How the Phoenix Suns fumbled their breakout 2013-14 season

It Wasn’t All Bad

As a Suns fan, I will always look back fondly at the 2013-14 NBA season. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the futility that occurred before and after it, but it was one of the most fun seasons of Phoenix Suns basketball that there has ever been. To watch a team that oddsmakers said would win 19 games go 48-34 was a pleasant surprise, as many of the best things in life usually are.

There was some good to come out of the resulting mishandling of their unexpected success in 2013-14 as if the Suns hadn’t found themselves back in the lottery again in 2015 they never would have landed their superstar of the future in Devin Booker, a player who has all of the ability to become the franchise’s greatest player of all-time by the time he hangs them up.

They also never would have been able to parlay the 2021 Miami Heat 1st Round pick into trading up to No.10 to acquire Mikal Bridges in the 2018 NBA Draft. A guy who could potentially blossom into a cornerstone piece in their next great era of basketball.

As in any failure in life, there are lessons to be learned and blessings in disguise to be extracted.

Hopefully, the ashes of the unfulfilled promise that befell an organization seemingly on the rise in 2014 can spark the rise of the Phoenix Suns organization once again.