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Suns now have the 2 best players in NBA history in this category

© Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports

One glaring weakness that plagued the Phoenix Suns all of last season was turnovers, as they could never figure out the right offensive system due to a variety of factors.

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Last year, the Suns averaged 14.9 team turnovers per game, which was the 25th most in the NBA. Phoenix faced health issues all season long and finished the year without a true point guard seeing minutes, as it tried a multi ball-handler approach with Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, Grayson Allen, Eric Gordon and others.

This offseason, the Suns addressed this hole and added the two best players statistically in assist-to-turnover ratio in NBA history in Tyus Jones and Monte Morris. They did so by getting both players on one-year, veteran-minimum deals.

Jones has led the NBA in assist-to-turnover ratio in each of the last six seasons, while Morris has been second in this category in four of those years.

Jones also holds the highest career assist-to-turnover ratio in NBA history at 5.56 across his nine NBA seasons. His 7.35 ratio last season with the Washington Wizards is the best single-season mark since turnovers were tracked in the 1977-78 season. This ratio, as well as his 7.04 ratio in 2021-22 and 6.96 ratio in 2018-19 are the three highest single-seasom assist-to-turnover ratios in the last 45 years.

Morris has a career 5.04 assist-to-turnover ratio, which ranks as the second-best mark in NBA history behind Jones among all players to record at least 1,000 assists.

“My mom would always be on me about taking care of the basketball,” Morris said at his introductory media availability earlier this month. “She would say, ‘Don’t let them steal my purse from me.’ So I kind of treat the ball like my mama’s purse. I try to just keep everything in tap with that.

“I’m going out there just to play basketball. I’ve been doing this since I was like four years old, so just loving the game. It kind of just comes second nature to me as far as trying to protect the basketball. I’m not trying to not make turnovers. I’m just just trying to play within myself and try to play chess, not checkers.”

Jones developed this repertoire of not turning the ball over at the NBA level, as his 2.86 assist-to-turnover ratio in his lone season at Duke in 2014-15 doesn’t jump off the page. Meanwhile, Morris had a 4.65 career assist-to-turnover ratio across four seasons at Iowa State from 2013-17, a Division I record that is considered one of the toughest to beat.

A whole new offense with Jones and Morris?

The Suns started last season with Jordan Goodwin as the team’s only point guard, and he played a reserve role for the first few months of the season until he was benched and later dealt away in the Royce O’Neale trade in February. Phoenix did not play a true point guard the rest of the season, despite adding Isaiah Thomas in March.

Now, the Suns have two very reliable veteran point guards in Jones and Morris who could completely reshape how the team plays offense if they can spearhead a much cleaner version of what we saw last season. New coach Mike Budenholzer will also help in aid in retooling the team’s offense centered around Booker, Kevin Durant and Beal.

“Playing fast and playing random, and the ball moving and people moving are things that I believe in,” Budenholzer said in an interview with the Suns after being introduced as the team’s 22nd head coach in May. “Hopefully there’s big chunks of the games where you can see that, and then when we need to execute and get into half-court sets and get into half-court situations and do that at a high level.”

We could get to see this new style on display right away with Jones. After agreeing to his deal with Phoenix, Jones told ESPN that Budenholzer “showed me how I can significantly impact a team that has a real opportunity to challenge for an NBA title as their starting point guard.”

Jones and Morris, as well as Budenholzer, have a chance to make the Suns much more exciting to watch if the team can utilize their elite playmaking to contribute to a much better and cleaner brand of basketball.

Tyus Jones says he will be the Suns starting point guard next season

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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau

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