Welcome to Inside the Suns, a deep-dive analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team in which the Fantable — a roundtable of Bright Siders — give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.
Fantable Questions of the Week
Author’s Note: All questions were sent out to the Fantable members before the Suns played their last two games.
Q1: In the Denver and GSW games, Jordan Ott has benched Khaman Maluach during the 4th quarters, played him just 4.9 minutes per game in the 3rd, and only played him 10.3 MPG in the 1st halves (15.2 MPG average). In the first 3 games, he averaged 23.7 MPG total. What are your thoughts on this?
GuarGuar: I get why Ott is limiting Man Man’s minutes. For one, he still looks really raw out there. He’s easily pushed around, and his offensive game still leaves much to be desired. I think 24-25 mpg
is more than fair for Khaman given how he looks so far this year. We are also extremely thin at center, so don’t want him to get injured from playing 30+ mins every night for the first time in his life.
zenzino: I’m good with it. Despite the preseason hype, he is clearly not ready to be the number 1 center. I’m actually surprised that Maluach was still starting after Oso was healthy again. In the Magic game, Oso starting gave Maluach more minutes.
In the press conference after the game, Ott said something about Man Man going up against the toughest opponents in the games he started and how he was able to match up better against the Magic’s 2nd unit bigs.
This sounds like a better way for Man Man to develop. He can get valuable experience against really good players and have some success for building confidence rather than playing against the best players, getting cooked, and then sitting on the bench.
I have zero emotional investment in Maluach being a starter now. I want them to play the long game with his development, and I think getting him valuable minutes in the second unit is a good way to do it. He’s going to be great. He just needs time and experience to get there without being thrown too far into the deep end.
Ashton: This is interesting because much of what I am reading suggests that Malauch is playing too many minutes. This points to a lack of confidence for the young developing center to close out fourth-quarter games. But let’s see here, who the heck is closing out fourth-quarter games?
Honestly, I am willing to experiment with just about anything at this point in the second half. What if Oso starts the game in the first quarter? The Suns whet your appetite, showing they have turned the corner. KM follows in the second half as a “starter” when the Suns are cratering so bad that you could name one of the seas on the moon “Phoenix Suns Sea” that is visible to the naked eye. Anybody down with “Brightside of the Moon”?
I do get it though; make sure Khaman’’s confidence is not totally trashed by the All-Star break. I would rather see him off the bench. He needs fewer minutes, not more.
Ad hoc: This was written before the Magic game, and it appears that Oso probably cemented himself into the starting center role after the fact.
OldAz: I think it is incredibly misguided. It should be pointed out that they lost both of those games. Yes, the defense did not play well against Denver or Portland, although they were a little bit better for much of the game against Golden State. Maluach is a big part of this, and we all knew he still needed a lot of development, but at this point that development will NOT happen from the bench or in the G League against inferior competition.
It would be different if Mark Williams was available. Him anchoring the defense would likely make a massive difference. Then they could manage Khaman’s minutes and adjust his playing time as he worked on things and improved. Without Williams, their defense looks putrid, but playing small is just foolish in the long term (we saw it too much in the 2nd half of last year), whereas making the team and Malauch play together and working on their defense will pay dividends in the long term.
In fact, Ott needs to scrap his whole mentality of playing his supposed “best 5” and start mixing in heavy minutes for all his younger players, including Fleming when he is healthy and even Koa. Dunn has certainly earned more minutes with his defensive energy to this point. If Williams were healthy, I would even advocate giving KM and Oso some minutes together to help the defense. Extended minutes and patience for those young players will help with their development and the team’s defensive energy. Sure they might get blown out a few times, but how exactly would we tell the difference at this point?
