Injuries are derailing the Suns' season once again

Phoenix lost to the New York Knicks on Wednesday night, 138-122, with Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal out again with injuries. They dropped their fifth straight game and have now gone 1-6 since Kevin Durant suffered a calf strain on Nov. 8.

Devin Booker scored 33 points, but it wasn't enough to lift his teammates in a game where even a furious fourth-quarter rally by the Suns only got them within 12 points of the Knicks. It's the Suns' fourth double-digit loss in their last five games.

Since taking over the team in the middle of the 2022-23 season, new Suns owner Mat Ishbia has bet big on a Big Three of Booker, Durant and Beal. In two trades, the Suns gave up nearly all their future draft capital, along with forward Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson, to get the three All-Stars together. Ishbia didn't anticipate how rarely the trio would play together.

He should have. Since tearing his Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals, Durant played 0, 35, 55 and 47 games in the next four seasons. While KD suited up for 75 games last season, he suffered an injury this summer that kept him out of all of Team USA's pre-Olympics exhibition games.

Beal played only 53 games last season and hasn't played more than 60 games since the 2018-19 season. He averaged 18.2 points last year, his worst total in eight years, and was down to 17.8 points in nine games this season. Even Booker, the youngest of the trio, has missed at least 14 games in the last four seasons.

After starting the season 8-1, the team is floundering without Durant, and it's worse with Beal out as well. But some of that hot start was a mirage. Seven of those wins were by six points or fewer, and four were by three points or less. It certainly helps to have Durant in close games, but the Suns were also getting lucky. And playing the 36-year-old Durant 38.8 minutes per game, as they did during the 8-1 start, is unsustainable and irresponsible.

There's a domino effect as well. With Durant out, Booker has averaged nearly 37 minutes per game. The team may need to resign itself to limiting its stars even if it loses a few games because history tells us they're going to get hurt again.

Phoenix thought it prepared for its stars' absences, bringing in veterans Tyus Jones, Mason Plumlee and Monte Morris. But that hasn't helped so far. They're also struggling because fewer minutes for the stars means more shots for Jusuf Nurkic, also an injury-prone vet, who is shooting 40.4 percent from the field, a stunningly bad mark for a 7-foot center.

Durant hopes to be back by Tuesday's NBA Cup game against the Los Angeles Lakers. That's fine, but Phoenix should be most worried about having its stars for the playoffs. Because without its Big Three healthy, this Phoenix team is very ordinary.