• Slug: Sports-Suns Chandler, 700 words
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By HUNTER ROBINSON
Cronkite News

PHOENIX — Tyson Chandler may not be part of the long-term future for the Phoenix Suns, but he is doing everything he can to make sure his mark is left on the team for years to come.

When talking to young guys, there is one thing that Chandler knows is vitally important:

“Details,” Chandler said.

The Suns sport a roster that has players on both ends of the age spectrum. Chandler is the oldest player at 35 and in his 17th season, and Dragan Bender is the youngest at just 20 and in his second season.

Jared Dudley, the second-oldest player on the team at 32, knows that the young players deal with more than he did at their age.

“When I was 19 I was a sophomore, eating pizza at Boston College not worrying about life,” Dudley said. “They are over here making millions of dollars and they have their mom and dad and lot of people who aren’t here with them.”

Chandler is aware of his role as a mentor and knows that teaching moments can happen any time of day.

“Whether it’s shootaround, weightlifting, practice, just teaching them how to be professionals,” Chandler said.

The Suns have the youngest roster in the NBA, with an average age of 24.5. The youth movement the Suns have undergone the past few seasons continued this season with the drafting of Josh Jackson, a former Kansas standout who has been nothing but receptive of Chandler’s words of wisdom.

“He told me just to be myself,” Jackson said. “Never let anybody tell me what I can or can’t do.”

While Chandler has been a mentor for the younger players, he also has still been a productive part of the team. In the 31 games he has played in this season, he has started all of them. He has also been a force underneath the rim, averaging 9.7 rebounds a game, good for 13th-best in the league.

That productivity has not only helped the Suns to a 16-28 record, but it has helped him with the younger players. Interim coach Jay Triano knows that Chandler doesn’t only benefit the younger players, but he benefits the coaches as well.

“When you can communicate to the players and then the same message is being delivered by a guy who’s been in the league for 17-plus years, it carries a lot of weight,” Triano said. “The players look at him and say, ‘You’ve won a championship, you’ve won a gold medal, you’ve done this for a lot longer than I have,’ so he’s got a lot of power.”

While Booker has established himself as the face of the franchise, players like Jackson, Bender, and Marquese Chriss are still looking to find their place in the NBA. Chandler faced a similar challenge when he first came into the NBA straight out of high school at the age of 19. After all his time in the NBA, he knows what to tell guys who are looking to find their place.

“Be consistent every day,” Chandler said after the Suns’ 114-100 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Jan. 7. “Dragan had a huge game, Josh had a huge game, and that’s what it is going to take.”

The Suns will have a lot of big decisions coming up in the next few years that will impact the future of the franchise. It starts this upcoming offseason with either finding a new head coach or promoting Triano to full-time.

The Suns also have the ability to sign Devin Booker to a contract extension, something they will try to get done sooner rather than later to make sure he is the face of the franchise for the foreseeable future.

After that, the Suns will presumably be all-in on making the playoffs. When they do reach the playoffs, Chandler may just be a distant memory to fans. A reminder of what once was, a player that was brought in to help solidify a playoff-caliber team who just missed the playoffs the year prior.

He won’t be a distant memory to the players, however. Booker, Jackson, Chriss, Bender and others will remember how much he did to help their development and the development of the franchise for the future.