The Phoenix Suns are not sure who they want to be

When you watch the Phoenix Suns, there’s almost no telling what you’ll see on a night-to-night basis. This is the somewhat predictable result of simultaneous but seemingly incongruous plans to: A) get younger and build through the draft, and B) make the playoffs on the back of solid veterans. Those plans have resulted in a mismatched roster that features 10 players aged 25 or younger; four aged 31 or older; and only one (point guard Eric Bledsoe, who is somehow already 27-years old) in his ostensible physical prime.

Phoenix’s starting lineups illustrate this better than anything else. Their most-used starting five consists of Bledsoe and 20-year old 2015 first-rounder Devin Booker in the backcourt, with 31-year old P.J. Tucker and 34-year old Tyson Chandler flanking 19-year old Marquese Chriss (the No. 8 pick in this year’s draft) in the frontcourt. On the surface, it makes sense, with two veteran defenders helping cover up for the weaknesses of the neophytes. But it’s a group that hasn’t worked at all — that five has been outscored by 9.0 points per 100 possessions this season, playing the equivalent of bottom-six offense and hemorrhaging points at a rate exceeded by only the Portland Trail Blazers’ league-worst defense.

T.J. Warren had the small forward job to open the season, for what it’s worth; but in those games, 31-year old Jared Dudley occupied Chriss’ sport with the starters. So, there have only been eight games where the age spread (the age difference between the oldest and youngest player) of the Suns’ starting lineup was less than 12 years. The Bledsoe-Booker-Chriss-Alex Len foursome was together for all eight of those games and was outscored by 6.7 points per 100 possessions. None of these mismatched groups seem to work.

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Based on his minute distribution and his public comments, Earl Watson seems to want to lean on the vets. Other than Booker, none of the kids are playing all that much. Chriss, despite starting in 22 of 29 games, is only averaging 17 minutes a night. Dragan Bender has appeared in only 23 of 29 games and is at 11 minutes per game. Len is consistently working behind Chandler and averaging just over 20 minutes a night in the games where he hasn’t worked as a fill-in starter. The problem is the veteran-laden units don’t have enough punch to actually outscore their opponents, which means it’s not really worth it to give those guys all the minutes at the expense of the kids.

There even seems to be a push and pull between how the Suns want to play on any given night. Just about the only thing they do consistently is play fast. Their average game contains 103.3 possessions, per NBA.com, second-most in the league; but nearly half their games (13 of 29) have been played at a pace more than one standard deviation away from the average. Even their desire to speed things up comes and goes.

The Suns rank 22nd in offensive efficiency and 24th in defensive efficiency heading into Thursday’s play — making them one of only three teams to rank in the bottom-third in both categories. A look at their performance in the Four Factors (offense in gray, defense in white) shows that although they do have areas of strength on both sides of the ball, they are so bad in other areas as to render those strengths almost meaningless.

For example, their ability to grab offensive rebounds and get to the free-throw line is undermined by their horrific shooting and propensity for turnovers. They can’t shoot, to begin with, but they also compound the problem with inefficient shot distribution. Despite their fast pace, the Suns are one of the most 3-averse teams in the NBA, and the 3s they do take, rarely go in. (They’re 22nd in 3-point attempts per game and 21st in 3-point percentage.) Their trips to the line could even be more fruitful — they shoot a slightly below average percentage from the stripe.

On the other side of the floor, their work on the glass and in the passing lanes is rendered moot by the fact that they allow their opponents to make far too many shots and continually send them to the free-throw line. Only three teams allow more wide-open (no defender within six feet) shots per game, per the SportVU data on NBA.com, and only five defend well enough to force their opponents into the final four seconds of the shot clock less often.

There’s no standout strength that isn’t mitigated — and more — by a corresponding weakness.

The Suns don’t seem to have the ability to consistently turn even their best offensive or defensive performance into wins, either. Check out their advanced game log on Basketball-Reference, and you’ll see that while the Suns are 6-4 in their 10 best defensive games of the season, they’re only 3-7 in their 10 best offensive games. Tellingly, though, there’s only one game — a November 18 blowout of the Pacers — that appears on both lists. They’ve yet to show the capacity to lock in on both offense and defense on the same night.

The Suns are 8-21 with a point differential that backs up their record, which makes them one of the four worst teams in the league. They’re headed for yet another high lottery pick, which if they keep it will leave them with a roster that includes six players drafted in the lottery of the last five drafts. And we don’t seem to know anything about how the five already on the team play together — Len, Warren, and Booker, the three that play regular minutes, have only shared the court for 134 minutes this season; only 61 of them have included Chriss and none have included Bender — or anything about where the team is going, in general.

It’s difficult to figure out what the Suns are — or what they want to be; mostly because it doesn’t seem like they know, either. The Bledsoe-Knight backcourt they once thought would be their future has been blasted by 5.5 points per 100 possessions in the 1,366 minutes its been on the court spread across the last three seasons. The Bledsoe-Booker backcourt hasn’t fared any better (-5.6 points per 100 possessions) in its 888 minutes. And none of the frontcourt combinations appear to make any sense, either.

There’s still plenty of time for the kids to develop — again, 10 players on the roster are 25 or younger. And it’s okay to play vets in the meantime. But there needs to be a decision made about some sort of cohesive identity and style of play beyond “we want to play fast,” which they don’t even adhere to consistently. Until the Suns settle on that, nothing else they want to accomplish will come to fruition.