The 2026-27 NBA season is finally underway. It’s an exciting time for basketball fans around the world, but for those following the Phoenix Suns, FanSided’s NBA99 ranking of the top 99 players in basketball suggests the league may just be passing the Suns by...
There are certainly a number of questions the Suns need to answer this season.
Can they repeat their 45-win success from a season ago? Or are they poised to regress?
How will new addition Miles Bridges and a healthy Jalen Green impact the roster?
Will young centers Oso Ighodaro and Khaman Maluach thrive with Mark Williams sidelined?
While there’s plenty of intrigue, the overarching tenor tied to the Suns is that they remain on the fringes of relevance, with only two (aging) representatives ranked among the league's top 99 players.
Only two Phoenix Suns players ranked within the NBA99
The usual suspects are the only two players ranked within the NBA99 for Phoenix: Face of the franchise Devin Booker and veteran culture-setter Dillon “The Villain” Brooks.
Book, who is ranked a very respectable No. 16 in the ranking, was named to his fifth career All-Star team a season ago. Brooks, ranked No. 92, had high-profile names in his corner advocating for his own All-Star nod, but it didn’t happen.
That’s it.
And while it’s a badge of honor for Booker and Brooks to be included, it’s also a stark reminder for Suns fans that the NBA’s evolving landscape is swiftly leaving Phoenix behind.
The league overall is getting much younger than it was back in the early 2000s. Young stars are increasingly driving the league forward, while veterans on the wrong side of 30 making rotational impacts are few and far between—limited seemingly to the league’s future Hall of Famers like LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and James Harden, to name a few.
Suns' reliance on veterans, lack of young stars, not a good recipe
That’s not a great outlook for a Suns team whose two best players will be 30 years old at the end of October. Doubly so, considering Phoenix doesn’t have any young players in that NBA99 ranking.
A number of guys under age 25 are in that mix, even including incoming rookies like Cameron Boozer (ranked 65th), Darryn Peterson (ranked 85th), AJ Dybantsa (ranked 95th), and Caleb Wilson (ranked 97th).
Adding salt to the wound, Toumani Camara—the now 26-year-old wing for the Trail Blazers who was traded to Portland by the Suns in the Deandre Ayton deal—ranks above Brooks at No. 89 overall.
Without established young stars to drive the franchise forward, and with its own two stars aging into a demographic that’s increasingly finding itself as a minority in the game, the Suns' future is murky at best and bleak at worst.
Phoenix traded yet another unprotected first-round draft pick this summer to acquire Miles Bridges, who doesn’t rank among the league’s top 99 players. He’s also entering a contract year, so there’s a chance he may not even be back with the Suns beyond his debut season in The Valley.
Young stars and draft capital are what put current contenders like the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs on the pedestals they now stand on. The Suns’ best players, meanwhile, are aging fast, and the front office doesn’t have draft capital to lean on if (or perhaps when) things go south.
Book and Brooks are worthy representatives for the franchise, but a dearth of young stars should be setting off alarm bells within the Phoenix front office.
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