Despite Grayson Allen’s impressive performance with the Phoenix Suns, Royce O’Neale’s skill set makes him a better match in the starting lineup.
In lieu of an injured Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale earned a rare start on Wednesday as the Suns defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers handily.
Even if the starting lineup’s net rating wasn’t great in that game, O’Neale’s excellent defense, passing prowess, and smooth transition with the squad might make that temporary change permanent.
To suggest Allen should be relegated to the bench sounds a tad blasphemous. He’s coming to the end of a career-best season and has come so far that he deserves to be considered for Most Improved Player. He is without a doubt the team’s greatest three-point shooter and opens up a ton of space for the stars to operate in.
But Allen does have one serious flaw, and that is in his defense. Although he puts up a lot of effort in that regard, his lack of stature and agility prevents him from becoming an effective defensive back. In the postseason, those flaws are exposed, and several possible Suns opponents present severe size issues at the guard and wing positions.
When Allen and Jusuf Nurkić were teamed together, opponents would have too many choices to pursue at once. Since the Suns lack a suitable player to replace Nurkić, Allen is the only starting position that can be altered.
O’Neale has presented a strong case to support such change. He’s been all the Suns could have asked for since they got him. As one of the team’s greatest defenders, he can guard some of the larger wings, which relieves Kevin Durant of a great deal of strain.
He often makes the correct move and additional pass when the defense overloads on the stars, thus his reputation as a connector wasn’t overstated.
O’Neale’s improvement as a 3-point shooter since moving to Phoenix may be the main thing going in his favor. Even though he doesn’t shoot as well as Allen does from long range, he still shoots 39% on 5.3 attempts a game.
In actuality, he is making more threes than Allen when adjusted to points per 36 minutes. It would be imperative that the Suns find a high-volume threat from outside if they were to replace Allen, and O’Neale has obviously shown that he is capable of doing so.
We haven’t really seen O’Neale play alongside the four other starters for more than a few minutes because of a variety of ailments and his tendency to come off the bench when everyone is well. That five-man has a -10.3 net rating in 20 minutes combined, 17 of which were played in the game O’Neale just began.
Given the dominance of the starting lineup as it is and O’Neale’s particular success, that short sample size may quickly change in the case of a substitution.
As the Suns learned the hard way the previous season, switching up the starting lineup this late in the game is not without danger. Following the trade for Durant, Josh Okogie solidified his position as the Suns’ fifth starting.
Even though he was having the finest game of his career, Monty Williams decided to replace Okogie with Torrey Craig as the playoffs got underway because he didn’t like the matchup the Los Angeles Clippers offered. Craig played well in the end, but Okogie’s rhythm and confidence were completely wrecked by the change, making the Suns’ already thin bench much more so.
While Frank Vogel should take that into account if he makes a similar move, Allen will undoubtedly benefit more from it in the long run.
Allen has been outstanding the whole season, even at times when one or two of the stars were out, even though it is evident that he benefits from playing with them. Durant, Devin Booker, or Bradley Beal will all be on the court during the playoffs, so his efficacy shouldn’t diminish.
As the season has gone on, he has shown greater skill off the dribble, which would be helpful in a more on-ball position. Teams would also be unable to abandon him, as they did with Okogie, on the arc.
Additionally, there are still six games remaining, which isn’t nearly as drastic of a transition as it was before to the first playoff game but would still give the new starting unit time to establish some chemistry. Vogel has to make the switch right now if he believes that O’Neale would be a better fit in the starting lineup.
