Friday night represented a new low for the 2023-24 Phoenix Suns' season, as they dropped out of postseason contention entirely. A fifth straight win for the Golden State Warriors - taking them to 15-14 on the season - enough to leapfrog the Suns into the 10th spot in the Western Conference.
Prior to this season beginning, most thought the Suns were going to be so good that getting homecourt advantage for the first round of the playoffs at least was going to be a formality. The word "play-in" wasn't even entertained, yet with the calendar close to flipping to 2024, the franchise wouldn't even make that pre-playoff round of games tomorrow if it were to start then.
It is clear then that the Suns need a minor Christmas miracle in order to get themselves back on track, but this is the time of year when that can happen.
Although this group still in theory has plenty of time to get things right and ultimately come good, the list of teams who have been in the Suns' position after 28 games and gone on to win an NBA Championship is as small as you think it is. Right now there looks to be too much to fix in too many areas, in order to make a legitimate postseason run.
But head coach Frank Vogel wasn't brought on board to throw in the towel in December, and so these three wishes for the organization are ones that should be approached one at a time, in an effort to get right. Should the Suns be in a similar position even one month from now, this season will have fallen off the cliff and become a disaster.
3. Get healthy
The most obvious wish for the Suns is exactly where they should start, and that is by getting healthy so they can give a much better account of themselves in the second half of the season. Bradley Beal is the key miss here, and has been limited to only six games so far this season.
Firstly with a back issue, and right now with a gnarly ankle sprain against the New York Knicks, and the initial report from the Suns would be that he would miss two weeks. That would put him at around the start of January for a return date, but in truth he is likely only going to be re-evaluated then. From that point, he may yet miss some more time with the injury as he steps up his rehab.
Frank Vogel on how the #Suns are approaching this stretch without Bradley Beal, who has a right ankle sprain and is reported to be out for three weeks. pic.twitter.com/ZfTMmCaZJf
— Trevor Booth (@TrevorMBooth) December 17, 2023
To date, the Suns' "Big 3" of Beal, Durant and Booker have played only 18 minutes together on the court. An unacceptable return when the roster has so much riding on the play of their top three guys. They simply must ensure that Beal stays healthy for the rest of the season once he is back, to have any chance of climbing to a top four spot in the West.
On top of that, both Booker and Durant have missed some games with niggling injuries. In the case of the 35-year-old Durant it is more understandable, and really the fact he has been the most durable of their top three players partly explains why the Suns are where they are. But it is on Booker now to go on a tear in the New Year, and show fans he can be a fringe MVP contender.
The knock against the Suns when they put this team together in the offseason was that, on paper, they were a formidable group. To this point the roster has been exactly that, one that exists only on paper. But if the Suns can get Beal back, they would have the best third option offensively in the league. Throw in Booker and an already amazing Durant season, and the team would be back.
2. Fix the disharmony in the group
It doesn't take a professional psychologist to know that is something not quite right with this roster at this moment in time. Again, there don't appear to be any major issues and being 14-14 at this stage of the season isn't a complete disaster, as long as the Suns' record looks a lot better by season's end.
But that doesn't change the fact that the vibes at this stage are a far cry from those which were displayed by the players, coaching staff and front office at media day. Creating a united front was likely one of the key reasons the Suns traded Deandre Ayton for Jusuf Nurkic and Grayson Allen close to the beginning of the season.
Ayton was seen as a disruptor to the common goal of winning that this group had - yet even though he is now in Portland with the Trail Blazers - all does not seem right. Veteran Eric Gordon went public in voicing his own displeasure recently, and while he is known as a straight shooter, his comments about not getting enough shots up could not have come at a worse time.
I agree with Eric Gordon. Suns need to use him to stretch the offense away from KD and Book. pic.twitter.com/oyr8P4vgOD
— Gabe Guerrero (@GabeGuerrero03) December 24, 2023
Not even a day later, Beal came out and said that the season up to this point "had been a little rocky". Nobody is disputing that this is the case, but the timing is once again not in line with what you would expect from a star player who was brought to The Valley to be the final piece of a championship puzzle.
Maybe there is more going on behind the scenes, and Gordon and Beal feel like these little comments to the media are what is needed to jolt the franchise back to life. But this is more in line with what younger players who are still more focused on getting theirs would act, and not two players who are both 30 or older, and who have never won a championship. This needs to change, and fast.
1. Unclog their offensive machine
Becoming the offensive beast everybody predicted the Suns would become won't be easy, but it is integral if they hope to reach the heights they have set out for themselves. Swapping Nurkic for Ayton was meant to be the roster move that turned this team into an offensive supernova, at the expense of having a better big man to man the paint defensively.
Outscoring opponents every night is a tiresome way to win games - but when you have Durant, Beal and Booker - you're in a position few in league history have been in to try and achieve that goal. Even without Beal for most of the season so far, the shooting of Allen, Gordon and Yuta Watanabe, combined with what Nurkic can do on that end, was supposed to lead to good things.
Instead the Suns are bang in the middle of the road in offensive rating (15th, 115.4) so far this season, and that is with Durant playing most games. In the last five games, in which the team have gone an ugly 1-4 and lost to the Trail Blazers, they have been a horrendous 25th in this category (111.9). It would be hard for this group to be that bad if they actively tried to be.
Considering the Detroit Pistons - losers of 26 straight games - have had a rating of 108.4 in that same five game span, it really speaks to the depths which the Suns have dropped to. It gets worse than that again though, because this season the Suns are below average (16th, 36.7 percent) on 3-pointers made.
Given that nailing open shots from deep around their three (or two) superstars was a large part of what they were trying to achieve, it goes a long way to explaining the offensive woes in Phoenix. If they can begin to blow away opponents again - which was saw at points during a seven game win streak earlier in the season - then the Suns can get their season back on track.