Phoenix Suns: 3 Players That Disappointed This Season

The Phoenix Suns finished with the second-worst record in the league this year, with just 19 wins to their name. Having ended the season at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, Phoenix fell as far as 38 games behind the Conference leaders in the Warriors.

Owned by controversial figure Robert Sarver, the team failed to make an impression even after landing the No. 1 draft pick in the form of DeAndre Ayton this past offseason. Once home to Hall of Fame talents like Charles Barkley - who led the Suns to the NBA Finals in 1993 - this organisation seems to have entered one of its darkest periods ever.

This is the franchise's third year in a row being at the bottom of the West leaderboard. Devin Booker led the scoring while DeAndre Ayton led the rebounding column for the Suns. However, amongst players who played at least 50 games, only three averaged double-digits in scoring.

On that note, let's pull out three individual performers from the Suns' 2018-19 regular season that disappointed the most.

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#1 Jamal Crawford

Jamal Crawford is a three-time NBA sixth-man of the year.

The reigning NBA teammate of the year (2018) signed with the Suns in October of 2018 and came off the bench in 64 games for Phoenix. Averaging around 20 minutes per game throughout the season, Crawford could only manage to score 7.9 points a game along with dishing out just 3.6 assists.

Holding a career scoring average of around 15 points, Crawford's recent performances in a Suns uniform were his worst ever since his rookie season. His shooting rate from the field (39%) as well as from beyond the arc (33%) was the lowest since 2012. Crawford, who is arguably the best player ever in the NBA to come off the bench, couldn't make much of a difference to Phoenix's cause.

One of the rare highlights came when Jamal dropped 51 points in the season-finale against the Mavericks, making him the oldest player (39 years old) to score 50+ points.

#2 Mikal Bridges

Mikal Bridges was drafted 10th overall in the 2018 NBA draft.

A 2-time NCAA champion and Julius Erving award-winner (2018), Bridges was unable to shine with the Phoenix Suns despite playing in all 82 games of the season.

Coach Igor Kokoskov entrusted the youngster with almost 30 minutes per game and 56 games in the starting lineup, but he could only average 8.3 points per game. The rest of his averages included 3.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.6 steals per game.

In his junior year in college (2017-18), Bridges averaged 17.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game on 51 percent shooting, but none of that carried over to his stay in Phoenix. With his 3-and-D style of play, shooting 34% from distance on, Bridges is expected to turn into something of a future Klay Thompson. But that might take some considerable time looking at how things stand currently.

#3 Josh Jackson

Josh Jackson was in the All-Rookie second team last year(2018).

After having posted 13 points per game and 4.6 rebounds on 41% shooting from the field, Jackson sparked a bright ray of hope in Phoenix. Expectations from his sophomore year in the league were set high and rightfully so.

Unfortunately, he couldn't carry forward from the platform he'd created for himself last year. Josh averaged 11.5 points per game having played in 79 games(29 of which he started) throughout the season. He showed promising signs with his improved three-point shooting but could not use this newly-acquired skill to increase scoring production.

“He’s really shown he can shoot the ball at a high clip,” Suns forward Kelly Oubre Jr. said of Jackson. “He’s getting better every day. He’s hungry. He’s coming in to work and trying to be the best he can be.”

With fewer shot attempts (10.6) than in his rookie year (12.1), he showed no growth in his field-goal percentage as well.