The NBA only has a few true enforcers left in the league compared to decades past, but Dillon Brooks of the Phoenix Suns has never shied away from that being his identity in the league today.
As of late, Brooks was ejected for multiple scuffles with LeBron James in a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, and more recently was assessed a flagrant foul for a closeout against Steph Curry in the Suns’ latest game against the Golden State Warriors.
Speaking after the game against the Warriors, even after getting the win, Brooks said he’ll ‘learn from it,‘ in hopes of putting his team in a better situation to succeed.
“I got to do some soul searching at home. It’s the 2nd time, but I’ll learn from it,” Brooks said after the game. “Maybe I’ve been lifting too much. [Maybe] I got to do what the other guys are doing and lift on game day. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
The Suns are 15-12, while Brooks is having a career resurgence year. Yet still, what some might call his ‘antics‘ have been a cause for his downfall in the past, and could lead him to a similar fate after his recent battles with two of the faces of the NBA in Curry and James.
Dillon Brooks’ Fouls On Curry And LeBron
It’s hard to point to a time in his career when Brooks has stayed away from contact or confrontation, especially against the league’s top players. But in Phoenix’s last two games, he’s found himself in hot water, now inching closer and closer to a one-game suspension if his technical fouls keep piling up.
Per Griffin S. DeMarrais, Brooks now has nine technical fouls through the Suns’ first 27 games. He’ll need only seven more to earn a one-game suspension, something Curry’s teammate, Draymond Green, knows firsthand can impact a team.
For the incident(s) against James, Brooks found himself multiple times face-to-face with the league’s all-time leading scorer in their recent matchup against the Lakers. After already receiving a technical foul earlier in the game, Brooks was ejected for bumping into and taunting James after hitting a late-game three-pointer. The Suns went on to lose, and though he initially said the move was ‘out of character,‘ Brooks went on to criticize one of his long-time foes.
“He is a social media junkie. He be all over the socials,” Brooks said of James after his ejection. “Gets in his moods or in his modes or whatever it is and I’m all for that. I wish we would have let him shoot that shot and that [expletive] would have been an airball.”
James went on to say that it was just in the heat of competition regarding his interactions with Brooks, but it added another chapter to what has been a David vs. Goliath battle between the two over the past few years.
As for the flagrant foul against Curry, it also came in the closing stages of the Suns’ latest game. He closed out on a Curry three-pointer and made contact with the shooter in the ribs, resulting in another flagrant foul for what is now his piling up total on the year.
“I thought he was going to run and try to get the rebound,” he said of that play. “So I tried to stop him…Just got to figure it out before the next game so I don’t do it and put my team in a bad spot.”
Suns, Brooks Off To A Strong Start To The Season
The heated interactions between Brooks and the league’s top stars are nothing new, but as of late, those interactions have overshadowed both him and his new team’s strong start to the season. Phoenix did end up falling to the Warriors after Brooks’ foul on Curry, but still, the team has somewhat over-performed after making the massive trade that sent Kevin Durant out and brought in Brooks and Jalen Green.
This year, the enforcer is averaging a career-high 21.7 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 1.8 assists on 44.8% shooting, the second leading scorer on the team behind Devin Booker, who has already missed a few games this year.
When he’s played, Booker’s been his consistent self, but this is the most responsibility Brooks has held on a team through the first nine seasons of his career. He hasn’t changed his ways in terms of antagonizing opponents, but with his jump in scoring, and the seeming impact on his team’s +.500 record, he’s been a solid consolation prize for the Suns trading away Durant to the Houston Rockets.
Through 27 games, the Suns currently rank 17th in net rating, 19th in offensive rating, and 15th in defensive rating, but they are somehow finding a way to get victories against some of the league’s top teams.
Along with Booker and Brooks, Phoenix has seen strong performances this year from Grayson Allen, Collin Gillespie, and Mark Williams. It isn’t always pretty, but the Suns are putting themselves in position to make the playoffs this season, despite losing one of the best players of a generation in Durant over the summer.
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