Tiers. It’s a subject we spent plenty of time discussing here at Bright Side of the Sun as we worked through our postseason SunsRank rankings.
Having tiers created a much more structured approach to ranking every member of the Phoenix Suns roster and determining who the team’s best players actually are. That’s the beauty of tiers. They provide segmentation and definable categories, making the entire exercise easier to navigate and comprehend.
Anybody who plays fantasy football already understands this
concept. Tiers become incredibly important when you’re on the clock, scurrying to determine who should come off the board next. If you’ve already separated players into groups, the decision-making process becomes cleaner and easier to process. So yes, I love me some tiers.
When you extrapolate that concept outward beyond just the Suns roster though, it becomes an even more useful tool for understanding and ranking players across the NBA as a whole. It’s also an incredibly daunting task, one I absolutely do not envy. Thankfully, Law Murray of The Athletic has been tackling exactly that challenge, releasing a series of articles breaking players across the league into different tiers. I highly recommend reading the series and appreciating the work.
It’s a far more in-depth process than what we did with SunsRank because you’re evaluating the entire NBA landscape. There aren’t clean labels like cornerstone, pillar, wildcard, or depth piece. Instead, it’s tier-based with subcategories like Tier 2B or Tier 3A. Still, the overall goal remains the same: creating structure around player evaluation.
Murray has five tiers, with the following designations:
Now that those tiers have started rolling out, we finally have a national perspective on where certain members of the Suns roster land within the larger NBA hierarchy. And while rankings are typically something we roll our eyes at, I find value in these rankings. Because it allows us to see a structured perception. This isn’t some click-baity article meant to stir conversations in the doldrums of social media. These are rankings that, much like SunsRank, carry historical caveats within. You can see either progression or digression, which provides a greater context and layer to the conversation.
So where did the Suns players end up? Let’s start by reviewing the entire list of Suns’ players, and then delve a bit further.
My initial reaction to seeing these rankings is that, internally, the Bright Side writing staff and community largely got it right. Through all of the thought exercises, tier definitions, and polling, the order of where Suns’ players ranked locally and nationally was very…what’s that word Brian Gregory has made us fall in love with?…aligned!
If you remember our SunsRank exercise, Devin Booker was followed by Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green in the writers’ rankings, while the community rankings flipped Brooks and Green. Even then, the margin between the two on the community side was razor-thin, with only five votes separating them. Both Collin Gillespie and Grayson Allen made the list as well, although our writing team had Mark Williams ahead of Grayson in SunsRank. But overall, having 5 players in the top 125 is a solid foundation.
Seeing Green ultimately land below Brooks by three sub-tiers in Law Murray’s rankings actually fortifies how the local fan base views those players relative to one another. Green has the talent, the upside, and the athleticism. But Brooks is the emotional leader, the tone setter, and the one who carries with him a much more deliverable price-for-value paid.
What becomes really interesting, though, is when you start digging deeper into where each player lands compared to the rest of the league within their respective tiers. And probably the most surprising thing for people outside Phoenix, at least from a national perspective, is seeing Booker land in Tier 2D.
Only one player on this list fell in their ranking as compared to last season. And that player is Devin Booker. It’s a reminder, and honestly a reinforcement, that the perception of Devin Booker both locally and nationally is beginning to shift. The feeling now is that he’s falling out of that true superstar stratosphere, that a player who once comfortably lived in the top 15 conversation is starting to slide further down those lists.
Whether the driving factor is production, overall skill set, or some combination of both, it’s understandable why he ended up in this tier.
I’ve said it multiple times recently. Booker is a star. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a star. Still, the conversation naturally changes once a player is being paid superstar money. That’s where the value discussion begins to creep in, fairly or unfairly. It’s a conversation you know and I know we will continue to have for quite some time, because we are beginning to enter that uncomfortable space where the price tag rises as the potential for production wanes. We’re not there yet. But it’s just over the horizon, and some do not want to see that day.
At this point though, Booker remains the foundation and backbone of the Phoenix Suns franchise.
The shooting guards here are Devin Booker and De’Aaron Fox, two players who could also be called point guards. Booker has won just four playoff games without Chris Paul on the floor with him, and all five of Phoenix’s series wins with Booker have been against a team missing a star for all or part of the series (Anthony Davis, Jamal Murray, Kawhi Leonard, Zion Williamson, Paul George). That’s not to say that Booker isn’t a very good player. The Suns would be lost without him, as he is his team’s best chance for anything close to efficient offense, and he competes on defense. But he would benefit significantly from three things: a point guard who consistently helps him get easier shots, another star teammate at any position and a head coach who can stick around a while (Jordan Ott is Booker’s eighth head coach).
Sometimes I feel defensive when national writers speak to who and what Booker is. I poke my nose into the sky and sigh, knowing that they typically are only touching the surface. But in this case, is Murray wrong? I think not. And that realization is one that many still struggle to come to grips with.
