“Don’t let good be the enemy of great”. It’s something my father has told me since I was young. Just because the Phoenix Suns came up short in the 2021 NBA Finals doesn’t mean that the season was a failure. The same can be said about the 2023 Miami Heat that got to the last round as an eighth seed, and the Dallas Mavericks two seasons ago, when they surprised the masses in 2024.
That is the perspective that is most relevant when looking at the Suns before they face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first
round of the playoffs. No matter what happens the rest of the way, the Suns exceeded expectations. While they struggled down the stretch of the season and lost the seventh seed in the 7/8 play-in game, they remained in the top eight for almost the entirety of the year, including being in the top six at times.
Going into the year, many had doubts about the Phoenix Suns. Many pundits and sports books had them projected to be one of the worst teams not only in the Western Conference, but in the entire league. The team’s Vegas win total before the season was 30.5. Outside of Phoenix Suns Insider John Gambadoro, most people were very bearish on the team’s outlook for the 2025-2026 campaign.
While at times the team showed flashes of being better than their record suggested, like when they beat the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City, and the Detroit Pistons, that doesn’t negate the fact that it was a great year for the team.
It’s not just that the Suns made the playoffs and blew away expectations; it’s that they have found a direction, which would have been true even if they had lost to the Golden Warriors in the play-in. The team has built an identity and a core around Devin Booker. Dillon Brooks has brought a much-needed toughness to the team. Jordan Goodwin and Collin Gillespie present how Brian Gregory and Jordan Ott can build teams around the margins, and Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale are examples of how veterans can have career years in Phoenix.
For a team that has limited draft assets for the foreseeable future, the development of Rasheer Fleming, Oso Ighodaro, Ryan Dunn, and Khaman Maluach remains pivotal. Outside of Ighodaro, none of them played consistent roles for the team this year, so it wasn’t a perfect season, but throughout the year, the team established that they are in a much better spot than they were a year ago.
It’s quite likely that the Suns get trounced by the Thunder, and if that happens, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Phoenix exceeded expectations from what they were projected to do to start the season.
