The Phoenix Suns haven’t had a lot of success in the NBA Draft since they took Amare Stoudemire with the ninth-overall pick in 2002. They haven’t had a lot of lottery picks in that time either with only Luol Deng (draft day trade), Earl Clark (traded) and Robin Lopez being selected in the top half of the draft until 2011.

This summer was the first chance for Lance Blanks and Lon Babby leave their mark on the team via the draft. They picked Markieff Morris from Kansas with the 13th pick, a decision that brought solid “B’s” in the various draft grades.

So far, however, Morris has exceeded all expectations and currently is the third highest-ranked rookie in his class with a PER of 22.24. It’s only five games into his pro career, but Morris is proving to be everything the Suns hoped and more.

Offensively, Morris is already the Suns best big in the post with an outstanding conversion rate of .700 on his 12 post-up possessions as charted by Synergy Sports Tech. But what makes Morris so special offensively is his ability to also stretch the floor. He’s shooting 50 percent on his jump shots and is an impressive 6-12 from three.

The one thing Morris doesn’t bring, or at least hasn’t yet, is the ability to finish on the pick and roll. He’s only been used on two possessions with one resulting in a jump shot. On the other, he slipped the pick, caught the pass from Nash and had the ball striped in the paint.

It will be interesting to see if Morris can develop this part of this game. Playing more minutes with Nash will certainly help, but he’s clearly no Amare Stoudemire. On the flip side, Morris is a far better post player and spot up shooter than Amare was as a young player even though the spectacular dunks aren’t part of the repertoire.

Morris has already proven to be an effective rebounder as well. His rebound rate of 14.4 is second-highest on the team behind only Channing Frye who’s started the season making up for his poor shooting by attacking the glass hard.

Defense is where the rookie is struggling most. He’s prone to commit fouls and has some work to do before he adapts to the NBA game. The effort, smarts and desire are there so there’s no reason to think that Morris won’t improve as he gets more experience. In the mean time, his versatile offense and work on the boards should continue to earn him minutes. His twin brother Marcus, meanwhile, has been sent to the Houston Rockets D-league affiliate to work on his game.

Overall, while it’s still very early, the Morris draft pick looks like a fantastic decision for the Suns.

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The Phoenix Suns haven’t had a lot of success in the NBA Draft since they took Amare Stoudemire with the ninth-overall pick in 2002. They haven’t had a lot of lottery picks in that time either with only Luol Deng (draft day trade), Earl Clark (traded) and Robin Lopez being selected in the top half of the draft until 2011.

This summer was the first chance for Lance Blanks and Lon Babby leave their mark on the team via the draft. They picked Markieff Morris from Kansas with the 13th pick, a decision that brought solid “B’s” in the various draft grades.

So far, however, Morris has exceeded all expectations and currently is the third highest-ranked rookie in his class with a PER of 22.24. It’s only five games into his pro career, but Morris is proving to be everything the Suns hoped and more.

Offensively, Morris is already the Suns best big in the post with an outstanding conversion rate of .700 on his 12 post-up possessions as charted by Synergy Sports Tech. But what makes Morris so special offensively is his ability to also stretch the floor. He’s shooting 50 percent on his jump shots and is an impressive 6-12 from three.

The one thing Morris doesn’t bring, or at least hasn’t yet, is the ability to finish on the pick and roll. He’s only been used on two possessions with one resulting in a jump shot. On the other, he slipped the pick, caught the pass from Nash and had the ball striped in the paint.

It will be interesting to see if Morris can develop this part of this game. Playing more minutes with Nash will certainly help, but he’s clearly no Amare Stoudemire. On the flip side, Morris is a far better post player and spot up shooter than Amare was as a young player even though the spectacular dunks aren’t part of the repertoire.

Morris has already proven to be an effective rebounder as well. His rebound rate of 14.4 is second-highest on the team behind only Channing Frye who’s started the season making up for his poor shooting by attacking the glass hard.

