Usually in sports, teams that win consistently have a good combination of young and old players. The players on the younger side are usually the ones carrying the bulk of the workload, while the older, more experienced players are the supporting cast, combining skills and leadership to help form a winning combination. The Phoenix Suns have not been blessed with that kind of roster balance, and it may be to their detriment.

Entering the 2014-15 season, the Suns had the eighth youngest roster in the league, averaging 25.1 years old. The team played even younger, however, as its oldest players, like forward Shavlik Randolph, were for the most part those that did not get as much playing time.

To compound the age and inexperience concern, the Suns added three first round picks in the 2014 draft – T.J. Warren, Tyler Ennis and Bogdan Bogdanovic. The former two joined the team for the start of training camp, while Bogdanovic is still in Europe playing for his club team in Serbia.

With the roster turnover that occurred at midseason, the majority of players in the regular rotation were inexperienced players trying to earn a spot with the organization moving forward. At the end of the 2014-15 season, there were seven players that were part of the regular rotation that were 25 or under. Another starter, P.J. Tucker, has played only four NBA seasons despite being 29 years old.

With an excess of young talent comes growing pains and immaturity, both on the court and off of it. Center Earl Barron, who was only in Phoenix for the stretch run of the season after the trade deadline, said that he took on a leadership role based on his experience.

“I’m just going to come early, stay late, just try be professional give these young guys something to look at,” Barron said. “Say okay this is the oldest guy on the team, working just as hard as me, I got to do something to get better.”

The lack of maturity on the court manifested itself in the form of technical fouls. The Suns had four players in the top-20 in the league in technical fouls, the most of any organization.

In addition, the Suns were taken advantage of in close games by teams with more experience. Phoenix went 10-18 in games decided by five or fewer points. Five of the losses came on buzzer-beaters that, if the shots had missed, could have changed the tone of the entire season.

Forward P.J. Tucker said that, despite the late-game struggles, the organization is hopeful moving forward because close losses even out in one way or another.

“We had bad misfortunes with all the buzzer beaters and meltdowns at the end of games so it’s tough,” Tucker said. “A lot of bright spots in there. Young guys got better and we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and get better.”

Forward Danny Granger recognizes the talent within the organization and said that the Suns have the right talent base to be consistent winners.

“I saw a lot of positive things and the talent here is overwhelming,” Granger said. “We are one of the youngest teams and I think someone told me when they added me we weren’t the youngest anymore. The talent wins in this league and that is one thing you can’t win without and that is one thing this team has is young promising talent.”

General manager Ryan McDonough said that part of the lack in discipline came from the departure of Channing Frye, who was a popular player among his teammates and fans, in the offseason.

“I feel like we lost some of that [veteran leadership] when Channing Frye went to Orlando in free agency, so that’s probably the biggest area of need for us,” McDonough said. “Ironically, I think some of our most mature guys and some of our guys with the best leadership potential are some of our youngest players.”

McDonough also said he was encouraged by the play of his youngest players on the roster this season, but knows that the roster has to be mixed for long-term success.

“We certainly saw flashes of potential from them, saw a guy like Alex Len take a big step this year,” McDonough said. “Archie Goodwin improved from where he was a year ago. I saw improvement from T.J. Warren as the season went on, he was a lot better at the end of the year than he was at the beginning. So that’s all encouraging, but at the same time we need to add the veteran guys who have been through the battles, who have that experience, who know what it takes to win at the highest levels and that’ll make our team better on the court and also help teach the young guys what they need to do and what they need to learn to hopefully become good rotation players and then starters and then guys you can build around as we try to get to that championship level.”