The Suns will win more than 30 games next season

Kevin Pelton of ESPN recently published an article projecting the record of each NBA team this coming season, as he does annually. The projections are based on ESPN’s real plus-minus (RPM) statistic, with some adjustments.

I don’t have too much to gripe about with the standings in Pelton’s projections. The Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, and San Antonio Spurs as the top-three in the West make sense, along with the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers as the top two in the East.

However, some of the win totals are pretty off in my opinion.

Take, for instance, his projection that neither the Celtics nor the Cavaliers will win more than 50 games. This is nuts. Even if you doubt the Cavs, the Celtics won 53 games last year and added all-star Gordon Hayward. Yes, they probably overachieved during the 2016-17 regular season, but they definitely took a step forward this offseason.

I also think the projection is off on the 76ers (only improving five games after adding a couple of number one overall picks) and the Los Angeles Clippers (only dropping behind two games after losing Chris Paul).

However, I’m here to talk about the Phoenix Suns, whose projection I also have a problem with. Pelton only has them winning 30 games this year – six more than they won last year. That’s the same number of wins he projects for the Brooklyn Nets.

Let’s think about that for a second: Kevin Pelton projects the Phoenix Suns to get the same number of wins as the Brooklyn Nets.

Now, at first you might think, yeah okay, the Nets were the only team worse than the Suns last year and they play in the Eastern Conference. After what happened this offseason, with the West getting even more competitive, it might be reasonable to assume Brooklyn would catch up to the Suns. But no, I refuse to accept that. This is the Nets we’re talking about. This is the same team that won 20 games last year before trading away its best player on draft night.

Even though the Suns only won four more games than the Nets a year ago, they had to tank pretty hard to do it. In fact, they sat several of their key rotation players for the last portion of the season. Eric Bledsoe, the best player on the team, missed the last 14 games. I’m not too worried about Brandon Knight, but if the Suns had used Tyson Chandler and Eric Bledsoe toward the end of the season, I feel confident that they would have won at least a couple more games. In fact, according to the win shares per 48 minutes statistic provided by basketball-reference.com, the Suns would have won about five more games had Chandler and Bledsoe played the full season – that alone is 29 wins.

Let’s continue this Nets-Suns comparison by looking at each team’s depth chart. Brooklyn projects to have a starting lineup of Jeremy Lin, D’Angelo Russell, Caris LeVert, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and Timofey Mozgov. Lin had the highest Player Efficiency Rating (PER) in 2016-17 at 19.33, while the lineup has an average rating of 14.60. Phoenix, meanwhile, will probably start Eric Bledsoe, Devin Booker, Josh Jackson, Marquese Chriss, and Tyson Chandler. Bledsoe had the highest PER at 20.56. Jackson obviously didn’t have one, but even if we substitute T.J. Warren, the Suns end up with an average PER of 15.97 for their starting lineup. This doesn’t even include the fact that the Suns’ bench has a much higher collective PER than the Nets’ bench (including Alan Williams, who has an impressive 19.59 PER).

Of course, neither team is impressive. But remember, the Nets traded away Brook Lopez and his 20.48 PER from last season. How, then, are they supposed to jump from 20 to 30 wins this season? I just don’t see it. Maybe they could get a few more if Lin stays healthy, but not 30. D’Angelo Russell is a solid prospect, but he too isn’t good enough yet to make much of an impact.

On the flip side, Pelton predicts pretty much no improvement for the Suns. This is surprising since Phoenix did nothing to hurt themselves as Brooklyn did. Though they didn’t make any major improvements, there are reasons to believe they’ll improve beyond the 30 win mark.

First, Phoenix won’t have the same incentive to sit Tyson Chandler or Eric Bledsoe and blatantly tank this year. If they hadn’t done so last year, they could have added, conservatively, three to four wins to their win count. That means they would only have to win two to three games in order to get to 30 wins this year, a doable goal if they are more focused on actually competing.

Second, with a similar lineup as last year, the Suns will have a better understanding of what works. Tyler Ulis and Alan Williams performed extremely well toward the end of last year. We should see much more playing time from them, meaning less time from Alex Len (if he re-signs at all), and of course, Brandon Knight. It also helps that Brandon Knight won’t even be involved in the lineup, since he was very inefficient shooting poorly and turning the ball over with impunity, and didn’t want to be apart of the team anyway.

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Finally, the continued development of our young core should get a few more wins. Devin Booker only got better as the season went on, taking full advantage of Bledsoe’s time on the bench. Who doesn’t think he’ll take that next step forward this year? T.J. Warren too has consistently improved each year he has been in the league. As I previously mentioned, Ulis and Williams both exceeded expectations during their limited opportunities in the rotation. And though Marquese Chriss didn’t have as great of Summer League as we might have hoped, he and Bender should still take a step forward this year. Chriss contributed during his rookie season and Bender spent much of the time injured. Then there’s Josh Jackson, an NBA-ready rookie who brings defensive toughness and overall versatility.

I don’t expect the Suns to compete for a playoff spot or anything. However, projecting them at 30 wins means there will be basically no improvement with this team, which I disagree with. As long as Phoenix doesn’t intend to intentionally tank for basically the third year in a row – something I can’t see them doing – then I believe they’ll get a few more wins than that.

And who knows? Maybe they’ll trade for Kyrie Irving and end up exceeding everyone’s expectations.