Terry Porter Is Still Looking for a Backup Point

Notes from a trip to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.

Unless the Suns plan on running Steve Nash into the ground, they really, really need to find a backup point guard this summer. As things currently stand, second-year man DJ Strawberry looks like the favorite for the job, but as Terry Porter told me after Saturday's game, Strawberry may still face some more competition.

"Our roster's not fully completed yet," said Porter, "so we're going to see exactly who else we're going to bring in before we make that decision. DJ, we wanted to give him a lot of opportunities here to try to play that position. It's not something he did naturally in college -- he kind of was a combo -- but we think he has a lot of positives and upside. We like that he competes extremely hard and that he can do some things."

In five summer league games, Strawberry averaged 18.0 points and 3.0 assists but also turned the ball over 3.4 times a game. Obviously, the guy has some work to do.

As far as his front court, though, Porter did seem pleased with what he saw from rookie Robin Lopez.

"I think Robin has done well," he said. "I think from a defensive standpoint, I think he's done the things that we thought he could do: block some shots, clog up the middle and rebound a little bit."

"From an offensive standpoint, I think he's got a lot more growth in that area, but I think he can do it. I think he's got patience. A couple of times throughout these games, he's shown that he's had the patience when he got double-teamed to kick it out, re-post and do whatever the situation called for. From a growth standpoint, it's nice to see him take game to game situations and learn from it."