The 2013-14 Phoenix Suns ended their season with about as much momentum as any team in the NBA, which is odd for a group that missed out on the playoffs. The 48-win team had all of the basketball cognoscenti on its side as they watched six other Eastern teams with either worse or similar records made the postseason in the pitiful East, it defied expectation in turning what was thought to be a tanking season around, and the squad’s bevy of on-roster or incoming sound draft picks seemed to portend well for a bright future. The franchise’s lone question mark, free agent Eric Bledsoe, didn’t seem likely to go anywhere due to the restricted nature of his free agency.

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A year later, the outlook has changed. The Suns still managed a respectable record in 2014-15, topping .500 in the West is no joke, but the team is three games out of the playoff bracket with just five to play. The squad has lost two-thirds of its games since Jan. 20, it had to ship the disgruntled Goran Dragic and the we’re-not-sure-about-this-guy Isaiah Thomas out at the trade deadline, and the return prize in that deadline likely will not play again this year.

That prize, hybrid guard Brandon Knight, will also be a restricted free agent this summer. Bledsoe and the Suns eventually did come to terms, but it was an uneasy summer that inspired Dragic and Thomas’ frustrations. Now Knight, who just about plays the same position as Bledsoe (as was the case with Dragic and Thomas), will have his own turn.

Not before sitting for a bit to rest his dodgy left ankle. From Paul Coro at the Arizona Republic:

"From our standpoint, we need that to heal so I would guess he's out for the season," Suns coach Jeff Hornacek said.

Knight, 23, will be a restricted free agent in July, when the Suns will be able to re-sign him or match any offer sheet he signs with another team.

"I wish I could've been healthier throughout the process but that's part of basketball," Knight said.

Knight averaged 13.4 and 4.5 assists in 31 minutes a contest during his 11-game run with Phoenix, but he also shot 35 percent from the field and the Suns went 4-7 with him in the lineup.

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The Suns gave up quite a bit to secure Knight, a first-round pick that belongs to the Los Angeles Lakers that could either turn into the sixth overall pick this June or the fourth overall in 2016, depending on lottery luck. The Suns did well to extract two first-rounders from the Miami Heat in exchange for an in-prime player in Goran Dragic that was certain to flee as a free agent in July, picks that could cripple the Heat on down the line, but the Suns won’t see those selections until 2019 and 2021.

Meanwhile, a shot at using the season’s final two months to determine whether or not Knight (who had a near-All-Star season in a weaker Eastern Conference for part of the season) and Bledsoe fit together was shot to bits by Knight’s ankle woes. The Suns might be pressed into committing an eight-figure yearly salary to a guy they saw play for 11 mostly-iffy games. Yes, the salary cap is rising and Knight just turned 23 – but the Suns nearly made Eric Bledsoe the fifth-highest paid point guard in the NBA last summer, and does he feel like a top five point guard?

Bledsoe has his rightful excuses for his relative stasis this year in needing to share the ball with Dragic and Thomas, and he certainly gave off top five potential last season, but the same good timing and good collectively bargained luck we thought the Suns would have on their side when negotiating with Bledsoe and then Knight might reverse to bite the Suns in the tail.

Of course, it’s not as if Phoenix is in salary cap hell. If Bledsoe develops into an All-Star he will be a bargain, as the Morris twins currently are at their combined rate of around $13 million a year in most seasons, and the team will have heaps of expiring contracts leaving the books this summer.

One of those belongs to Gerald Green, a player that seems to alternate bouts of charming and tantalizing play with entire seasons of disappointing his employers. The Suns are the next franchise on Green’s list, sadly.

Via Pro Basketball Talk, here’s Coro quoting Suns coach Jeff Hornacek:

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