Today is the day. The 2025–26 NBA season begins, and somehow it feels like the Suns last played during the Obama administration. Back on April 13, this fanbase collectively exhaled like someone finally unplugged a smoke alarm that had been chirping for nine straight months. Hope? Flatlined. Vibes? In hospice. The team looked like they were running a trust fall exercise with no one behind them.
We weren’t tired in the normal sense, like “wow, that was a long season.” No, this was existential fatigue.
Watching the Suns was like sitting through a five-hour director’s cut of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. You weren’t sure what was happening. Every game felt like a group project where everyone forgot their part, and the final presentation was somehow a midrange fadeaway that clanked off the front iron.
The fanbase hit that special level of exhaustion where you stop being angry and start making peace with the chaos. We were past “fire the coach” and into “maybe basketball was a mistake.” The Suns had become an emotional treadmill: lots of motion, no progress, and plenty of sweating.
So yeah, we wanted it to end. The losses, the excuses, the haunting sound of Kevin Durant sighing through postgame interviews. The half-hearted rotations, the “we’ll figure it out” quotes, the “we’re building chemistry” speeches that aged faster than milk in the Arizona sun. We were done.
But here we are again, willingly climbing back into the burning house because it’s opening night and the thermostat of optimism has been reset to “maybe this year.” Because if being a Suns fan has taught us anything, it’s that delusion is not a flaw. It’s a lifestyle.
Since the end of last season, this franchise has twisted itself inside out, trading away talent, waving (and waiving) goodbye to payroll, and clawing for a course correction in the middle of Devin Booker’s prime. It’s been a fever dream of decisions.
What comes next is anyone’s guess. The outcomes are infinite, the expectations anything but. It could all click, or it could implode in new and fascinating ways. Either way, intrigue is guaranteed. That alone is worth something.
I keep ping-ponging between hope and dread about this team. Part of me wants to buy in again, to believe that maybe this season will be different, that success isn’t just a mirage shimmering over the Valley pavement. After all, when they’re winning, writing about them is a joy. When they’re losing, it’s like describing a car crash in slow motion every day for eight months.
We’ve been through this dance together, you and I. We’ve seen the organization spin in circles like a Roomba trapped under a dining room chair, bumping into the same mistakes and somehow acting shocked every time it falls flat. They’ve tested our patience, our sanity, and our commitment to pretending this is still fun.
This season won’t be any different. It’ll have flashes of brilliance, the kind that make you shout, “This is it!”…right before everything collapses into chaos again. There will be nights where the ball moves beautifully, like poetry in motion, followed by weeks where it looks like performance art about suffering.
That’s basketball. That’s fandom. The sport gives you a reason to care, then immediately punishes you for doing so.
In the past, these preseason words were written on the day the season began as a rallying cry. Something to spark belief. To motivate the masses, or at least, self-motivate as to why this team and this year would weld together into something memorable.
This year feels different. This year, there’s no battle cry. Only curiosity. A quiet kind of hope that maybe, amid the chaos, something real takes shape.
This year, I am here to be entertained. That’s it. Nothing noble, nothing grand. Because entertained I have not been. Not for two long, weird seasons. Sure, there were moments. A flash of brilliance, a single quarter where it all clicked, a possession where you thought, “Maybe they get it now.” But the broader narrative? Disappointment. The kind that lingers. The kind that makes you question how something so expensive can feel so hollow.
So no, there’s no rallying cry this year. No bold declarations about destiny or banners.
What I’m offering instead is a shrug and a soft murmur: “Hey, let’s watch this together.” Let’s see if they can surprise us. I’m not expecting surprise, mind you. My expectation is intrigue. Curiosity. The kind that makes you lean forward instead of scroll away.
Because for the first time in a long time, I’m watching for development. For hints of a culture that might actually last longer than a viral highlight reel. It’s been ages since Phoenix basketball had that kind of substance. And no, the Finals run wasn’t culture. It was combustion. It was lightning in a bottle. Seven Seconds or Less? That was a culture. That was an identity. That was a way of life that burned bright enough to leave a shadow.
What I’m hoping for now is the start of something that sustains. Which, let’s be real, is nearly impossible in the modern NBA. Egos and luxury tax aprons chew through stability like termites through drywall. But if this team can stand upright long enough to figure out who they are, if they can identify which pieces belong in this supposed movement, then maybe they can build something real over the next five years. Because they’ll have to. They’re out of draft picks, buried under dead money, and operating in a league that eats inefficiency for breakfast.
The odds are bad, and they’ve earned that. But we’ll still be here. Watching. Waiting. Wanting.
So as the season begins, I ask you to come in with an open mind. Success won’t show up in the standings. It’ll live in the effort, in the cohesion, in the attitude. Those are fragile things; hard to measure, easy to lose. They slip through your fingers like sand at low tide.
This isn’t a season of proclamations. It’s a season of intrigue. Of quiet hope. Of shared curiosity about where this train is headed. We don’t know the destination. We never really do. But we’re all aboard again, tickets in hand, ready to find out.