Rod: While Khaman still has much growing/learning to do, playing him zero minutes in the fourth quarter in what turned into three straight games (all losses) didn’t make a lot of sense to me. John’s article on this a few days ago got me interested in looking at some of the fourth-quarter stats, and I was surprised that Khaman is tied with Jamaree Bouyea for the lowest team RPG average in the fourth with just 0.3 a game. Some of his other fourth-quarter stats look pretty bad too (0 Q4 blocks, 0 assists, 2 pts), and even when only looking at his fourth-quarterstats in wins, only his rebounding average “improves” from 0.3 PG to 0.5 PG.
Hopefully, he will continue to learn and grow as the season progresses, but all these stats make it a little clearer to me why Ott doesn’t place much on Khaman playing in the 4th quarter right now.
Q2: A few fans have voiced the opinion that the Suns would have been better off keeping Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale than trading them for Miles Bridges. Do you agree?
GuarGuar: We had to choose between Grayson and Jalen, and we chose Jalen. It does not look like that was the right decision, as Green really has struggled this year. I think a big part of his struggles can be attributed to the role we are asking him to play. But he has looked terrible after 6 games. Grayson was much better off the ball. Bridges has been okay, nothing special, certainly not worth an unprotected first-round pick, though.
zenzino: I have always been a vocal supporter of GA & Royce. Even before the trade happened and people were talking about them as the most obvious trade bait, I was very clear in my assertions that we would miss them when they were gone.
People often described Royce as a turnstile on defense. A very ‘eye test’ assertion. Many here will rail against this, but Royce was actually one of the better defenders on the Suns. More often than not, Royce’s ’turnstile’ defense had a planned purpose. He was awesome at keeping his man from getting to ‘his spot’ and funneling him to the help defense.
GA turned out to be a lot more versatile than we ever imagined when he got here. I was one of those who laughed when we had to take on GA to get rid of DA (mostly because of that whole Duke thing). But I quickly became a fan of his tenacity and attitude.
From a personal likability standpoint, yeah… I wish they were still here.
From a basketball standpoint, it is way, way, way too early to make any determinations. 7 games in and people are going buck wild with their assertions and predictions. I think I said this last Fantable, but it bears repeating: It’s a marathon, folks, not a sprint. And the starting gun just went off.
In the past several games, Bridges has shown steady improvement and signs of developing chemistry with the team. He’s being asked to adjust parts of his game to the way the Suns want to play, and that takes time.
Ashton: Miles Bridges is actually a pleasant surprise for me, as I thought he would be a complete dumpster fire. He still can’t play defense, but who can on this team?
But wow, is the Suns’ perimeter shooting putrid. Book, CG, and Kennard were supposed to fill in those holes and that is gone nowhere. So yes, I miss GA a lot. RO? I took a perfunctory glance at his recent profile, and he has been on the losing end in the last five games. One wonders if he could have really been developed on this Suns squad. So, I do not miss him.
I miss that Suns 2033 unprotected first-round pick even more than both.
OldAz: I think they would be exactly where they are now and maybe even worse defensively. We saw that movie last year when the center rotation was shortened by injury, and Ott played smaller, with no real power forward option at all, to terrible effect. The trade for Bridges addressed this to some extent, but ONLY if there is a defensive anchor in the middle. Oso is too small for that role, and Malauch is still learning. Having Allen and O’Neale instead of Bridges would simply exacerbate the problem by giving Ott more options to try and play small ball and watch the defense simply get obliterated.
Now, if their opinion is solely based on having the FRP back and being in a better spot contractually while still playing badly, then that would be a hard argument to make, because both options will involve a lot of losing. If Khaman develops or when Mark Williams gets healthy, then I think Bridges will be a much better fit overall. This bleeds back into Q1, which is why I would take the opportunity to mix in heavy minutes for the younger (and longer) players during this part of the season.
Rod: I think that was largely due to Charlotte getting off to a fairly hot start (3-1) with Grayson playing especially well for them, and Bridges not getting off to a great start with the Suns. I didn’t particularly want Grayson traded, but his injury rate had gotten to the point where it kind of made sense to move on. Plus, the trade cut about $6.2 million from the Suns’ cap sheet, which they used to sign Kennard, a very similar player with a much less extensive injury history. And while I liked what Royce gave to the Suns, having him playing PF for the Suns was far from the optimal use of his talent.
