Phoenix Suns season preview five reasons to feel positive

Hill had his own needs. He was only effective as a starter (coming off the bench would cool his body too much), but like Nash couldn’t be expected to produce offensively for more than 20-25 minutes a game. Any more than that, each shot was short. Combined with Nash, that made for a very iffy final few minutes evevry night.

3. Variation on offense

With Nash running the team, the offense was beautiful to watch. Ninety percent of the time, he used a middle-screen pick-and-roll (the other 10 percent being a side pick-and-roll). No matter how injured he might be while hobbling around the court, he still knew exactly how to read defenses and find the best, open shot no matter how the defense chose to play it.

But the maestro of the pick-and-roll is gone, and the offense is going to evolve. Enter the “corner” offense, used for years by Rick Adelman (which has similarities to the triangle). Four Suns players have played that offense for Adelman, and Shannon Brown knows the triangle from his Lakers days. Expect the Suns to run 50 percent pick-and-roll (with Dragic forcing the issue at the basket) and 50 percent corner offense, with others initiating.

4. The Dragon

Speaking of Dragic …

Many national NBA fans remember Dragic as the Suns guard who scored 23 fourth-quarter points against San Antonio in the 2010 playoffs. Others remember him as the guy who “battled” fellow Slovenian Sasha Vujacic in the Western Conference finals.

More recently, Dragic was the guy who led Houston on a strong postseason push run last spring, putting up 18 points, eight assists and two steals per game for two months while Houston nearly hit the playoff jackpot despite being decimated by injury.

Now the Dragon is back with the team which drafted him, ready to dominate the court with his aggressive drives, dishes, jump shots, dipsy-do’s (“He just got Dragic’d!”) and spirited defense. He is brimming with confidence and has the game to back it up.

5. This season is a win-win no matter what happens

At the end of this season, the Suns have two or three first round picks (depending on whether Minnesota makes the playoffs) and nearly $15 million in cap space, and all they give up is the rights to backup small forward Wesley Johnson.

If the season goes well, they spend the picks and money on players to supplement a core of Dragic, Scola, Dudley, young power forward Markieff Morris and maybe even Beasley, who has impressed the team with his all-around game and willingness to do whatever is asked, including defend and rebound.

If it doesn’t go well, they still have the money, higher picks and they can jettison the entire front office and coaching staff – all on the last year of their contracts – for yet another fresh start.

This season is a transition year, but one that Suns fans knew was a long time coming.