Phoenix Suns’ Eric Bledsoe: ‘I don’t have it going right now’
Nov 13, 2014, 10:28 PM | Updated: 10:28 pm
PHOENIX — For the second consecutive game, the Phoenix Suns rallied to overcome a double-digit deficit to win.
For the second consecutive game, point guard Eric Bledsoe had a courtside seat to watch the come-from-behind victory.
The bench, one would think, is not the vantage point for a player who just seven weeks earlier became the team’s highest-paid player, signing a five-year, $70 million contract to be the cornerstone of the franchise.
Then again, this is what can happen, and has, when said franchise has a surplus of playmakers.
Someone, on occasion, is going to ride the pine as Bledsoe did the entire fourth quarter of the Suns’ 112-104 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday.
“You guys are going to ask me a question about a different guy every night,” head coach Jeff Hornacek said after the game. “Eric played well in the second half. He had a couple of turnovers, but that group that was out there was playing hard, playing together so we just kept it that way.”
Bledsoe sat the last 14 minutes against the Nets and the final 16 minutes against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday.
Yes, Bledsoe wants to play.
No, Bledsoe is not unhappy with his playing time.
“(Hornacek) is doing a great job coaching. He’s doing a great job of coaching the team. I don’t have it going right now and other guys do,” he said Thursday. “At the end of the day, it’s the bigger picture — we’re trying to make the playoffs. We’re getting the wins, so that’s the biggest thing. Like I said, I’ve got to stay with it. I know my time will come. At the end of the day I’m going to keep cheering (my teammates) on.”
Perhaps even more troubling than Bledsoe sitting is Bledsoe playing.
Recently, he’s become turnover prone. He’s committed 23 in the last four games. By comparison, Bledose had only five turnovers in the first four games.
“I’m going to get turnovers the way we play,” he said.
Of course not all of the turnovers are Bledsoe’s fault. He and his teammates are still working to find that on-court chemistry, so there is going to be that occasional bad pass where the ball deflects off someone’s hands or lands in open space because someone is not in the correct spot.
“I don’t know if you ever put a number on it,” Hornacek said, when asked if there is ever an acceptable amount of turnovers. “I think it depends on what kind of turnovers they are. If they’re silly, bad try-to-make-home-run-play turnovers, yeah, you don’t want those, but if he’s making a good pass — when you’re making a lot of them you’re going to get some of them stolen. You want to try to keep them as low as possible but a couple a game is not a killer.”
Though early, Bledsoe has been tagged with the sixth-most turnovers (28), owns the seventh-highest turnover per game average (3.5) and carries a 1.39 assist-to-turnover ratio. Among point guards only Miami’s Mario Chalmers and Utah’s Alec Burks have worse marks.
“I don’t know what it is,” Bledsoe said. “Like I said, I’m going to get turnovers at the end of the day. There’s a lot of players playing the game — Stephen Curry had 10 turnovers when we played against (Golden State) and he had, what, 30-something points and 10 assists? Like I said, man, they’re going to happen. At the end of the day, I’ve just got to keep being aggressive.”
Bledsoe leads the Suns in assists (4.9) and once again has the team atop the NBA rankings in fast break points (17.5).
Still, the turnovers are too many.
“Things aren’t going my way right now,” he said, “but we’re winning. And that’s all that matters at the end of the day. We’re going out here and getting wins, and I’m going to cheer my teammates on regardless of me playing bad or not.”