Now that Bridges has gotten his feet wet with the team, his averages over the last 4 games (20.3 pts, 9 rebs, 3.8 assists, 2.3 steals, 1 block, 48% from three on 6.3 attempts PG) tell me that it was a good trade for the Suns.
Yes, I do have some reservations about sending the 2033 unprotected first-round pick back as part of the deal, but I’m not going to lose much sleep over that. What’s done is done.
Q3:The 4 teams that the Suns have played so far have a combined record of 18-9 (.667 win percentage), the second toughest SOS in the league according to PlayoffStatus.com (third according to BBRef). What are your thoughts on this in regard to their win/loss record?
GuarGuar: We definitely have played some really good teams to start the year. Our schedule hasn’t been kind, and it doesn’t really soften up until December. We need to figure it out quickly, or this is going to be a very ugly situation fast in Phoenix. Panic level for me is high
zenzino: Before the Magic game, when the Suns were 1-5, that jumped up to a .712 win percentage and the number 1 toughest SOS in the league. The Magic are the only team they’ve played so far with a losing record.
That is absolutely a factor. 100% and any other superlatives you can think of.
Warriors are on a 6-game win streak since they lost to the Suns. Blazers have only lost 1 game and were on a 4-game road win streak. The Thunder and Nuggets have won championships and have continuity the Suns can only dream about.
And the Suns are trying to figure things out.
The game against the Magic was very important. Had they lost that one… I might have stopped scoffing at the angsty ‘blow it up’ comments in the threads. Fortunately, it was a wire-to-wire win. The final score doesn’t tell the story, as the Magic started throwing up more threes in the 4th than they did in the previous three quarters, and many of them went in.
Unfortunately, the Rockets and Spurs are up next. There is a very real possibility that the Suns will be 2-7 going into the game against the Clippers. That’s a big hole to crawl out of. However, if they stay competitive in those games as they did against the Nuggets, Thunder, and Warriors, I won’t get too angsty.
Ashton: I waited on this question until after the Orlando game on Thursday. What a Dr. Jekyll- Mr. Hyde team. It turns out the Suns can shoot threes and play defense against sub-.500 teams dealing with major injuries. Especially on a back-to-back with a home crowd willing to breathe new life into them. Let’s see if that translates to the upcoming Houston game.
So, are the teams that have played the Suns thus far that good, or are the Suns just that bad against better competition? The Orlando game helped alleviate some of my trepidation, but again, Orlando’s main starters were injured, and the GSW win reflected rest management.
I think of this in terms of the Arizona Diamondbacks feasting on sub .500 baseball teams during the heat of summer (what else am I going to watch) while losing to the better teams. Snakes missed the postseason by a game (again!). Are the Suns going to be in the same predicament?
Small sample size to answer this question, but the Magic game was almost enough for me to hit CTRL-A-DEL on Q1 and Q2. It is just too early to tell.
OldAz: Was it Mark Twain that talked about lies, dammed lies, and statistics? You see, strength of schedule is a circular argument, especially in the early season and in the Western Conference, where many teams are in the same range of quality. There are also a few teams at the very bottom that stink out loud. In the early season, when teams have only played five or six games, really bad teams (like the Suns are at the moment) lose a lot of games. The teams they play in the early season, by extension, have a disproportionate percentage of wins against those bad teams. And thus, bad teams look like they have a really tough strength of schedule at the beginning of the year, and the teams that play those bad teams more than once look like they have the easiest strength of schedule.
Case in point, in the question itself, the record of the Suns’ opponents was 18-9, but depending on the timing, four or five of those wins all came against the Suns. The only team that passed the eye test of being really good this year was Portland (who looks awesome). This will all balance out during the year, but for the Suns, who might struggle to defend a WNBA team at the moment, it will continue to look like they have played the hardest strength of the schedule as they hand easy wins to each opponent. Since they are in the Western Conference, this only changes once they start playing better, which starts on the defensive end.
