 three-point attempts, 12.7 points and 4.6 assists. His 4.1 rebounds and 1.2 steals also describe a fuller statistical contribution. The 1.6 turnovers per game sit on the other side of that involvement: more responsibility creates more opportunities to help and more opportunities to make a mess.
Kennard averaged 3.1 three-point attempts, 2.2 assists and 0.8 turnovers, with a 2.9 assist-to-turnover ratio. Phoenix should want to know whether those decisions survive a larger share of the offense. That does not mean turning him into Gillespie.
It means testing whether Kennard can punish a late closeout with a controlled attack, move the ball when the defense has already won the first exchange and still launch when the clock or the coverage makes the difficult three the right choice.