Defense is where the rookie is struggling most. He’s prone to commit fouls and has some work to do before he adapts to the NBA game. The effort, smarts and desire are there so there’s no reason to think that Morris won’t improve as he gets more experience. In the mean time, his versatile offense and work on the boards should continue to earn him minutes. His twin brother Marcus, meanwhile, has been sent to the Houston Rockets D-league affiliate to work on his game.

Overall, while it’s still very early, the Morris draft pick looks like a fantastic decision for the Suns.

For the latest AZ sports, follow us on Twitter @SBNArizona and “Like” us on Facebook.

With Alvin Gentry entering his third full season as Suns coach, the team will keep pushing a fierce tempo. Scoring points has never been a problem for Phoenix. Stopping the opponent from scoring has.

Gentry has long preached the need for better defense. Now he’s added assistant coach Elston Turner to specifically address that aspect of the game.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever be the Chicago Bulls or the Boston Celtics or the San Antonio Spurs,” Gentry said, “but I don’t think those teams will ever beat us offensively.

“What we have to do is continue what we do offensively but we have to know what we’re going to get night in and night out defensively.”

With a lineup that features the 37-year-old Nash and 39-year-old Grant Hill, the Suns hope to rely on improved depth to cut down the minutes for everyone in a compacted 66-game season.

“The one thing that we’ve done around here is we’ve always tried to play nine or 10 guys,” Gentry said. “I think it’s going to be important this year that you have a deep bench because you have certain situations where you’re playing five games in seven nights or six games in nine nights, where it’s going to be really important to have depth where you’re not burning guys out.”

The Suns signed three free agents — shooting guard Shannon Brown and point guards Sebastian Telfair and Ronnie Price. They also are expecting help from first-round draft pick Markieff Morris, a 6-foot-10 power forward from Kansas. They join a reserve corps that already includes Josh Childress, Robin Lopez and Hakim Warrick.

A major area of potential improvement is at center, where Marcin Gortat will have more time to work on what already is an effective pick and roll with Nash, who despite the team’s issues a year ago still led the league in assists at 11.4 per game.

Gortat was the centerpiece for Phoenix in the blockbuster trade with Orlando less than halfway into last season. Escaping from the considerable shadow of Dwight Howard, the 6-foot-11, 240-pound Polish center averaged 13 points and 9.3 rebounds in 55 games with the Suns.

Phoenix also is hoping to benefit from what appears to be a rejuvenated Lopez. The 7-footer is coming off a subpar season that followed a strong showing in the Suns’ surprise run to the Western Conference finals two years ago.

Jared Dudley, for now, is the starting two-guard with the athletic Brown coming off the bench. Channing Frye, Dudley and Nash will provide the outside shooting power, while the ageless Hill, who spurned offers from more obvious contenders to return to Phoenix, again will draw the toughest defensive assignments.

But this, as always, is Nash’s team. He enters his 16th NBA season, the last eight with the Suns. This is the final year of his contract. Suns President Lon Babby said he wants Nash to retire as a Sun, but the team isn’t in position to give him a new contract until after the coming season.

“We’re trying to be disciplined and stick with our overall plan, which is to remain as competitive as we can be and at the same time put ourselves in a position of flexibility beginning next summer,” Babby said. “That doesn’t mean everything is going to get accomplished next summer or the summer after that or that we don’t have high expectations for this year, but I think you have to have an overall plan and an overall strategy, and then the details unfold.”

Babby knows that speculation about Nash being traded is inevitable.

“We want him to stay here as long as he wants to be here,” Babby said, “and we want to have him go into the Hall of Fame as a Phoenix Sun and the (Suns) Ring of Honor as a Phoenix Sun. On some level, I’ve communicated that to him. It’s really going to be his decision, together with us I suppose, but that opportunity is there for him. That’s the right thing for our franchise.”

Babby said he thinks Nash “understands where we are.”

“We’re kind of at the end of one cycle and starting another cycle and we want him to help us return to elite status with the contributions he can make over the next period of time,” Babby said. “What I want to try to avoid, and I think I’ve communicated to him, is to not let it be a distraction.”

