Welcome to Inside the Suns, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.
Each week the Fantable — a round table of Bright Siders — give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.
Fantable Questions of the Week
Q1 – How would you define a “successful season” for the Suns this year?
Ashton: I would define a successful season for the Suns, as most commentators have, tight and competitive games that show increased defense as a work in progress.
Bullet list:
The rookies show out, and that includes first and second year rookies. That demonstrates coaching ability from the staff. Did
the Sun’s draft and trade well? I want to see it. Do the rookies perform beyond expectations?
I want to see fan engagement from the paying fans that chose to take their loved ones to a home game for a basketball experience. Win or lose.
Suns win the over at Vegas odds. Currently around 32.5 games but let’s make that a little better with question 2.
OldAz: The goalposts constantly move on this question during each season. When CP3 signed on, the Suns were still in a long playoff drought So the season started with just an expectation to make the playoffs. That quickly changed and so can this years expectation. For me, I will start by setting my bar at having a better record than last season. I am taking for granted that they will play with more passion and energy, mainly because I can’t imaging what less passion or energy would even look like for a pro team.
Last season’s team vastly underperformed so matching that record with better energy and effort will probably look a lot like the Blazers season last year, but would not require making the playoffs or even the play in tourney. This also assumes a lot of early season struggles while they put everything together. If they instead start the season off well and tread water close to .500 through the first 20 games or so, then these expectations will rise considerably.
Rod: Seeing this new roster mesh, develop good team chemistry and even modestly out-perform expectations. There’s an old song (1981) by Triumph titled “Fight the Good Fight” and the chorus goes, “Fight the good fight every moment…every minute, every day…” and seeing that in every game would spell success for me. No quarter given, no quitting when the odds are bad, just fight, fight, fight for the full 48 minutes. If they can come anywhere close to doing that, I believe they will have established a very strong foundation for positive growth in seasons to come.
Q2 – What do you consider to be your boldest prediction(s) for the Suns this year?
Ashton: Suns make a play-in game as an eight seed. They will win 40 games.
Booker does not win the Shooting Title. Impossible as a shooting guard and a passing guard.
The pessimistic posters will think I am crazy, but the ones that took the Over on the Suns win total will get paid.
Okay, some of these are not quite bold predictions. But the posting crowd is easy to read.
OldAz: Booker and Green will actually look good as a backcourt pairing. This is probably more hope than prediction, but it is certainly bold considering all the years of evidence that says the Suns don’t play well without a true point guard. Before Rubio (and then CP3) their only successful team during the long rebuilding process was when Goran was manning the PG position and Bledsoe slid over to be the shooting guard. Ironically, it was adding a 3rd PG that ruined that team and led to the long run of the Suns trying to make it work without a PG. Thus, my very bold prediction is that this talented backcourt will work well together despite neither being a true PG
Rod: The Suns will finish this season with a winning record. Now that doesn’t mean that I think they’re going to be a great team, just better than expected. After all, a 42-40 record is a winning record, and I think that is at least possible. The West is very tough, but I think the Suns will be a tough team to play if Ott can turn them into an above-average defensive squad and they play with heart…something that seemed to be missing a lot last year.
Q3 – What’s your all-time favorite Suns team of the past?
Ashton: I am pretty sure the other contributors and posters will point out the Charles Barkley run in the early nineties. And some will point out the 7SOL Suns under Steve Nash and Co. with the guidance of Mike D’ D’Antoni. It is a bit different for me.
2020 Bubble Suns. What a crazy time that was! Everybody is sequestered, and the Suns were a laughingstock of the NBA. No crowd or audience except what you can see on TV, and the Suns were left for dead. So why tune in?
They went 8-0. The biggest heist in NBA sports history was that the Suns did not move on with a perfect record. The Lakers won the COVID bubble era, but history will not record that they never faced an undefeated team.
But that is when I started to see the greatness of what a Suns team could become after basically a decade of decline. It was in isolation and players having to work together, the Sun’s fanbase had hope.
OldAz: Three Suns teams have made the finals, but I think my favorite is the one that always came up just short. It is easy to blend the seasons together during the Nash years because each team had the Matrix and Stat but you had the early years with Joe Johnson and the later years with Boris Diaw. Regardless, they were always playing the sidekick to the evil San Antonio Spurs teams that always seemed to get the better of them.
