The Suns have seen this movie before, and that’s what makes Luke Kennard such a nerve-rattling addition.
Phoenix once talked itself into Yuta Watanabe for all the right reasons. He had just caught fire with the Brooklyn Nets, he had already shared a locker room with Kevin Durant in New York, and the fit in The Valley looked clean on paper. A cheap contract, a useful shooter, a tidy role next to Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal - it all sounded perfect.
Then it went sideways fast.
Watanabe was gone by the trade deadline, and the whole thing became a reminder that a player can arrive with real buzz and still never settle in. That’s the fear hanging over Kennard now, even if the Suns had good reason to make the move.
Kennard is here to replace Grayson Allen, and in that sense the comparison is fair. But Allen brought more than shooting.
He could make a secondary play, and his underrated athleticism made him the better defender. Kennard, by contrast, can look limited if the jumper isn’t dropping.
He led the league in 3-point shooting last season at 47.8 percent, but when the shot goes cold, there isn’t much else in his bag to swing a game.
The numbers tell part of the story too. Kennard has averaged 2.8 rebounds per game for his career, which is actually more than his 2.3 assists. That’s not the kind of profile you usually want from a player whose value depends so heavily on spacing the floor.
And teams have already shown they’re willing to park him on the bench when opponents start hunting him defensively. That’s the ugly side of the equation, and it’s why the Suns are hoping Dillon Brooks and Miles Bridges can help cover for him.
There’s also the Jalen Green factor. If Green is going to become the kind of offensive force the Suns are banking on, it gets crowded quickly for Kennard and Bridges to be featured without giving much back on defense.
That’s what makes this such a delicate fit. The Suns were right to sign Kennard, but the move still carries the same uneasy feeling as Watanabe’s arrival - a player who looked like a perfect fit, only to leave behind a very different memory.
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