Nash said he isn’t looking beyond this season.

“I’m not really thinking about it,” he said. “I just want to try to make this team into a playoff team. At this stage of my career, I’m not thinking about tomorrow. I’m just thinking about today.”

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

PHOENIX (AP)—The Phoenix Suns are giving Steve Nash the ball again,
tweaking their lineup, adding a defensive-minded assistant coach and hoping that
avoiding the turmoil that disrupted last season will get them back in the
playoffs.

“I think we’re going to be better than what people think,” Grant Hill
said. “Obviously the West is extremely difficult, but we almost got in last
year and I think we’ll be better. We have better chemistry and continuity than
we had last year. … Then I think collectively there’s a little bit of a
mindset that we’ve got something to prove, that we’re better than what we
showed.”

With Alvin Gentry entering his third full season as Suns coach, the team
will keep pushing a fierce tempo. Scoring points has never been a problem for
Phoenix. Stopping the opponent from scoring has.

Gentry has long preached the need for better defense. Now he’s added
assistant coach Elston Turner to specifically address that aspect of the game.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever be the Chicago Bulls or the Boston Celtics or
the San Antonio Spurs,” Gentry said, “but I don’t think those teams will ever
beat us offensively.

“What we have to do is continue what we do offensively but we have to know
what we’re going to get night in and night out defensively.”

With a lineup that features the 37-year-old Nash and 39-year-old Grant Hill,
the Suns hope to rely on improved depth to cut down the minutes for everyone in
a compacted 66-game season.

“The one thing that we’ve done around here is we’ve always tried to play
nine or 10 guys,” Gentry said. “I think it’s going to be important this year
that you have a deep bench because you have certain situations where you’re
playing five games in seven nights or six games in nine nights, where it’s going
to be really important to have depth where you’re not burning guys out.”

The Suns signed three free agents—shooting guard Shannon Brown and point
guards Sebastian Telfair and Ronnie Price. They also are expecting help from
first-round draft pick Markieff Morris, a 6-foot-10 power forward from Kansas.
They join a reserve corps that already includes Josh Childress, Robin Lopez and
Hakim Warrick.

A major area of potential improvement is at center, where Marcin Gortat will
have more time to work on what already is an effective pick and roll with Nash,
who despite the team’s issues a year ago still led the league in assists at 11.4
per game.

Gortat was the centerpiece for Phoenix in the blockbuster trade with Orlando
less than halfway into last season. Escaping from the considerable shadow of
Dwight Howard, the 6-foot-11, 240-pound Polish center averaged 13 points and 9.3
rebounds in 55 games with the Suns.

Phoenix also is hoping to benefit from what appears to be a rejuvenated
Lopez. The 7-footer is coming off a subpar season that followed a strong showing
in the Suns’ surprise run to the Western Conference finals two years ago.

Jared Dudley, for now, is the starting two-guard with the athletic Brown
coming off the bench. Channing Frye, Dudley and Nash will provide the outside
shooting power, while the ageless Hill, who spurned offers from more obvious
contenders to return to Phoenix, again will draw the toughest defensive
assignments.

But this, as always, is Nash’s team. He enters his 16th NBA season, the last
eight with the Suns. This is the final year of his contract. Suns President Lon
Babby said he wants Nash to retire as a Sun, but the team isn’t in position to
give him a new contract until after the coming season.

“We’re trying to be disciplined and stick with our overall plan, which is
to remain as competitive as we can be and at the same time put ourselves in a
position of flexibility beginning next summer,” Babby said. “That doesn’t mean
everything is going to get accomplished next summer or the summer after that or
that we don’t have high expectations for this year, but I think you have to have
an overall plan and an overall strategy, and then the details unfold.”

Babby knows that speculation about Nash being traded is inevitable.

