How will they fare? The Phoenix Suns vs the Southwest Division
By Adam Maynes
The 2019-20 Phoenix Suns are not your…2018-19 Phoenix Suns. With a nearly rebuilt roster and a highly respected coaching staff, how will they fare against the Southwest Division?
General Manager James Jones took the roster that was the Phoenix Suns of 2018-19 and completely deconstructed it to it’s core (in a way, he was able to fulfill Thanos’ plan to strip the universe down atoms and rebuild it in the final battle of Infinity War).
By doing this, adding major upgrades in Ricky Rubio, Dario Saric, Cameron Johnson, Aron Baynes, while ridding the roster of the dead weight in the form of players such as Josh Jackson and Dragan Bender (and of course the surprising trade of T.J. Warren), the roster that is today is not the one that won only 19 games last season.
That is not to say that the Phoenix Suns will win 50 games, however with a legitimate point guard and power forward added to the roster, and with two of the three worst top-ten draft picks in franchise history now off the roster (Marquese Chriss of course being moved mid-way through last season), they are going to be significantly improved.
Of course, locally, how improved they are will be dependent mainly on competitiveness (we’re just sick of the blowouts), however nationally (and not like true fans do not care about this number either), pundits and talking heads alike will look to the team’s win-total as their own judgement of just how close the franchise is to finally competing for the playoffs again.
So far I have broken down my predictions for how Phoenix will fare against the entire Eastern Conference, as well as against the Northwest Division.
While strictly predictions based on improvements and losses by both teams and how I expect them to matchup against one-another, I have the Suns with about a .500 record so far.
However, there are two Divisions to go, easily the two most difficult in the entire NBA, and I will begin this final leg with the Southwest Division, then finish up with the gauntlet of gauntlets, the Pacific Division.
So here…we…Go.