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Being underdogs will suit the Phoenix Suns this season

PORTLAND, OREGON - OCTOBER 12: Jerami Grant #9 of the Portland Trail Blazers, Kevin Durant #35 of the Phoenix Suns and Jusuf Nurkic #20 in action during the first quarter of the preseason game at Moda Center on October 12, 2023 in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images)
PORTLAND, OREGON - OCTOBER 12: Jerami Grant #9 of the Portland Trail Blazers, Kevin Durant #35 of the Phoenix Suns and Jusuf Nurkic #20 in action during the first quarter of the preseason game at Moda Center on October 12, 2023 in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

The NBA is a league that moves quickly from one storyline to the next, as the Phoenix Suns will know all too well as a result of this offseason. What began as a summer revolving around the Suns after they traded Chris Paul for Bradley Beal, quickly discarded them and moved on.

With the regular season fast approaching, most of the storylines in the league are now dominated by Damian Lillard’s move to the Milwaukee Bucks (which the Suns helped to facilitate), or the never-ending saga that is James Harden’s career in the league.

The Suns right now are afterthoughts, failing even to crack many expert’s top tier of contenders, and that will suit this organization just fine.

For starters, it is easy to galvanize a group when you make them believe they are the underdogs. Which the Suns obviously are not – any team that has Beal, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant should be talked about as one of the favorites to win a championship this season.

As a result of reasons such as perceived lack of depth and reliance on injury-prone players like Durant and Jusuf Nurkic, that is not currently the case. That makes it easier for head coach Frank Vogel to united his roster against the naysayers and doubters, and in doing so attempt to instil a defensive identity around this “us against the world” mentality.

To add to this underdog narrative for the organization, the recent annual NBA General Manager’s survey revealed that only seven percent of GMs think the Suns will win a first championship this coming season. Given that GM James Jones is unable to vote for his own team, essentially only one or two more people at most presently think the Suns will win it all.

This despite half of the GMs thinking that the Suns will finish second in the Western Conference, with another 23 percent believing they will top it outright during the regular season. Perhaps most baffling of all – and this is ammunition coach Vogel can certainly use – the Suns received no votes in the “best offseason moves” category.

How the Suns can upgrade their backcourt by changing Paul for Beal, and also get four role players back for center Deandre Ayton in the form of Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Keon Johnson and Nassir Little is puzzling. They also went out and got Yuta Watanabe and Eric Gordon, two players who, alongside Allen, comfortably fill out the top end of the rotation.

Lost on some is the fact that the Suns are also returning Josh Okogie – who is looking like their fifth starter – Ish Wainright, Damion Lee and Saben Lee. Some of these players aren’t going to see the whole season through, but it is a small level of continuity at the back end of their bench that is at least worth noting.

Throw in Keita Bates-Diop, Chimezie Metu, Jordan Goodwin, Drew Eubanks and Bol Bol, and it is hard to see how the Suns got no votes in this category. Their top three guys make ridiculous sums of money, and yet the organization are likely going to have to cut some players from their rotation to make this work. That is a strong position to be in.

Then there are the betting sites out there, who all generally have the Suns outside of the top tier of contenders. FanDuel currently has them fourth, behind both the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks, and tied with the Denver Nuggets (pretty slanderous if you’re a Nuggets fan…), while DraftKings has them pegged at fourth currently.

Until Lillard went to Milwaukee, the Suns were the only team in the entire league that had two top 10 players on the same roster in Booker and Durant. They compliment one another incredibly well, and will take turns instigating the offensive sets of the team once the season begins. How that duo is being underrated and overlooked is criminal.

Not that Suns fans should be surprised, with both Bradley Beal and Devin Booker both taking strays from ESPN recently. But with less people talking about this group, and a general assumption that they are going to be bad defensively on a lot of nights, the Suns find themselves in the enviable position of being overlooked.

This despite having an offensive trio that is likely to have one of the 10 best offensive ratings in league history together, and a player who has won multiple championships in Durant. Booker looks primed for an MVP run and Beal has assumed the role of third option really well so far. The Suns are somehow underestimated, and it will suit the franchise to roll with that tag.

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