3 reasons the Phoenix Suns will win an NBA Championship this season

The Phoenix Suns enter the 2023-24 NBA season as one of the few, genuine contenders to win what would be a first ever NBA Championship. Armed with the failures of the past, and a trio of stars in Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, there time appears to be now.

Not that everybody is convinced this will be the case. The Western Conference is looking as difficult as ever, with even rebuilding teams such as the San Antonio Spurs and Portland Trail Blazers representing difficult outs on any given night.

Not that Suns’ owner Mat Ishbia and the front office will be worried about any of that noise, because they have put the organization in a fantastic position.

While some may argue that the supposed depth that the franchise has amassed is all smoke and mirrors, there is little doubt that new additions in Grayson Allen, Yuta Watanabe and Keita Bates-Diop look like the key ingredients of a productive second unit.

Really though the measure of success for this team starts and ends with their “Big 3”, with the recently added Jusuf Nurkic the x-factor here. A plodding center with a history of injuries going back to the start of this decade, if he is on the court more often than not, the Suns are going to be in great shape once they’ve run the gauntlet of the regular season.

3. Bradley Beal is the best third option in the league

The importance of having Beal as the team’s third option offensively cannot be overstated. Throughout his career, he has averaged over 20 points five times, and over 30 points twice. On three occasions, he has been named an All-Star.

To have done this on a middling Washington Wizards team – and as the best player they had in a lot of those seasons no less – is mightily impressive. It is highly likely that both the amount of shots Beal puts up each night, and his scoring average, come down some on what we’ve seen before. Beal himself certainly expects that to be the case.

In place of this however, is the knowledge that he will be the best third option in the entire league. The Milwaukee Bucks for example just added Damian Lillard, making Khris Middleton their best number three. For the Boston Celtics, that player would be Jrue Holiday. For the Denver Nuggets, it is probably Michael Porter Jr. The Los Angeles Lakers? Most likely Austin Reeves.

All of these players are great in their own way, and the Bucks and Celtics in particular will have no fear of the Suns. The Nuggets continue to be criminally overlooked, despite being the defending champions. All of this is true, but when you break it down come the playoffs, there’s no better third option across the league than Beal. That will matter.

2. They have the best coaching staff

There is little doubt that new head coach Frank Vogel was the right choice to take over from the departed Monty Williams this offseason. Vogel won a championship with the Lakers back in 2020, and so is used to dealing with superstars and getting the best out of them.

That will never be more true than it is on the defensive end, with the hope being that Vogel can cobble together the kinds of rotations and units that are capable of getting some stops down the stretch of games. The front office doing their bit to help this in getting Bates-Diop, Chimezie Metu, Drew Eubanks, Eric Gordon and bringing back Josh Okogie this summer.

While Vogel alone is not the best head coach in the league – that distinction belongs to Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat – he does form what has become the best coaching staff. The Suns going out and getting a proven leading man in David Fizdale to join as an assistant.

On top of that, the franchise also retained the services of Kevin Young, who is now the highest paid lead assistant in the league. The importance of this is huge, both because Young is somebody who Booker trusts and because of the continuity he brings to the team. The roster may have been overhauled, but having at least one voice from before helps to link past and present.

The combination of these three coaches is exactly what the Suns will need when the going gets tough. There is tons of experience, a head coach in Vogel who has climbed to the top of the mountain before, and an assistant in Young who has the ear of the franchise player. Building a special group off the court, as well as on, is one of Ishbia’s biggest wins so far.

1. They will have the highest offensive rating of all-time

Last season, the Sacramento Kings had the highest offensive rating in the league, at 118.6. The duo of Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox powering that group with an excellent and complimentary two-man game.

Given the embarrassment of riches the Suns now possess though, there is no reason to believe they won’t surpass that number in 2023-24 and become the best offensive group of all-time. In the last 10 games of last season – after the Durant deal from the Brooklyn Nets was completed – the Suns had an offensive rating of 118.1.

That is a small sample size, and a lot has changed since then. As already mentioned, Vogel will be looking to see more of an effort on the defensive end, knowing that scoring the basketball is largely going to take care of itself.

But with Durant reunited with Watanabe, and other credible 3-point shooters like Allen and Gordon alongside Booker and Beal, opponents should be terrified by how quickly this group will be able to amass points. Even Jurkic is an upgrade on Deandre Ayton in this regard, assuming he can stay on the court.

He is capable of knocking down the odd shot from deep, something Ayton was far less likely to do, and he understands his place in the offensive hierarchy perfectly already. Jurkic will be setting screens, cutting without the ball and passing out of the post to shooters. The ideal big to have as the Suns buzzsaw their way through the regular season.