There is an old saying that winning cures everything. That may be true in most corners of sports, although it has not applied to the Phoenix Suns. There is one battle they keep fighting that refuses to move.
On January 23, the Suns sat in the seventh seed in the Western Conference. They have not left it. The standings have held them there like gravity. Phoenix has spent 78% of the season living in that spot. Seven. Always seven.
It reminds me of one of those moments on the highway when you are cruising along, and the universe decides to test your patience. You look up, and the car in front of you is floating along in its own dimension. The speed limit sign you passed a mile ago clearly said 65. The driver ahead of you has chosen 55 as a lifestyle. No urgency. No awareness. Completely detached from the flow of traffic.
So you make the move.
Blinker on. Slide into the left lane. Time to pass and get on with your day. Then it happens. The car in the left lane is doing the exact same thing. Same speed. Same oblivious energy. A second rolling roadblock staring back at you through the windshield. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is flying past on the far side like you accidentally joined the slowest convoy in America.
That is what the standings feel like for the Phoenix Suns right now.
Every time they try to move forward, there is another car sitting in the passing lane. Every night you sit down and watch the league through the lens of the Phoenix Suns, you find yourself rooting for a specific set of outcomes. You are scoreboard watching. You need certain things to happen. Results that could push Phoenix into the top six. Because finishing in the top six matters. It means avoiding the Play-In. It also opens the door to a first-round matchup that might be more manageable, especially when you consider that the standings between third and seventh are separated by two games.
The margin is razor-thin. Yet night after night, it feels like the results refuse to cooperate. You need Houston to beat Denver. Denver wins. You need the Lakers to drop one to the Knicks. That does not happen either. It almost feels scripted at times. The four teams sitting between third and sixth appear to take turns stumbling, although never long enough to truly fall. A small losing streak arrives, then a quick correction, and suddenly everyone is back where they started.
Look at how the standings have moved recently.
Four days ago on March 8 the Lakers were sitting in sixth. Now they are third. Two weeks ago, Denver held the third seed. Now they are fifth, and were sixth heading into last night’s battle with Houston. Minnesota and Houston continue bouncing up and down in the same pattern, sliding a spot, climbing back, then sliding again.
The result is a constant shuffle above Phoenix, although the door never fully opens.
The Suns are 5–1 over their last six games. When they defeated the Lakers on February 26, they sat one game out of the sixth seed. Since then, they have actually lost ground, now sitting 1.5 games out of sixth. That is the strange part of this stretch. Phoenix has been winning. The record says so. The momentum says so. Yet the standings barely move. Every time they try to merge into that top six lane, another car slides in front of them and taps the brakes.
So the math becomes simple.
Seventeen games remain. The Suns need to make up two games. That is not impossible. It happens every season somewhere in the standings. The missing ingredient is somebody ahead of them stumbling for a week. Phoenix has to keep stacking wins. At the same time, somebody in front of them has to hit a skid.
If you look at the remaining strength of schedule for teams in the West, per Tankathon, the Timberwolves and Nuggets both have a tougher slate ahead. The Lakers are just behind Phoenix. Houston has the easiest remaining stretch.
Either way, the floor beneath them looks solid. The Suns are essentially locked into a Play-In position at minimum. The Clippers sit five games behind them in the standings. Making up that gap in the final seventeen would require a dramatic turn, although with one of the easiest remaining schedules, anoything is possible.
So the story continues.
The Suns keep driving forward and watching the road ahead, waiting for a lane to open. And like traffic on the freeway, you never fully know how it is going to play out.
