The Phoenix Suns' season just ended — but it largely defied expectations

The Phoenix Suns’ season ended earlier this week, with a four-game sweep against the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. The Suns had made it into the playoffs as the eighth seed by beating the Golden State Warriors in the play-in tournament.

That followed a season in which the Suns largely defied expectations and won 45 games. That’s nine more wins than they had last season, and more than most prognosticators expected them to have this season.

To review this past season and look ahead to the future, The Show talked to Dana Scott, a sports reporter for the Arizona Republic.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: Dana, good morning.

DANA SCOTT: Morning.

MARK BRODIE: So how big of a surprise in the NBA world were the Suns this season?

DANA SCOTT: Yeah, it was a great surprise because everybody thought that they would only get to 36 games, match their total last year where they didn’t make the playoffs for the first time in five years since the 2020 bubble.

Or actually, is that 2020-21 is when they went to the finals and 2020 is when they barely missed it on a shot that was missed by Caris LeVert, then of the Brooklyn Nets. Everyone in Phoenix was on the edge of their seat hoping he’d make that shot for the Suns to get pulled in when they went on that 8-0 run in the bubble, which was improbable for them at the time and they hadn’t made the playoffs in 10 years at that time.

But then the Suns, of course, five years after that, were considered one of the best teams in the league as they made trades for Chris Paul and then had him for three seasons until they traded him off for Bradley Beal and then basically traded the farm for Kevin Durant and those basically the championship expectations were there with that former Big Three of Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal and Devin Booker and building around him. Then they had to rebuild around Booker again for the season and they were expecting the team to basically just be in the basement of the Western Conference, which was really loaded.

So no one expected a rookie coach, Jordan Ott, to come in. A rookie head coach to come in from the Cleveland Cavaliers and be in the offensive coordinator of the league’s, the Eastern Conference’s best record last year, to just turn this team around so quickly.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so how much of the turnaround do you think was the coach and maybe his staff? How much of it was the players? Maybe how much of it was the players who weren’t there this season that had been there, you know, the last year or two?

DANA SCOTT: Well, they had to get younger, for one. They had to get rid of a lot of guys, also being at the second apron yet last year with Bradley Beal’s contract at $50 million.

MARK BRODIE: In terms of the luxury tax, yeah.

DANA SCOTT: Yes, exactly, deep into the luxury tax, into the second apron where they could only get veteran minimum guys, where Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker were worth $150 million, just the three of them alone, or among them. And then everybody else was they couldn’t get anybody beyond a veteran minimum contract per the collective bargaining agreement.

And so now that after having to, you know, eat the too expensive sandwich that they bought with trading for Bradley Beal for basically a quarter of a billion dollars from his Washington Wizards contract that they traded for with that no-trade clause they had to buy him out and get him to waive his no-trade clause in order to put him against the cap for five years and put them under the first apron so that way they could go out and sign guys and get Collin Gillespie on — on a guaranteed deal for their starting point guard and then get the trade Kevin Durant to get Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green, who became basically their Big Three with Devin Booker in that trade for, to Houston to get them and create that new nucleus.

And then get other of course, re-sign, get Royce O’Neale of course, on an extension. Grayson Allen was on $18 million and then, you know, to have those guys really buy into Jordan’s system, which was offensive rebounding and improving that, improving the defense and extending possessions, and as well as the three-point shooting, that’s really where the Suns hung their hat this season.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so looking ahead, you mentioned how the Suns sort of traded the farm to get Kevin Durant. A big part of that was a lot of first-round draft picks. So looking ahead to next season, what changes would you expect to see?

Because obviously it’s great that they defied expectations, made the playoffs, but I assume that the ownership and the coaching staff and the players don’t want to make the playoffs and get swept in the first round every year.

So what are they, what can they do, what do they need to do to get better?

DANA SCOTT: Well, what they need to do is continue to improve their defensive rating. They saw a big jump in that: they went from 27th in defensive rating last year to ninth this season. Also they made a big jump from last year at 26th in offensive rebounding percentage and got to 13th. And also they were in a three-way tie for scoring with the Magic and 76ers at 13th to, from up from 21st the year before.

So what they need to continue doing is having that rim protection. Also get healthier because Mark Williams’ knee, the third, foot metatarsal injury, has really plagued him this season. And that’s been, that’s the rim protection, because they were dead last in rim protection last year. That’s helped them in with his percentage when they, when he’s out there on the floor as well as they need some — continue to have the playmaking of Oso Ighodaro who’s basically their Swiss army knife as a big, as a 6’10", but at the same time is they need to get some more inside play because they didn’t have Mark Williams all series against the OKC Thunder, who have the best defensive team historically, one of the best of all time.

And so that’s where they’re need — going to need to get to if they’re going to have to compete with the OKCs, the, you know, San Antonio Spurs, or even teams like the Timberwolves. And they’ve had some big wins this season against, you know, the Thunder and Spurs and Timberwolves, too. So they’re going to continue to need to have that inside play to establish them to higher percentage shots.

MARK BRODIE: All right, we’ll have to leave it there. That is Dana Scott with the Arizona Republic. Dana, thanks for your insights, I appreciate it.

DANA SCOTT: I appreciate you. Thanks for having me on.