Booker wants teammates to ‘hold each other accountable’
SACRAMENTO — Frank Vogel welcomes leadership from all the Suns players, but specifically those named Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, along with Bradley Beal when he's been available. These are guys who have taken on that responsibility.
Booker didn't mince words after Thursday’s practice about where the Phoenix Suns (14-13) are heading into Friday’s game at Sacramento (16-10).
“Just keep learning each other, keep talking,” Booker said. “Don’t be scared to hold each other accountable. We’re all on the same path and we all have the same goal and that’s to win basketball games. We understand it’s not going to be easy, it’s not an easy league and we have
enough guys on this team who have been around the block. They understand that. It’s time to pick it up.”
The Suns are 3-7 in their last 10 games and are 10th in the West. If the playoffs started today, they’d have to win two road games in the play-in tournament just to make the postseason as an eighth seed.
“We all feel it,” Booker said. “Not just one of us. It’s everybody in here. We all have a job and this is the highest form of basketball in the world. It’s not an easy job and we understand that. We have the talent. We have the basketball minds in here to play better than we were.”
The Suns came into the season as championship contenders, but they are barely above .500 right now.
“It’s a good time for us to find that togetherness as a group and keep building,” Durant said. “It sucks to lose games, especially games I feel like we should win, but we just keep building. That’s all you can do.”
The Suns are coming off an 109-104 loss Tuesday night at Portland (7-19) in which they had a 15-point lead early in the second half.
“It’s just been a little disappointing how we’ve been playing on really both ends of the floor,” Suns guard Eric Gordon said after Tuesday’s loss. “Just need to be more real with ourselves into having an unselfish mindset going into games.”
Phoenix is 1-3 in its last four games with the win coming against four-win
Washington (4-22) at home.
“We got a lot of good guys on this team, but there needs to be more, a lot more togetherness to get to where we want to be," Gordon added.
The Suns have had 13 different starting lineups largely due to injuries as 11 different players have missed at least one game with an injury, but Vogel is still looking for the role players to establish themselves.
Keita Bates-Diop was a late scratch for Tuesday’s game with a migraine.
“We knew that early on in the season we were going to give a lot of our role players, minimum contract guys opportunities to earn a big role on our team,” Vogel said. “We’re still in the process of
giving those guys opportunities and evaluating what they can do and seeing where they fit. Until somebody jumps out and grabs those minutes, we’re still going to look at whatever guys we need to look at to try to get wins.”
Vogel said Josh Okogie (right hip injury) did practice Thursday and will be listed as questionable for Friday's game.
Okogie has missed Phoenix’s last four games after injuring his hip in the first half Dec. 12 against Golden State. He scored 10 points in 11 minutes of that game, going 3-of-4 from 3.
“We’ll see how he responds to (Thursday’s) work,” Vogel said.
Beal is the only other player with playing time this season who is out with an
injury.
He was able to do some individual shooting Thursday as the Suns have carved out a two-week window to address his sprained right ankle. He's scheduled for a re-evaluation in early January.
Beal suffered the injury when landing on Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo’s foot on a 3-point basket in the first quarter of a Dec. 15 loss to New York.
The three-time All-Star has played in just six games for his new team as low back issues limited him before the ankle sprain.
Damion Lee (knee) has been out all season as he had surgery on his right meniscus Oct. 11.