Do you ever feel like the universe tilted a few degrees off its axis? Like gravity took the day off and what should be up is lounging somewhere below? That’s where we are in Suns-land as the 2025–26 season
looms. We’re suspended in this strange new orbit where logic feels optional and the unexpected has unpacked a suitcase.
If someone told me four years ago that Grayson Allen and Dillon Brooks would be wearing purple and orange while I cheered them on, I would’ve checked their temperature. Then I would’ve asked, “What cosmic event led us here?” Yet here we are, and here they are. Two players branded with reputations that linger somewhere between villainy and volatility. They are now ours to rally behind.
Grayson Allen has found a rhythm in Phoenix, a blend of grit and sharp-edged confidence that fits this team’s current identity. And Dillon Brooks? After one preseason game, I can already feel myself buying stock in the full Dillon Brooks experience. It feels strange, maybe even wrong, but it also feels alive. In this upside-down world, maybe that’s exactly what the Suns need.
But if we’re staying in that same headspace — the one where reality feels like it took a wrong turn at Albuquerque — there’s another name that comes to mind when thinking about players who built their brand on chaos and confrontation: Patrick Beverley. Yes, that Patrick Beverley. The same one who sent Chris Paul flying with a shove to the back after the Suns bounced the Clippers from the 2021 Western Conference Finals.
It still feels surreal to even mention him in a tone that isn’t dripping with disdain, but here we are again, living in the timeline no one ordered. While the broader basketball world seems content to bury the Suns before the season even starts, Beverley, of all people, is one of the few lending his voice to their defense. On his Pat Bev Pod through Barstool Sports, he’s giving this team something rare: tempered belief.
“I think the Suns are going to be super competitive,” Beverley recently said.
“I think they can get in a situation at the end of the year…’If the Suns win the last three out of five, they could make the Play-In.’ I think they’re a team that can do that,” he continued. “Over a seven-game series, are they the best team I would put my money on? Probably not, but if you were to bet on the Suns on a Play-In game, I’m betting on the Suns.”
So if the Suns make the Play-In, Pat Bev’s putting his money on us. That’s something, right? A strange kind of cosmic endorsement, but we’ll take it. Because truthfully, that might be the ceiling of expectation this year. There’s no misunderstanding what this roster is or what its limits might be.
Sure, surprises happen. They always do. And when you look at the fact that Phoenix now has two starters from a Houston Rockets team that finished second in the West last season — their top scorer and best defender, no less — it gives a flicker of hope. This team has bite. They’ll compete. They’ll make opponents work for every possession. But in a conference stacked top to bottom with talent, it’s hard to imagine them clawing for anything beyond a Play-In spot.
Still, that’s why the games exist. They’re here to defy what the spreadsheets and sportsbooks say. Nobody had the Colts and Jaguars running the AFC, or the Chiefs under .500 five games in. The world tilts when you least expect it.
I’m still trying to adjust to this new version of reality, one where Phoenix is built on grit and attitude, where the villains are wearing our colors, and where Patrick Beverley is out here saying nice things about us. It’s disorienting. It’s bizarre. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe this season isn’t about returning to normal. Maybe it’s about embracing the strangeness and seeing where it leads.
