Suns Media Day. My fourth time? Maybe fifth? Honestly, they all start to blend together once you hit the age where your knees pop louder than your claps. Media Days are basically Groundhog Day but with
taller dudes pretending they’re excited about defensive rotations. Everyone says nice things, smiles for the cameras, and swears they’re “locked in” for the season. It’s like speed-dating, if every person you sat across from promised they “worked on their midrange jumper” over the summer.
But Media Day isn’t always about what’s said. It’s about the vibe.
Let me take you back to 2022, when Suns Media Day was held not in the sparkling PHX Arena, but in what was essentially a repurposed Jackson’s on Fifth. That Media Day was already a carnival of chaos: Robert Sarver had just been punted from the league, and Jae Crowder ghosted the whole thing. Plenty of drama.
The vibes? Immaculately cursed. The kind of cursed where ESPN sent Brian Windhorst to loom.
And implode it did. That season played out like a Shakespeare tragedy rewritten by a drunk improv troupe. Injuries piled up. Locker room tension simmered. Sarver was banished. The team was sold to Mat Ishbia, who immediately went full Monopoly Man and traded every draft pick not bolted down for Kevin Durant. By the end, the Suns’ youth core had been bartered away for the right to watch KD and Devin Booker take turns in a “your turn, my turn” offense. Naturally, they lost in the postseason, because of course they did.
The last two Suns Media Days actually tricked us into feeling things. Hope, curiosity, maybe even that forbidden word, optimism. In 2023, the big shiny toy was Bradley Beal, and the vibe was basically, “Well, this will either be a title run or a high-budget chemistry experiment involving fire and gasoline. Either way, can’t wait to see what explodes first.”
Umm…boom? Swept out of the playoffs, Media Day 2024 carried a different weight. We knew it was championship or bust.
Against all logic, I convinced myself that maybe the endless churn of roster shuffling last summer would finally spit out something resembling a coherent basketball team. At the time, the vibes were if intrigue. Excitement. Expectations.
The history books will testify to how catastrophically wrong I was. Championship or bust? The team didn’t make the postseason.
So here we are. Media Day 2025. Certainly a new chapter. So what were the vibes at PHX Arena today?
I’ll start with this: I love Media Day. Covering the Phoenix Suns has created a second family for me, and many of you are part of that family. The conversations we’ve had, the moments we’ve shared, the collective therapy sessions after collapses and the bursts of joy after unlikely wins…it’s all a part of my life I’ve come to truly value. Media Day isn’t just a chance to fire off questions at players and coaches. It’s also the day I reconnect with friends, the people I’ll spend months sitting alongside, debating rotations, laughing at the chaos, and building new shared stories.
People always say it feels like the first day of school. And it does. No matter what the roster looks like, or what the Vegas over/under says, there’s always that flicker of hope. There’s the promise of new experiences, good and bad, that we’ll ride out together.
My first real “aha” moment came in the most mundane way possible: showing up late.
Normally, I roll in a solid 45 minutes early. This year? I grabbed a coffee from Salad and Go, got stuck in traffic, and walked in with 10 minutes to spare. And it was…quiet. Sparse.
The room wasn’t buzzing with national media because, frankly, the national media doesn’t care about the Suns right now. There’s no Kevin Durant headline. No Bradley Beal soap opera. No “championship window” narrative. Just a bunch of loyal local writers and beat reporters trying to make sense of this new direction. The vibe was different. You could feel it before a single question was asked.
Mat Ishbia set the tone quickly: this season isn’t going to be judged by wins and losses. That’s not where the bar is anymore, and honestly, we all knew that already.
Yes, the vibe is different. But it isn’t bleak. If anything, I’d call it quiet confidence.
This team has no delusions about what they are, or aren’t. It’s a roster with youthful energy, a few veterans who’ll steer the ship, and some journeymen fighting to prove they belong. The consistent themes? Play fast. Embrace grit. Build culture.
And honestly? It was refreshing. Transparent. The questions were thoughtful. The answers felt human. Nobody was forced to awkwardly explain how a “Big Three” was going to function. Nobody was haunted by the ghost of last season’s failure because, frankly, most of these guys weren’t even here for it. Instead, the talk was about growth, effort, and process.
Can the Suns shock people this year? Maybe. But the more important takeaway is this: the reset is real. The focus is on identity and culture rather than hype and headlines. And after years of chasing “all-in” expectations, it’s not the worst thing to start fresh.
This season feels like the start of a new chapter. Not with fireworks, but with the steady sound of bricks being laid.
