The Suns will will have two upset victories over Divisional rivals
The Suns had difficulty against the Lakers last season, but have otherwise not struggled against them for at least a decade. From 2012-17 the Suns held a 16-8 advantage over their most hated rival.
That said, they haven’t fared well against LeBron James, having gone winless against him since January 13, 2015.
This season though, the Lakers aren’t going to be one of the great teams of the Western Conference, albeit they are expected to leap into the playoffs. Even with LeBron, they will be vulnerable and Phoenix will have four shots against them to steal a victory, twice as many games as they would play against the LeBron and the Cavaliers.
Winning one against the Lakers will be nice, but I think that Kokoskov will have something else up his sleeve:
He will also finally lead the Suns to a victory over the Golden State Warriors as well.
The Warriors currently hold a 15 game winning streak over the Suns, stretching all the way back to the Suns’ last victory over Golden State on November 9, 2014, the longest such streak by a Phoenix opponent in franchise history.
That streak is going to break this season, and I am going to precede it’s happening with giving Kokoskov all the credit.
While a victory can occur on any given night, the Warriors have a recent history of being bored with the regular season and waiting to do all their real work when they reach the playoffs (generally the Semifinals is when they start to ratchet it up). Kokoskov is going to take advantage of this, and I believe pull what will seemingly be a rabbit out of a hat by knocking off the two-time defending champion at some point this season – cue the Herb Brooks speech from Miracle before facing the Soviets).
The Suns will have two opportunities for this, one at home on February 8, and another in Golden State on March 10.
Thank you, Igor Kokoskov.