Further down the list is Dillon Brooks, who lands in Tier 4C. Who is he next to in the rankings?
I think this ranking is appropriate as well.
Dillon Brooks absolutely elevated his game this past season, and people around the league took notice. He was one of the few risers who landed in Murray’s 4C. For a long time, and I’ll include myself in this, what he did with the Memphis Grizzlies often felt more rooted in antics, while his stint with the Houston Rockets came across as more annoying than impactful. Last season changed that perception.
What Brooks did in Phoenix reinforced the idea that he genuinely moves the needle. Emotionally, he’s always done that. This year though, he proved he could do it through offensive production and through the cultural impact he had on a basketball team. Nobody expected the Phoenix Suns to be remotely competitive entering the season. Then you inject Brooks into the equation alongside a group of young, feisty players, and suddenly the entire identity of the team shifts. The league noticed that. His placement within these tiers reflects exactly that.
And then there’s Jalen Green, who fell into Tier 4E.
You’ll notice I added a third column to this tier breakdown because I think it’s unbelievably important to the conversation.
I’ll start with the obvious. Jalen Green missed 50 games this season, and that absolutely impacted how he’s perceived both locally and nationally. Interestingly enough though, his tier placement one season ago was also Tier 4E. Then you start looking around the rankings and notice players like Ja Morant, who missed 62 games, sitting in Tier 3E. Or Domantas Sabonis, who missed 63 games and also lands in Tier 3E. That’s where your eyebrow starts to raise a little because it forces you into an uncomfortable realization.
The national perception of Green simply isn’t where it needs to be right now.
That matters because the Phoenix Suns are about to pay him $36.3 million next season, and when you scan the players around him in these rankings, he’s making significantly more money than most of them. You start understanding why the fans who want Green traded this offseason may ultimately be disappointed.
Based purely on this type of ranking system, you can see that his national value probably isn’t high enough right now to bring back the kind of desirable assets Phoenix would want in return to meaningfully move the franchise forward. Now granted, this isn’t a ranking system put together by NBA executives or general managers. It’s the perspective of a writer at The Athletic. Still, it provides insight into how Green is viewed nationally, and that’s really the crux of the Suns’ current situation.
Even if Phoenix were interested in exploring trades involving Green, which honestly I don’t believe they are right now, this probably isn’t the time to do it.
Now we turn to a pair of players who saw their stock rise this season. First up? Collin Gillespie.
As Collin Gillespie approaches unrestricted free agency this offseason, his rising national value becomes incredibly important. Ultimately, that perception could help dictate the price point at which the Phoenix Suns bring him back, something that certainly appears to be a priority for the organization.
It’s funny because when you look across Tier 5A, most of the players in that grouping are either making a lot of money already or are players beginning to trend downward in their careers. There are exceptions though, and Collin is one of them. His value is clearly rising after what was a breakout season for him.
Locally, we understand the context. We watched him fade a bit as the season progressed. Still, when you step back and evaluate the season holistically, the value is obvious. The hope entering next year is that the progression continues, he takes another step forward, and his placement in these rankings keeps climbing.
Lastly, there’s Grayson Allen.
He landed just one tier below Collin Gillespie and is the second-oldest player within that grouping. Like Gillespie, Allen did not crack the top 125 rankings a season ago, which serves as a reminder of how valuable he still is around the league. It also reinforces the idea that he could ultimately become one of the pieces the Phoenix Suns move if they decide to pivot certain aspects of their roster construction.
Allen possesses one of the more tradable contracts on the roster, paired with a skill set that translates almost anywhere. Shooting always travels. Teams are always looking for secondary scoring and spacing off the bench. Because of that, it’ll be interesting to see what his market value actually looks like around the league.
That said, regardless of what Phoenix could potentially get back in return, moving off Allen absolutely hurts your depth and second-unit scoring.
What these rankings ultimately reinforce is something Suns fans are still wrestling with emotionally. Phoenix has good players. Legitimately good players. The issue is the league no longer views the roster as one built around overwhelming star power. Instead, it’s increasingly viewed as a team trying to construct functionality, depth, and identity around Devin Booker rather than simply stacking names and hoping it all works. Honestly, that’s probably healthier long term, even if it feels less sexy on paper.
And that’s where these tiers become valuable. They strip away emotion and force you to evaluate the roster through a colder lens. Booker remains the clear headliner, although nationally he’s drifting closer toward “high-end star” than “untouchable superstar.” Brooks is gaining respect because his impact finally translated into winning basketball people could quantify. Gillespie and Allen are viewed as legitimate rotational pieces. Green remains the wild card, simultaneously carrying the highest ceiling and the most uncomfortable price-to-production conversation on the roster.
Taken together, the rankings paint a pretty honest picture of where the Suns currently exist within the larger NBA ecosystem. Competitive. Interesting. Deeper than expected. Still lacking the kind of top-end hierarchy that typically defines true championship contenders.
