Phoenix Suns top 10 players of 2024 - Number 9

With 2024 about to draw to a close and the Phoenix Suns seemingly no closer to winning a championship than they were a year ago, now is a time to reflect on how exactly we got to this point. The talk of landing Jimmy Butler persists - as well as another deal that literally cannot happen - but for now at least, there is no one player who is going to come and solve this team's problems.

Already we've awarded the 10th best player for the organization across the last 12 months, and that was very much a look into the past. Eric Gordon is not only no longer with the franchise, the fact he made the list at all despite having an at times unhappy tenure in The Valley perhaps explains why the Suns are where they are right now.

Ryan Dunn taking the number nine spot though, is much more positive.

If you're looking at this from a negative point of view, then perhaps you think including a rookie who has only played 26 times for the Suns up to this point also explains why they've failed to make the jump to legitimate contender. After all - if Dunn had more competition on this list - this group would surely have won a playoff game at the very least last season.

But to think in this way would be to fail to accept that Dunn has already started 11 games for the team, and has proven to be an excellent first round draft choice by the front office this summer. Whereas the previous summer was full of veterans such as Gordon, Yuta Watanabe and Keita Bates-Diop landing in Phoenix in search of a ring, Dunn represents something different.

There's a reason why none of those other players no longer call The Valley home, while a first-year player is managing just shy of 18 minutes per game on a roster featuring three star players. Dunn has ridicuously high upside - on the defensive end at least - although his hot start from beyond the arc gave the coaching staff plenty to think about as well.

That might have cooled off considerably, but the fact remains that Dunn was the perfect player for this group, and who came along at the right time. Last season it felt like everybody wanted to just skip past the regular season, so as to see how far Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal could carry this team.

As it turned out not very far - the Minnesota Timberwolves teaching them a valuable lesson - and maybe had they taken the regular season more seriously, they could have been seeded better for the playoffs. Not that Dunn alone has fixed this problem, far too often already in 2024-25 the Suns have failed to beat inferior opponents and thrown away winnable games.

But there's a reason head coach Mike Budenholzer continues to insert him into the starting lineup whenever he gets a chance. The Suns have been poor defensively so far this season (22nd, 115.3), and you would think a rookie coming in and oftentimes playing with undersized players like Tyus Jones or alongside plodding center Jusuf Nurkic would hurt him in this area.

Instead when Dunn is out there the team remains at essentially the same level (113.8), and it is no secret that many fans prefer Dunn's skill set next to Jones and Booker as well. There's no way Beal is going to come off the bench so that a 21-year-old can replace him, and yet the starting group has better balance when he does. Put simply he is a better on ball defender too.

Which is why Dunn deserves this spot on the top 10 players list. To put him any higher would have been forcing it, but to not have him at all would have been disrespectful to the excellent regular season impact he has already made. With the future in Phoenix murky if this "Big 3" experiment fails, how reassuring it is to know Dunn could be around for the long haul, however that ends up looking.