The Phoenix Suns open the season against the Mavs with an Ayton-Doncic ESPN matchup. It’s a great opportunity to build confidence for the young group.
The NBA released a portion of its national television schedule, and the Suns have been given an ESPN game to open up the season. On October 17th, they take on the Dallas Mavericks in a battle of top young teams.
My initial takeaway was that if I were a Kings fan I would be pretty annoyed. Instead of a divisional matchup between the first and second overall picks, the league opted for a non-divisional matchup between first and third. They’re clearly not too excited about Marvin Bagley and the Kings’ other young guys.
My more thoughtful takeaway is that this is a great opportunity for the Suns for a lot of reasons.
First off, this is a more than winnable first game. It’s at home, the Mavericks really aren’t very good, and there are enough new pieces on both teams that anything could happen. Getting that first win over with out of the gate would be a great way to kick off the season.
Second, if the Phoenix Suns young core can prove to the league how good they can be right off the bat, that could build tremendous confidence for the rest of the season. Even renowned bad basketball player Michael Carter-Williams was able to turn a hot start into a Rookie of the Year campaign. Imagine what it could do for guys like Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges.
And with the game on national TV, this will be the first chance for Ayton to prove to the world he’s better than Luka Doncic. He wasn’t everyone’s best player in the draft, so he should feel he has a lot to prove. Doncic should feel the same way.
With all eyes on the young Suns, they’ll have a great chance to prove right away that this won’t be a repeat of last season.