Predicting the Phoenix Suns’ record vs the Central Division

The Phoenix Suns are an improved team. Let’s make an early prediction of how their record might stand at the end of 2019-20 breaking down their head-to-head v the Central Division.

The Phoenix Suns of 2019-20 are not the Suns of the recent past.

The roster of this coming season is seemingly light-years ahead of how it had been previously constructed.

And with that new construction – by James Jones who has torn down what Ryan McDonough built (if you want call what he put together as having been “built”) – the Suns not only have a chance to be much improved over the God-awful tanking of the last four years, but maybe even have a shot at making the playoffs in 2020 if all goes well.

Sure, it would take a lot of luck (there are probably 10 teams in the Western Conference alone who could make the playoffs, of which many fans and pundits would not consider the Suns one of those teams) but if Monty Williams is the head coaching genius that we all believe he could be, then there is a chance that this new incarnation of the Phoenix Suns really could make a splash in the regular season and find themselves in position to be a playoff team come May.

It is with that hopeful feeling that led to the genesis of this series.

This is Part Two in a six-part series in which I will predict what the Phoenix Suns’ record might be this in 2018-19 based on how they will play each team in all six divisions.

The series began with the Atlantic Division, which will be linked to on the last page of this post.

From here I will complete the Eastern Conference with the Southeast Division, then move onto the Western Conference.

For those who believe that the Suns will be awful once again (I have seen predictions in the low-20s a number of times), this is not a over-inflated and hopeful series that will somehow have the Suns winning 50+ games.

While I argued in the first post that if this exact roster were transplanted to the San Antonio Spurs, fans and pundits would believe they would have a shot at the playoffs and the fact that their name is the Phoenix Suns people are wary, there is no argument that the roster is going to be much improved.

Therefore without further ado: let us predict how the Phoenix Suns will finish against the Central Division this coming season.