Injury to rival star gives Suns unexpected early season advantage

The Phoenix Suns have successfully navigated the 2024-25 media day, and are now turning their attentions to training camp and a slate of preseason fixtures. Once the real fun begins though, the Los Angeles Lakers are going to be an opponent they become very familiar with.

They also appear to have an advantage over the rest of the Western Conference - not that we're making excuses early here - but it does still need to be pointed out. Any time the Suns and Lakers go head-to-head it is worth tuning in for, and this season will be no different as it could be the last time we see LeBron James play in The Valley.

An unexpected boost has now come from elsewhere in the West for the Suns.

In what will be a busy first month of action, they will play the beaten NBA Finalist Dallas Mavericks twice across the first nine games. That first meeting - coming on October 26th - will be the Suns' first home game of the entire season. In a slice of good fortune - or potentially bad if you plan on attending the game - the Mavericks could be without Luka Doncic.

That's because it has been confirmed that Doncic is going to miss the rest of training camp with his team with a left calf contusion that Shams Charania of The Athletic (we miss you Woj...) has claimed will be re-evaluated in a week. If that's the case, then the likelihood of Doncic possibly not being ready for the start of the regular season very much increases.

You didn't come here to read about the potential dangers of calf issues and what they can do to regular, washed writers, but they can have an extremely negative knock-on effect if tight or injured. The kind of information you don't hear in your teens, don't pay attention to in your 20s, before your 30s hits and you realize why all those old heads at the rec center stretch before games.

All of which is to say - having just made it to the NBA Finals last time out and added Klay Thompson - the Mavericks are not going to be rushing Doncic back. That is great news for the Suns if they want to pile up as many wins as they can to start the season, and it may also be an opportunity to see if they can use Grayson Allen in a new and exciting way.

The Mavericks are not nearly as dangerous without Doncic - and with the L.A. Clippers the first opponents of the Suns who also have their own injury concerns - all of a sudden the path to starting 3-0 doesn't look so difficult. You never want to wish injury on any player - Doncic looks a solid choice to win the MVP award this season - but the Suns aren't going to be too disappointed.

The Boston Celtics might get spoken about like they had an easier route than normal to a championship. One that didn't include any of the Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks or New York Knicks, and not even the Denver Nuggets once they made it out of the East. Jayson Tatum, Jalyen Brown and company got a ring though, so do you think they care?

The Suns are likely going to have to deal with their own setbacks this season - Bradley Beal played just 53 regular season games last time out - and nobody is rightly going to have any sympathy for them then either. They need to take this news and still plan for a matchup with Doncic. Anything else will be a bonus.