“We want him to stay here as long as he wants to be here,” Babby said,
“and we want to have him go into the Hall of Fame as a Phoenix Sun and the
(Suns) Ring of Honor as a Phoenix Sun. On some level, I’ve communicated that to
him. It’s really going to be his decision, together with us I suppose, but that
opportunity is there for him. That’s the right thing for our franchise.”

Babby said he thinks Nash “understands where we are.”

“We’re kind of at the end of one cycle and starting another cycle and we
want him to help us return to elite status with the contributions he can make
over the next period of time,” Babby said. “What I want to try to avoid, and I
think I’ve communicated to him, is to not let it be a distraction.”

Nash said he isn’t looking beyond this season.

“I’m not really thinking about it,” he said. “I just want to try to make
this team into a playoff team. At this stage of my career, I’m not thinking
about tomorrow. I’m just thinking about today.”

In the Suns’ backyard, defense has been the spot where little will grow.

The coaches plant the seeds each training camp, but the soil never has been rich enough in defenders or received enough nurturing to blossom.

The Suns’ propensity for scoring points has been offset by the ease in which they surrender them. Last season, the Suns yielded the sixth-highest opponent field-goal percentage (47.2) and missed the playoffs. The annual lip service about addressing defense ensued, but there was more action this time.

The Suns hired Elston Turner to be more than another assistant coach. He is the lead assistant, defensive coordinator and leader of defensive segments at each practice.

“Hearing his approach to guarding various situations and overall philosophy certainly makes a lot of sense,” said Suns forward Grant Hill, the team’s most-respected defender. “It simplifies things. Much to the coaching staff’s credit, it’s been emphasized and worked on. It’s something you have to drill and talk about every day. I’m sure we’ll watch film every day. But I like it. I like the points of emphasis. It seems as though you’re only really defending a handful of situations.”

Turner’s points of emphasis do not stray from what always has been emphasized — protect the paint and make opponents shoot over the defense. His tactics to do so have worked at high levels during his 14 years as a NBA assistant. His 2002-03 Sacramento team led the league in defensive field-goal percentage, and two of his Houston teams ranked second and fourth, although Houston slipped to 17th and 18th the past two seasons without Yao Ming protecting the rim.

Turner wants to keep opponents off the free-throw and 3-point lines and, like coach Alvin Gentry, believes the team’s 29th-ranked defensive rebounding and 14 turnovers per game hurt the defense as much as anything. Offensive boards make for easy putbacks. Open-court turnovers lead to layups and dunks.

“The things I’m presenting works, as long as you have the players,” Turner said. “We have some guys with the ingredients. That is length and athleticism.”

Turner and Gentry will institute a defensive grading system. The system’s baseline was established when they went through each of last season’s games to grade each player.

“It’s going to be a change for the guys, because this stuff is not easy,” Turner said. “Scoring is fun. Playing defense is hard. There may be some resistance there, but I’m up for the challenge.”

Turner was known as a player who could stop wings during eight NBA seasons, and that has carried over to his coaching career. He was a finalist for the Suns’ head-coaching job in 2008 when the Suns hired Terry Porter. Porter retained Gentry, who later replaced him and picked Turner this summer for his defensive acumen and a personality that fits with returning staff.

“He changed my mind on some things, as far as being overly aggressive and getting ourselves out of position,” Gentry said. “He’s a little bit more of a conservative guy, as far as protecting the basket and the paint area.”

There also is only so much Turner can teach. He commends Steve Nash for superior effort but acknowledges his liabilities, starting with size.

“I’m going to line up guys behind him to protect him,” Turner said. “He knows team defense. He’s going to plug areas and be in the right spots. When it comes to staying in front of a (Russell) Westbrook or a (Derrick) Rose, who does?”

The Suns contend that getting to the middle of the pack defensively would make for more wins when combined with their usual elite offense. But you have heard that before, like politicians’ empty pledges to balance a budget.

“You have to be physical,” Turner said. “You have to have a big heart. You have to compete. There’s not a lot of skill in that. Knock somebody on their (butt) and go after the basketball. We have to be just a little tougher.”