Bradley Beal has a wild take even Suns fans will struggle to get behind

Even though the Phoenix Suns failed to live up to expectations last season, they managed to win 49 regular season games. This included a pair of seven-game win streaks, and came despite third star Bradley Beal being limited to only 53 games played through all manner of injuries.

They also achieved this impressive feat despite having a head coach in Frank Vogel who couldn't last beyond that season, and no actual point guard to run the show. A problem that the organization solved quickly this summer by bringing in Tyus Jones, Monte Morris, Collin Gillespie and TyTy Washington. Yeah, they really don't want to have to call Isaiah Thomas again at the deadline.

Beal though is delusional in believing last season could have gone better.

We're not talking even win a single playoff game better either - which this team failed to do as they were swept by the Minnesota Timberwolves - oh no, Beal thinks it could have been much more memorable than that. In fact according to him - if he hadn't missed as many games as he did through injury - the Suns could have been the one seed out West.

No seriously, you did just read that correctly. We'll let Beal take it from here...

Now if we're to try and back Beal up here, there's obviously no doubt the team would have won more games if he was fully healthy. As it was they got a career year out of Grayson Allen - who activated tank mode this offseason - while Jusuf Nurkic somehow played the most games of any player on the roster.

But to say they would have won more games than the cohesive regular season units of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets and Timberwolves seems baseless. Even the Dallas Mavericks - who ended up coming out of the conference - cracked 50 wins ahead of them, and had a pair of superstars in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving who were completely in sync.

Beal revealed in this same interview with the Run Your Game podcast that he was almost traded for Khris Middleton and sent to the Milwaukee Bucks, so it's fair to say he touched on a lot of topics here. But even the most hardcore Suns fan has to admit that thinking that team - with its clear flaws - could have topped the West is optimistic at best and incredibly naive at worst.

Beal will get another chance to put his money where his mouth is this season, and he's come into the campaign healthy and has those aforementioned floor generals that should allow him to get back to playing the way he wants to. Mike Budenholzer is also in charge, and he has ensured that the atmosphere in The Valley is already very different.

But with Kevin Durant now 36-years-old and Nurkic and Mason Plumlee a limited center pairing (hello Oso Ighodaro), evening getting homecourt for the opening round of the postseason looks difficult. We do admire the confidence though, but this is a claim that can now only be backed up on the court. Hopefully Beal can forgive fans for not totally backing him on this one, even if they'd like to.