What good does benching Booker do, honestly? Will it help us win a couple games? I don't think so. Even if it did, what does that really matter if our future isn't out on the floor learning to win because like it or not, Booker is this team's future. You don't pay a guy max money coming off of a rookie contract to sit him because he cost a last place team a game in January, a game that wouldn't have moved the Suns anywhere on the standings either, because he made a couple bad turnovers after returning from injury 2-3 games ago. That is just ridiculous.
I got an idea, let's trade for a 32 year old player so we can make our record look better than it was last year because that's all that matters right? The perception that we improved because our record says it did. Were the Warriors the best team ever when they won 73 games? No. Regular season is a time to learn and improve for when games matter down the line. We're probably going to lose more games than the year we had Dragic, Beasley, Shannon Brown, Scola, and Gortat here but I wouldn't trade this team for that one any day of the week. I'd rather have the 2019 Suns than the 2012 Suns, that's for damn sure. I know this team will be better next year. They need time and consistency and shuffling the rotation because one loss in January where Booker made stupid mistakes in the final minute won't matter in the large scope of things.
It sucks that our games mean nothing right now in terms of wins and losses but this is how a team handles things after acquiring a lot of youth, it develops them and teaches them how to play together and hopefully win. To do that the players that are the future need to play and if they make mistakes, so be it! Hope that the coaching staff is able to teach them from it so down the line they will perform better in similar situations. This year isn't a "similar situation" either, this year is lost, it's all about developing chemistry and consistency.
The team is improving but it needs more time to grow into a team that can compete with others night in and night out. Any shortsighted fix so you can feel happy about a meaningless win means nothing right now. No games this year really matter. Does that mean I think they should lose out? Of course not but I'm not going to get angry and call for all these drastic changes when a game that doesn't matter results in a loss if we see our players improve from it and we have seen improvement all year. If you haven't seen improvement that's because you're watching the score instead of the actual game that they play. I don't mean not watching the game like Slin doesn't watch the game either, I mean actually watching the intangibles that our players do that won't show up in a box score and that you see teams like the Warriors, Spurs, or Boston execute all the time, seamlessly on both sides of the ball.