The Phoenix Suns just can’t have nice things, as star center Deandre Ayton is facing a 25-game suspension for violating the NBA’s Anti-Drug policy.
It legitimately took less than 24 hours.
Not even a full day after the Phoenix Suns enjoyed one of their most encouraging wins in recent memory, a 124-95 thrashing of the visiting Sacramento Kings that tipped off the 2019-20 season, one “Woj Bomb” threatened to bring it all crashing down.
According to ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski, star center Deandre Ayton is facing a 25-game suspension without pay for violating the NBA’s Anti-Drug policy, as the 21-year-old tested positive for a diuretic.
Diuretics are used to increase the production of urine, and are often used to get banned substances out of a person’s system, which is where the league’s concern likely stems from. However, Wojnarowski reports there were no traces of banned substances found in Ayton’s system, and the NBPA plans to fast track arbitration in order to reduce or completely rescind the 25-game sentence. Their case will rest on the “unintentional ingestion” of this banned substance.
Hopefully this hefty penalty will be severely reduced, if not fully rescinded, because if it’s not, Phoenix is in serious trouble and there will be plenty of pisse — I mean, angry Suns fans.
Ayton, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2018 NBA Draft, is entering a crucial sophomore season, both for his progress and the team’s. Phoenix needs its starting center to make gigantic strides on the defensive end while also sucking in the defense on the offensive end. He’s the franchise’s second cornerstone piece alongside Devin Booker, and his progress in Year 2 will be crucial to the Suns taking a step back toward relevance.
Booker is entering the first year of a max contract and his fifth season in the NBA, all with five different head coaches, two different GMs and nearly 70 different teammates. Establishing stability is critical this season, so not having Ayton around would be a crippling blow to that potential growth, even with backups Aron Baynes and Frank Kaminsky capable of filling in the gaps in the frontcourt.
That this news comes less than 24 hours after such an impressive season opener is devastating to a weary fanbase that hasn’t tasted the playoffs since 2010. The Suns are coming off a 19-win season, and though their asset evaluation wasn’t ideal over the offseason, they spent their summer adding capable, NBA-caliber players to surround Booker and Ayton with.
Head coach Monty Williams was brought in to put these youngsters on the path to success with the help of the newly arrived vets, and there was a lot of excitement about what Ayton could do with a legitimate starting point guard in Ricky Rubio. As a rookie, Ayton put up an efficient 16.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game on 58.5 percent shooting … and that was with Isaiah Canaan and two second-round rookies serving as his point guards.
In Phoenix’s season debut, Ayton put up a routine 18 points and 11 rebounds, but his activity on the defensive end was noticeably heightened and it translated to the offensive side of the ball as well. He was engaged and challenging shots at the rim, resulting in a career-high four blocks as the Suns held the Kings to just 36 second-half points.
It was an impressive season opener, and unlike last year’s similarly encouraging debut, this one felt more sustainable because it built on defense and a well-rounded team effort. If Ayton misses more than a quarter of the season, all of that goes out the window, immediately putting an inordinate amount of pressure on Booker to produce and dropping the Suns back in the inescapable hole they’ve been trying to climb out of for years now.
The Phoenix Suns finally got Devin Booker help. They’ve got a promising No. 1 overall pick to develop, several talented young players with upside and an injection of veteran influence to help coax out their best habits. So of course, not even a day after putting the league on notice that this season might be different, they’re hit with the potentially devastating realization that it might not.
Here’s hoping the suspension is drastically reduced, but in the meantime, the Phoenix Suns just can’t have nice things.