Through 10 games of the 2023-24 NBA season, the Phoenix Suns have an underwhelming 4-6 record. Good enough for the ninth spot in the Western Conference, with two straight losses to the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder to add to their woes.
Franchise talisman Devin Booker has appeared in only two games, while Bradley Beal is still on some kind of minutes restriction by the organization as a result of a back tweak. Kevin Durant has been brilliant – as have several of the Suns’ role players – but that’s not going to make much noise in such a competitive environment.
Which is why it is now time for the Suns to begin to panic about where they sit in the pecking order, and how they have come to be where they are.
On paper this group still looks like it could make it all the way to the NBA Finals, but crucially to this point, a lot of what we think we know about this team is based on what we think we know about them, and not what we’ve actually seen. Look away now Suns fans…
3. They’ve lost winnable games
If you check out the Tankathon website – a place Suns fans won’t have to go for a long time with their lack of draft picks – this team currently has the 11th hardest schedule remaining. That is not the problem though, instead it is the fact that Tankathon ranks the San Antonio Spurs as currently one of the five easiest opponents a team could have.
That same Spurs roster beat the Suns twice in a row last month, in The Valley no less, and that shines a bigger spotlight on a huge issue this franchise has right now. They have dropped winnable games, no matter what way you look at it.
The Spurs losses were unacceptable – even if they did come in contentious circumstances – and they needed overtime to beat the listless Chicago Bulls recently. This despite having Beal back for that game. Their other losses have been to the Lakers (twice), Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers.
The 76ers loss you can understand, although splitting the games with the Lakers would have been more acceptable. Like the Suns, they too are built on creaky foundations, and find themselves with a 5-5 record. They are the kind of older group that the Suns, if they want to win a championship, have to be beating.
The Thunder loss was an ugly one, because it exposed the truly frailties here. This is again a team the Suns should be beating with two of their three stars out there, but they were exposed by a younger roster. With the Minnesota Timberwolves up next, the prospect of slinking to 4-7 is a real one for this franchise. Given the level of opponent so far, that is unacceptable.
2. Fourth-quarter collapses
A strange thing has happened to the Suns so far this season, and that has been their terrible play during the fourth-quarter of games. Which is puzzling, because they have a group full of veterans who know exactly what it takes to pull away from most opponents and close out games.
Instead this roster ranks dead last in fourth-quarter points at 21.8. Any team that has Durant on it should never find themselves propping up an offensive list of any kind, but perhaps that speaks to the larger problem of having Durant play 39 minutes and score 38 points, and still lose to the Lakers.
Kevin Durant on the Suns’ 4th quarter: “It just comes down to missed shots. What’d we shoot from the field in the 4th?”
— Gerald Bourguet (@GeraldBourguet) November 13, 2023
[2-for-21]
KD: “I mean, we can’t win games that way.“ pic.twitter.com/8CerQ3nExe
If the bulk is on a 35-year-old to put up 30 each night, then you are going to struggle over the course of an 82 game season. Younger teams are going to catch on to this one person act that is more reminiscent of a rebuilding roster, and react accordingly. A recent example of this was the Detroit Pistons, and although the Suns won that game, it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.
Durant is one of the first players in the entire league you think of when you need a bucket in the fourth-quarter of a close game. Only that doesn’t work as well when he has spent the preceding three quarters doing the exact same thing. Until the Suns can get Booker back and learn to finish games properly, this group are pretenders and not contenders.
1. Offensive woes
The Suns’ inability to put up a ton of points in the fourth-quarter of games may also explain their overall offensive woes. They rank 17th in this category (110.9), in what was supposed to be an area of strength for the team.
The plan was to blow opponents away each night, and although Booker’s lack of playing time hasn’t helped in that regard, they have had to lean on the defensive IQ of head coach Frank Vogel just to stay reasonably competitive. Their marginally above league average rating of 111.1 on that end a nice surprise amidst this poor start.
Another number that hasn’t helped the franchise’s cause to this point has been the 36.3 percent they have shot as a whole from 3-point range. That might be the 12th best mark in the league, but the Suns added proper sharpshooters in Yuta Watanabe and Grayson Allen, as well as credible threats such as Eric Gordon and Josh Okogie, to be a lot more than that.
If this collection of players could push that number closer to 40 percent, the entire offensive flow of the team would flow a lot better. Instead of looking to Durant when things get hard, the Suns could ride the hot hand from deep. That hasn’t happened enough so far, and until it does, the team are going to trade wins and losses with opponents.