The Dragan has Returned, The Suns are in 2nd, and More!
By Adam Maynes
The Losing Streak Itself
It is actually nice that for a franchise that is playing in it’s 49th season has never had a losing streak longer than 13, and should that streak be broken this season it is not because the Suns are that bad from top to bottom, but because they were doing so intentionally. According to landofbasketball.com (who is referenced often on Valley of the Suns) there have been 23 losing streaks of 17-games or longer (which is one more than the Suns can officially finish with this season). Except for maybe two from the Philadelphia 76ers from 2013-14 (26-longest ever) and 2015-16 (18), none of the other losing streaks were necessarily done with the intentional purpose of tanking.
Moreover, of those 23 losing streaks of 17 or more, there were 17 individual teams that comprised that list. Meaning that over half of the teams in the NBA today have losing streaks of a minimum of 17 in their franchise’s history, and the great majority of those were because the teams legitimately stunk, and were not due to the franchise intentionally trying to lose every game in a certain period of time.
The point of this though is that had the Suns been playing their full contingent of their roster, ie. Eric Bledsoe, Tyson Chandler, and yes, even Brandon Knight, there is no way that this team would be on a 12-game losing streak racing headlong towards 16 straight. So while they seem poised to at least break their record of 13 straight with a loss to Golden State and then Oklahoma City, Valley of the Suns fans can at least take solace in the fact that whether this streak reaches 13, 14, 15, or the max of 16, the streak will likely be out of reach for a very long time, and when we look back on it years from now, we can at least take comfort in the knowledge that this was done intentionally, and not because the team truly was that bad.