The Phoenix Suns are letting us down once again

Even though nobody thought that the Phoenix Suns were going to the playoffs in 2019, here we are after only four games, beginning to believe that they are about to go through another absolutely terrible season, letting us down once again.

The Phoenix Suns were once a perennial playoff team. A franchise the league and it’s fans could count on as a postseason contender every single year.

A blue chip franchise.

Even when they did miss the playoffs nobody believed that they were going to be down for long, and history regularly proved that to be true.

Then in 2010-11 everything changed.

The Suns missed the playoffs – and they haven’t been back since.

Here’s the thing though: for the first time in franchise history they openly tanked for the last three seasons, and we were okay with it. We saw the benefit in losing because it meant higher draft picks, cheaper talent, and potentially a strong team for many years to come.

Then they fired their head coach, got the first overall pick, drafted a franchise center, traded for a third wing, signed two veteran sharp-shooters, traded away two younger players for an 30-year-old sharp-shooter and a second round pick point guard, fired their general manager, and told us that they were done tanking and it was time to win.

And, oh so many of us bought into it. Hook line and sinker.

Phoenix Suns

Yet four games into the regular season, what has changed from the previous three seasons? Nothing! They excited everybody with their opening night blowout victory of the Dallas Mavericks (although Dallas did cut it close several times), only to be blown out two out of their next three games.

They’re hardly competing; they’re not playing like a team; they’re not playing any  defense, and suddenly all that losing before looks more like a precursor to more losing today than the dark before the dawn.

They’re letting us down again.

The Phoenix Suns were once a franchise who even when they were bad, fans still had hope. And it wasn’t false hope either. It was real, honest to goodness “they’re going to find a way to make it happen” hope, and fans were never really let down.

They made that  trade. They signed that  free agent. They upset that  team.

And now?

None of that.

The hope we’re fed is strictly names on paper with nothing truly tangible to grasp onto letting us peacefully go to sleep at night dreaming of victories, rather than clutching our pillows begging for the nightmare to end.

Sure the Suns have Devin Booker, potentially one of the league’s next superstars. But what good is he on a team that from top to bottom can’t win?

Sure, they have Deandre Ayton, a potential superstar in the making. But what good is he if nobody can get him the ball in the right spot and defensively he doesn’t stop anybody in the lane and knock bodies around?

Phoenix Suns fans might have looked at the schedule prior to the start of the season and mapped out a 1-3 record too. The record itself isn’t all that shocking. Speculators could have thought that the Suns would have won at home to open the season, lose two on the road to good teams, then lose again to the Lakers with LeBron James – just as it happened in reality.

Had they lost those three games in competitive fashion and didn’t get blown out eerily reminiscent of the past three years, fans still would have seen a light at the end of the tunnel and known that one more season with a few bumps in the road but coupled with a lot more competitive play could mean all the difference in the world.

But, THIS?

Instead, who  has allowed 119+ three times already and allows 118.3 points per game when they were supposed to be a much improved defensive team?

The Suns.

Who is averaging 18 turnovers a game?

The Suns.

Who looks wildly inconsistent offensively?

The Suns.

The narrative of missing the playoffs for 8+ seasons is old.

The narrative of tanking is old.

The narrative of never being able to figure it out is old.

It’s only four games into the 2018-19 season and things are already looking bleak.

Maybe they can and will turn things around, but right now, it just looks like another season where even the honest modest hype that fans felt heading into the regular season, was too much.

Phoenix Suns fans are beginning to feel like they’re being let down once again.