Paulo Alves

Bottom line, Amin has been very, very good.

Even if he's not a traditional point guard, I think the bottom line, he's a very good player.

And so no one is talking, or at least they shouldn't be, badly about Amin Thompson anymore.

Since the start of December, he's been really good.

Tari Eason, since getting promoted to the starting lineup around Christmas, he's looked good.

Defensively, I was really encouraged by the work he did on Devin Booker late in that game against the Suns.

He seems to be happily accepting the glue guy role alongside the high-usage guys like KD, Amin, Shingun when he's able to play.

And, you know, some of the dip offensively is certainly due to not having Alperin Shingun, who's probably your best playmaker.

So we do have to keep stating that.

But I think in terms of the criticism...

We mentioned a lot of the guys are playing well.

The veterans that are sort of low ceiling, you're Josh Akogi, Dorian Finney-Smith, Stephen Adams.

Well, Stephen Adams has a higher ceiling, but offensively, he is what he is.

He's not someone you're going to run offense through.

Aaron Holiday.

Those vets, I sort of put them in the same bucket at Clint Capella as well as they do what they do.

You're not going to have too many highs or too many lows other than the games that Stephen set out with his own ankle injury.

Your defense did fall off a little bit, but that's to be expected.

Just as Alper and Shungun is your floor raiser on offense, Stephen Adams is your floor raiser on defense.

And the ideal, of course, is to have them both so that you have a high floor on both sides of the ball.