The Phoenix Suns Won’t Win It All…Probably

The Phoenix Suns have been on a roll in recent memory!

Recently, they won a close one against the Bulls on Jan. 22, 2024. On Jan. 24, they blew out the Dallas Mavericks to win 132-109. With those wins, they are now on a 7-game winning streak, giving them a record of 26-18.

That lands them as the 6 seed in the Western Conference Standings, which is fine, but not for this level of talent.

When approached with the question of this team becoming a champion, NBA fans respond with jokes about the concept of them reaching such a feat.

Here’s an example of one of those jokes going around NBA communities:

The Why

They might feel that way because, in recent memory, super teams don’t have the best success rate.

Back in the 2020-21 season, the Brooklyn Nets formed a super team, that included James Harden, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Durant. All three of them are great players in their own right to this day, but, due to injuries, bad luck, and a few bad performances here and there, they never managed to win a title. They didn’t even play much with one another.

Another example of a failed super team is the 2021-22 Los Angeles Lakers. This team also included a list of three great names: Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, Anthony Davis. They also dealt with many issues like bad roster structure, questionable performances in the clutch, and injuries to LeBron and Anthony Davis. By the end of the season, they didn’t even crack a .500 record.

Essentially, Super teams, especially ones with Big 3s, seem to take a lot of work and luck to be successful. So, when the Suns built another Big 3s with the Bradley Beal trade, it’s understandable that some wrote that team off. It also doesn’t help that they’ve dealt with one major issue: injuries.

Injuries

In all the other departments that have led recent super teams to fail, it’s too early to judge quite yet.

The playoffs haven’t started yet, their record could change by the month, and the roster has been decent so far. But they do have one concern: injuries.

Although Kevin Durant has played most games this season, he hasn’t had the best injury luck since the 2019-20 season. As shown in foxsports.com, in the 2019 playoffs, he tore his Achilles and missed the entire 2019-20 season to recover. In every season after that, he hasn’t been able to play more than 55 games. He’s on track to stop that game drought but you never know.

Bradley hasn’t had the best injury luck either.

As shown in foxsports.com, Beal has dealt with a multitude of injuries since the 2021-22 season. He’s dealt with knee, hip, and back injuries causing him to miss the bulk of the past three seasons. That led him to not play more than 50 games since then. It also doesn’t help that he’s only played 18 of the 43 games this season.

Devin Booker is the player in the Big 3 to worry the least about but he did only play 53 games last season, so concern is still there.

Other than that, they don’t seem to have any other established issues that align with super teams. At least not yet.

But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have another major issue ahead of them.

Not Enough?

When looking at the roster, they have some good pieces.

In terms of Big men, they have a versatile Big in Jusuf Nurkic and a decent back up PF in Drew Eubanks.

Nurkic averages 11.9 points and 10.6 rebounds on 49.5% from the field. That means that he’s flirting with a double-double each game. Drew Eubanks is a solid 5 points and 5 rebounds each night, filling in Nurkic’s backup minutes.

Defensively, they have Josh Okogie, a good defensive forward, and Jordan Goodwin who plays defensive (and offense) with energy. Here’s Coach Frank Vogel talking about Goodwin below:

Moving on to shooting (other than the Big 3), they have good 3-point shooters like Grayson Allen and Eric Gordon.

Allen is shooting a whopping 49.1% on five attempts per night. This percentage makes him the league leader!

Gordon shoots a decent percentage at around 37.6% on almost seven attempts per night.

On top of that, they have the Big 3 where each of them can take over any game.

Hearing that, they may make the team sound elite and ready to win a title, but, compared to other teams, those pieces aren’t enough.

Why?

As shown by the advanced stats on NBA.com, The Phoenix Suns aren’t exactly one of the best teams in the NBA.

Their offensive rating is 117.2, tying them with the New York Knick and making 11^th in the NBA. Their defensive rating is 115.2, making them 16^th in the NBA, meaning that their net rating is 2.0, which is also 11^th in the NBA. Their assist to turnover ratio is 1.81, tying them with the Atlanta Hawks and making them 22^nd in the NBA.

They average:

-7.2 steals per game (19^th in the NBA.)

-6.0 blocks per game (sixth in the NBA.)

They allow teams to:

-score 17.7 points off turnovers (24^th in the NBA.)

-average 13.6 2^nd chance points (11^th in the NBA.)

Most of these stats don’t crack the top 10.

Add them with the injury concerns and the super team reputation and you raise concerns.

Final Thoughts

Essentially, this team is good but know where near one of the best defenses or offenses in the NBA. Therefore, something is missing to make this team a championship contender.

Maybe they’ll find it somewhere down the line but, as of Jan. 24, 2024, they don’t look like a team that’ll win it all (despite what some Suns fans might be saying on the Suns reddit). But who knows, if they take this win streak far enough, they might be holding up the trophy in June.

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Stay tuned for more NBA content, including midseason moves, contract updates, and more pieces about every team.

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• Source: https://thegamehaus.com/nba/the-phoenix-suns-wont-win-it-allprobably/2024/01/26/