The Phoenix Suns’ regular season schedule was released last week, and with it the chance for fans to get excited about a campaign that has the potential to be the best in franchise history. While that run to the 2021 NBA Finals will live long in the memory, it all came crashing down at the last hurdle.
That 2021 group was a likeable one that featured Devin Booker, Chris Paul, the best version of Deandre Ayton we have ever seen, and the one that got away in Mikal Bridges. Before getting to the postseason though, the Suns have to find a way to bring together a new star player in Bradley Beal, a remade coaching staff, and a whole host of role players.
Predicting how many regular season wins this franchise will amass is hard, but there is no doubt expectations are high.
Bleacher Report has the Suns hitting the 50 win mark, which would be a great start for this group. The Western Conference is going to be extremely crowded however, and even that may not be enough to secure home court advantage beyond the first round of the postseason. So let’s take this one month by month, to see if we can correctly predict how many wins the Suns will collect.
October 2023 (4 games)
The Suns have a tricky start to 2023-24, as they take on the Golden State Warriors on opening night, then the Los Angeles Lakers two days later. Both are live on national television, and both are away from home. This is a big ask to start the season.
We’ve already talked about the need not to panic if the Suns start 0-2, because the Warriors at home (and with Chris Paul making his competitive debut against the Suns), are going to be an extremely hard out. Then, depending on how you think the Lakers did this offseason, Ayton will have to be ready for both Anthony Davis and LeBron James inside.
We’ll start this campaign optimistically, and say that the Suns split these two. We’ll give the Warriors that win, before the Suns have their home opener against the Utah Jazz. The San Antonio Spurs come to town to finish this month, and winning both of these contests seems achievable.
After an offseason of much discussion, this team are sure to come out of the blocks quickly. Continuing this optimistic outlook, and perhaps losing to the Warriors in their first game will be the kick they need to go on a bit of a run, before looking at ways to begin to rest their star players some.