Suns: P.J. Tucker Brings Hard Work, Grit to Table
P.J. Tucker is coming off of a season in which he averaged just over nine points and six rebounds per game. Those aren’t exactly filling up the stat sheet but he does bring hustle. When coupled with the off the court problems that he’s had in the past, it makes some wonder where the Suns will go next with the small forward.
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In May, Tucker was arrested on suspicion of a “super extreme DUI” with a BAC of .222 almost 3 times the legal limit. The worst part about this is that the Suns knew about the incident when they signed him to a three-year $16.5 million deal.
Twice Tucker missed team busses, once in Los Angeles and once in New York. This sort of irresponsibility isn’t what the Suns need out of a veteran player with a group of youngsters coming up.
Even though his numbers aren’t great, Tucker brings defensive hustle to the floor and three-point shooting. He’s a 35% three-point shooter and shot above 34% last year.
Tucker earned the contract from the suns after first coming to phoenix as a league minimum contract level player. Before that he played for four years in Europe after being picked in the second round out of Texas by the Toronto Raptors.
As I mentioned earlier, the Suns are young. They have the talented T.J. Warren who plays in tuckers spot that is showing promise for the future. The only problem is figuring out how to divide the minutes. Tucker has proven to be the starter but without valuable minutes, but could that be stunting Warren’s growth?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the course of the year. If Tucker can be responsible and stay out of trouble he can be a valuable piece to the rebuilding puzzle that are the Suns right now.