When Phoenix Suns majority owner Mat Ishbia said everyone’s “eyes will be on Phoenix” this season, we had better hope he wasn’t just referring to the NBA All-Star Game being held downtown at Mortgage Matchup Center.
Although Ishbia remarked that it’s his plan to make the game on Feb. 21 “one of the best NBA All-Star events of all time,” he also has big expectations for his basketball team after the Suns won 45 games a year ago thanks to a second-half turnaround and advanced to the playoffs.
Yes, they got swept in four games by the Oklahoma City. But they got there. And now, after returning 12 of their players, retaining the entire coaching staff and injecting some help through a trade, free agency and the draft, they’ve got to find a way to get
back.
There are no guarantees, of course. As Ishbia noted during media day on Monday, Sept. 28, “Winning is fragile.”
That isn’t to suggest the Suns will be taking baby steps this season. It just means the rigors of an NBA season can be tricky and difficult to navigate. The Suns surprised a lot of folks last year when not many outside Arizona were willing to give them a chance.
The encore might be difficult to produce.
“As Mat mentioned, and this is just the truth: Identity is not built in one year,” Suns general manager Brian Gregory said. “I think we’ve laid a real solid foundation. What our challenge now this year is to take establishing that identity to the next level, which is solidifying it.”
There’s a quality combination of offense, defense, grit and determination in a lineup featuring guards Devin Booker and Jalen Green and forwards Dillon Brooks and Miles Bridges. There’s depth off the bench with Collin Gillespie, Jordan Goodwin and Luke Kennard. And there’s a nice influx of youth with rookie forward Koa Peat and bigs Khaman Maluach and Oso Ighodaro.
The Suns will be without starting center Mark Williams for months following shoulder surgery, however, and the preseason prognosticators once again aren’t so keen on the Suns.
“It motivates our guys in terms of maybe not getting the respect and those different types of things,” Gregory said about the outside noise. “For us, we proved last year none of that stuff matters.
“What matters is what we do on a daily basis, our daily habits, our daily work ethic, the connections we make on a daily basis because the more connected we are as a team, the more successful we’re going to be as a team.”
If that leads to more wins, then have at it. It was noticeable how confidently Suns players talked about picking up right where they left off a year ago. It was either very refreshing or incredibly dangerous.
But you’ve got to like the attitude.
When asked how he felt the Suns stacked up against the Western Conference elites, Green said: “I think we stack up with anybody. We got a lot of talent up here. … I think everybody coming in got a taste of it, got a feel for it.”
Brooks, the Suns’ tone setter, said the mission is only just beginning.
“We’re at the base and we completed something that was our goal,” he said, “which was to change around this franchise and bring it back to where it was three or four years ago where it’s fun to watch.”
They are fun to watch, but will the Suns be any better than they were last season?
“We don’t want to make the same mistakes twice,” Booker said when asked how the team can build off last season. “We have a reference point on things that worked and didn’t work last year. Even though we got swept, we got playoff experience last year with a lot of young guys so we could feel what that looked like.
“So, to start the season we’re definitely going to be ahead of where we were when we started the season last year.”
Another good sign is the strong unity the players have formed in recent months. They’ve spent a lot of their down time working out together at the Suns’ practice facility, in addition to bonding during trips to Las Vegas, Flagstaff and Toronto.
“We’ve been able to build chemistry, stay healthy and get the chance to start this season out more on the same page than we were last year,” Booker said.
We’ll learn soon enough how much all of it translates into wins.
Reach McManaman at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic .Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @azbobbymac and listen to him live every Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. on Roc and Manuch with Jimmy B on ESPN 620 (KTAR-AM) and every Thursday on the Doug Franz Unplugged podcast via Apple or Spotify.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mat Ishbia, Suns thinking big, fighting the doubters again | Opinion
