The Phoenix Suns blew up its Big Three in the name of alignment, culture, and identity. They wanted players who fit a certain mold, the kind who would make the fan base proud. Tough players. Gritty players. Guys
who dive for loose balls, fight for rebounds, and refuse to back down. And in that sense, mission accomplished.
But through five games, if you had to sum up this new version of the team in one word, it’s not culture or chemistry. It’s undisciplined.
They’re not a great basketball team right now. They’re not going to win a ton of games. They fight, they compete, but they keep tripping over the same cracks in the floor. They don’t have enough shot-makers or creators to build leads through pure offense, which means they have to make up ground with effort, defense, and hustle. But here’s the problem: what started as preseason sloppiness has leaked right into the regular season.
At 1–4, that kind of self-inflicted chaos is killing them. Missed assignments, bad fouls, turnovers; all the little things that turn winnable games into frustrating losses. If they want to start stacking wins, it starts with discipline. Because right now, their biggest opponent isn’t across from them. It’s themselves.
Make no mistake, whistles are flying everywhere this season. The entire league is feeling it. Tim Legler mentioned it on The Bill Simmons Podcast, and the numbers back him up.
Last year, the average team committed 18.6 personal fouls per game. This season, 29 of the 30 NBA teams are above that mark. More fouls mean more free throws, and the averages prove it. Teams took 21.7 free throws per game last year. Now, 27 teams are topping that number nightly.
And while only one player, Giannis Antetokounmpo, averaged double-digit free-throw attempts a season ago, there are now eight players living at the line averaging 10+ free-throw attempts. Devin Booker is one of them, averaging exactly 10 free throw attempts each game.
So yes, it’s a league-wide trend, but of course it hits harder here in Phoenix. Because if there’s one thing we know, the timing of Phoenix’s ambitions always seems cursed. The team finally decides to lean into an identity of toughness and defensive aggression, and the league immediately tightens up on physical play. It’s like clockwork. You want to spend big on a Big Three? Here come the new apron rules. You want to play with grit and edge? Get ready for the whistle symphony.
That brings me back to the word “disciplined”. Because the way the team is racking up fouls right now isn’t out of effort, it’s out of sloppiness.
These aren’t the kind of fouls that come from battling in the post or taking a hard charge. They’re hand slaps on drives, lazy reach-ins, overzealous closeouts, and collisions that any veteran scorer can turn into a trip to the line. The team wants to play with edge, and that’s good, but there’s a fine line between aggression and chaos. The next step for this group is learning how to defend smart, not just hard.
Right now, they’re fouling 25.6 times per game, fourth-most in the NBA. They’re attempting 20.8 free throws per night, which ranks 22nd. Their opponents? 28 even, good for 12th-most. That -7.2 free-throw differential is ninth-worst in the league. Add in the fact that they’re coughing up 11.2 steals per game, third-most in the NBA, and the word “undisciplined” starts to feel more like a label than a description.
I do think the whistles will cool down as the season goes on. They usually do. Numbers like these tend to slide back toward the mean once the league collectively adjusts to how games are being called. But until that happens, this team has to adapt. The league is cracking down on contact, period. The Suns have to meet that reality with control, not frustration.
These are the growing pains of a team trying to rebuild its foundation, trying to remember how to win the right way. Sloppy play turns winnable games into long nights. The silver lining? These aren’t problems of talent. They are problems of awareness and composure. And those can be fixed. If the team is willing to fix them.
