"Hedo Turkoglu looks happy. Really happy, revealing nothing that resembles the disengaged expression television cameras would catch on the Toronto Raptors bench last season.

"I told my agent, 'Make this happen,' " he said Friday about the July trade to the Suns. " 'I don't care how much I have to give up, how much money it will cost me. I'm open to anything they want me to be. I want to be one of them.' "

He is, and will make his official debut with the team Tuesday when it opens 2010 training camp in San Diego. Much of what the Suns will become in the post-Amar'e Stoudemire era will hinge on who Turkoglu decides to be:

The NBA's Most Improved Player in 2007-08 who helped Orlando to the 2009 Finals? Or the one who was considered a bust in Toronto last season because of sub-par production and a dispassionate air?

It's up to him, really. At 31, he still has game-changing skills. The spot-up shooting. The slashing through the lane. The ability to create mismatches thanks to a 6-foot-10 frame.

But he has to buy into the Suns' system, which is really the only way the machine works in Phoenix. It's an insiders team. You're in or you're out. You have to accept the reality that you might not come off the floor one night and barely get on it the next.

Coach Alvin Gentry is not afraid to buck convention. He is less about formulas and more about feel. If the bench has the hot hand, they're staying in."