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Media Day Notes: Bledsoe's Confidence and Warren's Win

Suns Media Day was a whirlwind of players moving from interviews to photo sessions to social media interactions with fans.

It’s a get-to-know you day, similar to getting your school ID badge while chilling with friends before classes (training camp) actually begin(s).

The conversations in those settings are extremely similar. How was your summer? What do you think of your new teacher/teammate this year? Do you like your new clothes/uniform?

Here are some of the best tidbits from the three-hour free-for-all:

  • Eric Bledsoe is both happy and confident. When one reporter asked him if he felt he was a top-five point guard in the league, his response was: “I feel like I am.” Remember, this comes after an offseason spent almost exclusively in Phoenix to work on his game and bond with his teammates. Last season, he averaged 17.0 points, 6.1 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. How far away is that from top five? And, at age 25 and coming off a rave-worthy offseason, is it really a question as to whether he can improve those numbers?
  • Speaking of rave-worthy, T.J. Warren has apparently been killing it in the intrasquad pickup games over the last month. The team actually kept a tally of how many wins each player had in those games. The second-year forward won that contest, telling me later that it was “23 or something.” When Bledsoe was asked about the team’s offensive outlook, he replied, “We’ve got a lot of confident guys – and we’ve got Tony Buckets."
  • Warren likes to score, but he certainly didn’t want to hand out assists in one department. When verbally filling out his player survey, he was asked which of his teammates was “best-dressed.” After pausing a moment, he asked, “Can I say myself?”
  • Markieff Morris made his return to the team after a summer that saw his twin brother Marcus dealt to Detroit. After initially and publically expressing his frustration with the move, the elder Morris arrived at Media Day intent on looking forward to his fourth season in a Suns uniform. “I want to be here,” he said. Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough was similarly focused on the upcoming season, pointing toward the steady and unwavering climb in Morris’ on-court production since Phoenix drafted him 13th overall in 2011. “That’s the unfortunate part about it,” McDonough said. “We should be talking about his game and how he’s improved as a player and how much better he’s gotten, especially over the last couple of years.” Bledsoe was similarly supportive, citing the number of times he and his teammates depended on Morris in tight-game situations last season. “Keef is a terrific guy, man,” Bledsoe said. “I guess people got misled by that. As a teammate, I played with him for two years, going on three now, and he’s a team guy. He’s like my brother. I can go to Keef and say pretty much anything to him and he’ s not going to take offense to it. He’s going to play his game. To me, he’s one of the best power forwards in this league. On some nights, he’s held the team down himself.
  • And finally, if you’re wondering just how extensive Tyson Chandler’s veteran influence will be, consider the historical context of how excited he is to play with a starting-quality center in Alex Len: “I played with big power forwards like [Charles] Oakley and Antonio Davis and those guys, but I didn’t get a chance to play alongside a big man. I had to learn things on my own, so I didn’t figure things out until I was like in my fifth, sixth year. [Len] has the opportunity to take things from me and hopefully that will accelerate his process.”