Rod: For me, it kind of reinforces the opinion I had of the Suns even before the season started. They’re basically a middle-of-the-road team that will struggle against the better teams in the NBA but plays relatively well against the rest. Like it or not, that’s just who they are right now.
And I honestly believe they would have gotten off to a better start this year if not for Mark William’s off-season injury. Khaman was just not ready to start and/or play starter’s minutes, and Oso…while I believe he’s a quality backup center, he’s not up to facing most other starting centers in the league, which creates a problem for the Suns in almost every game they play. At least for a while.
As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!
Quotes of the Week
“Defensively is where we have to hang our hat. We know it helped us last year. This is a defensive-minded group. We have to continue to hammer some of those things that we don’t have, you know, size across the board. We know that we have to guard the ball and we have to rebound. That’s going to be the two things that we’re going to harp on all season.” – Jordan Ott
“Whatever way it is, it’s not going to be a perfect game every time. The quicker we can get out those funks and move on to the next play and clean stuff up, the better.” -Devin Booker
“Mindset doesn’t change whether I’m starting or not starting. It’s a process, and I’m willing to take all the steps in the process. I’m going to embrace everything that comes with it cause nobody wants this more than me.” – Khaman Maluach
“You can just feel the size differential that we just lack, plain and simple… Koa is next, and Koa’s right there on the tip. We understand that he’s young and he doesn’t have a ton of NBA game experience, but again, the way the game is moving, the ability to drive, process, and defend the drive, he appears to have it, and he’s right there. He keeps working. He’ll get his opportunity, and we have full faith that that’s what’s coming. That type of pro type of player that he has already instinctually, that he’s right there, right on the cusp.” – Jordan Ott
Suns Trivia/History
In the Orlando game, the Suns forced 25 turnovers, leading to 36 second-chance points. Phoenix compiled a season-high 14 steals and now ranks seventh in the NBA in steals per game (9.4).
On November 10, 1990, the Suns routed the Denver Nuggets 173-143 to tie a record held by the 1959 Boston Celtics for the most points scored in a non-overtime game (the record still stands). The Suns had 107 points in the first half, breaking the mark of 90 set by the Nuggets three days earlier in a 161-153 loss to San Antonio. Suns Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons also picked up his 700th career coaching victory, becoming, at that time, only the seventh coach in the history of the league to reach that mark. The Suns also set a record for the most assists in a half with 33 and ended the game with 50 total assists. Cedrick Ceballos led the Suns in scoring with 32 points off the bench in just 23 minutes.
On November 14, 1997, the Suns’ 140-139 quadruple overtime win over the Portland Trail Blazers was the eighth quadruple OT game in NBA history and the first since Golden State defeated New Jersey 150-147 on February 1, 1987.
The Week Ahead
Saturday: Phoenix Suns vs. Houston Rockets, 7:00 pm AZ time
Monday: Phoenix Suns vs. San Antonio Spurs, 7:00 pm AZ time
Tuesday: Phoenix Suns vs. LA Clippers, 7:00 pm AZ time
Thursday: Phoenix Suns vs. Charlotte Hornets, 7:00 pm AZ time
Important Future Dates
Dec. 15 – Most players signed to new contracts can be traded
Jan. 5 – 10-day contracts may now be signed
Jan. 10 – All NBA contracts are guaranteed for the remainder of the season
Jan. 15 – All players signed to new contracts can be traded
Feb. 11 – Trade Deadline
Feb. 19-21 – NBA All-Star 2027
March 1 – Playoff Eligibility Waiver Deadline
April 11 – 2026-27 Regular Season ends (All 30 teams play)
April 12 – Rosters set for NBA Playoffs 2027 (3 p.m. ET)
April 13-16 – SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament
April 17 – NBA Playoffs 2026 begin
