The Western Conference got better
There’s just no way around the fact that the Western Conference got better. That hurts the Suns since they need to play each of those teams three or four times this year versus just twice against each team from the East.
You could even argue that the West’s improvement will be more significant to the Suns record than their own improvement. Last year, there were nine playoff-caliber teams in the West. With LeBron joining the Lakers, that makes ten.
That means the Suns will likely have just four other teams in their conference that win less than 45 games. Brutal.
To actually improve over last season, the Phoenix Suns will have to handle their business against bad teams and pull some upsets against the league’s top teams. That sounds pretty simple, but it implies that the Suns are in a middle tier by themselves, which just isn’t true.
In reality, the Suns are much closer to the bottom four than they are to the top ten. Games against non-playoff teams will be competitive, not easy wins. Games against playoff teams will be really tough for Phoenix.
With so many difficult games on the slate, the improvement of the Western Conference may have outpaced the improvement of the Suns.