Among those, my favorite was the 2004-2005 team, where the Suns lost in the WCF to the Spurs after losing Joe Johnson to the eye injury one round earlier. That team was too talented across the entire starting 5 (Nash, Johnson, Matrix, Amare &Quentin Richardson) with the Brazilian Blur and Jim Jackson coming off the bench. Even after the mistake of swapping out Johnson for Diaw, that team was fun to watch for a very long time and really was ahead of their time in how the game was played. I really enjoyed that brand of fast-paced basketball where everyone on the court was a legitimate threat.
Rod: That is still the 1975-76 Sunderella Suns for me. Many people talk about the 1976 Finals against the Celtics, but it was the Suns’ performance in the Western Conference Finals series against the reigning NBA champs, the Golden State Warriors, that cemented my love for those Suns. They went into those playoffs with a 42-40 record, starting TWO rookies (Alvan Adams and Ricky Sobers) and took down the Warriors in 7 games after getting down 3-2 to a GS team that had finished the regular season with a 59-23 record.
The game-5 triple overtime loss to the Celtics in the Finals was called “The Greatest Game Ever Played” at that time, but the Suns also had a double-OT win against the Warriors in game 4 of that series that was a great game in itself. And the memory of Suns rookie Ricky Sobers getting into a fight with 9-time All-Star Rick Barry in the game-7 win at home was a very nice cherry on top of that WCF championship run!
I still love that team, and their underdog run to the Finals is one of the best NBA stories ever. It still gives me some measure of hope that the Suns might again outperform expectations in any given season. My #2 favorite is the 2013-14 Suns, who proved that semi-irrational hope of mine could turn into reality.
As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!
Suns Trivia/History
On September 3, 1968, the Phoenix Suns opened their first-ever training camp, running mainly conditioning drills at Brophy Prep, with camp at the high school lasting for one week. Phoenix also lost another coin flip with the Milwaukee Bucks on this day for the right for first pick off waivers. Milwaukee picked “tails.”
On September 3, 1994, the Suns signed Danny Manning as an unrestricted free agent. A 2-time All-Star, Manning signed a 1-yr, $1 million contract with Phoenix (all their cap situation would allow afford at the time) after making $3.5-million the previous year and turning down a 5-year, $35 million dollar contract from Atlanta.
The year before, Manning had made the rare choice of accepting his qualifying offer rather than signing an extension with his previous team (the LA Clippers) and became an unrestricted free agent for the 1994-95 season. When questioned about Manning’s decision to sign with the Suns for much less money, his agent replied, “It is not about money. It never has been and never will be with Danny. It is about winning.”
On September 6, 1977, the Suns acquired point guard Don Buse from the Indiana Pacers for Ricky Sobers. Buse would miss just one game in three seasons for Phoenix while averaging 8.0 points, 4.4 assists and 1.9 steals per game. In 1979, he helped take the Suns deep into the playoffs before losing 4-3 in the Western Conference Finals to the Seattle Supersonics, who went on to win the NBA Finals 4-1 against the Washington Bullets. Buse is still 3rd on the Suns’ All-Time list for career steals per game with 1.93 per game.
On September 7, 2004, the Suns signed super-speedy Summer League standout and Japanese-born PG Yuta Tabuse. Yuta was in Dallas’ training camp before being cut and with Denver in the preseason in 2003 before signing with the ABA’s Long Beach Jam, where he averaged 5.3 pts and 6.3 asts in 2003. He scored seven points in his first NBA game against the Atlanta Hawks on November 3, 2004, becoming on that day the first Japanese player ever to play in an NBA regular season game.
Last wWeek’s Poll Results
Last week’s question was, “Which Suns rookie will have the biggest impact on team success this season??”
6.12% – Khaman Maluach.
56.12% – Rasheer Flemming.
35.71% – Koby Brea.
2.04% – CJ Huntley.
A total of 98 votes were cast.
Important Future Dates
Sept. 13 – Valley Suns Open Tryouts @ ASU Sun Devil Fitness Complex in Tempe (9 am-12:30 pm)
Sept. 23 – Media day
Sept. 24 – Training Camp opens
Oct. 3 – Preseason game vs LA Lakers @ Palm Desert, CA
Oct. 10 – Preseason game vs Brooklyn Nets (China)
Oct. 12 – Preseason game vs Brooklyn Nets (China)
Oct. 14 – Preseason game vs LA Lakers @ Phoenix, AZ
Oct. 20 – Rosters set for NBA Opening Day (5 p.m. ET)
Oct. 21 – Regular Season Begins
Jan. 5 – 10-day contracts may now be signed
Jan. 10 – All NBA contracts are guaranteed for the remainder of the season
Feb. 5 – Trade deadline (3:00 pm ET)
Feb. 13-15 – 2026 NBA All-Star weekend in Los Angeles, CA
This week’s poll is…
