Breaking down and Predicting the Phoenix Suns’ 2019-20 schedule: March
By Adam Maynes
In our continuing effort to break down and predict the Phoenix Suns’ 2019-20 regular season schedule, we take a look at one of the year’s most critical month’s: March.
Coming off of what was arguably the worst season in franchise history, General Manager James Jones has taken significant strides in attempting to rebuild the Phoenix Suns’ roster in a way that will not only make them competitive this season, but for the long-term, potentially placing them on the path as a regular playoff participant for many years to come.
And yet, almost nobody actually projects the Suns to be playoff competitive in 2018-19.
However, if they are going to be and potentially surprise everyone (including their own fans), then March is going to be crucial to that chase as they look to sneak in as an assumed eight-seed in an extremely difficult Western Conference.
While I have written earlier that the Suns could be a 37 win team, a huge leap over the 19 wins from last season and potentially the largest leap of any team over last season’s record in 2019-20, that would not necessarily place them anywhere truly close to the eight-seed.
To make matters worse for that cause, not all fans (obviously) have such an optimistic view of what the team could be this season, including some of the staff writers here at Valley of the Suns, including Adam Noel who predicted an extended losing streak in February with the team finishing that month 2-11.
Hopefully on some level we are both wrong, and that either 37 wins could get the Suns into the playoff hunt somehow (although, let’s be real: do not bank on that), that they somehow far exceed expectations like they did in 2013-14 and have a regular season winning record in the 40s, or at least just not be anywhere near as bad as a team with a 2-11 month would imply.
Thus, following February comes another potentially very difficult month in March, a month that could be a make-or-break period of time if the team is making a push for the playoffs (or attempting to avoid another 19-win-ish season.