NBA Insider drops Suns to ridiculous 21st on mock list

No doubt about it, David Aldridge of The Athletic is one of the best journalists to have ever covered the NBA. So popular a figure is Aldridge in the sport that he's even appeared in NBA 2K games as a sideline reporter in years gone by.

Aldridge is also nothing if not impartial, and he has always strived to give a truly unbiased opinion on the goings on around the league. That's what being an actual journalist is, a fact that continues to get more lost in this era of hot takes and aggregation on social media.

So we love you David - we really do - but you're wrong about the Phoenix Suns this season.

That's because Aldridge had the audacity to say that - of all of the teams in the NBA - the Suns had the 21st best offseason. Or put another way, the ninth worst offseason this summer. Huh? Didn't the Suns address their two biggest needs at the point guard position and backup center in a big way?

Monte Morris was a nice get, but to follow that up with Tyus Jones was simply massive. In fact the franchise now has arguably too many mouths to feed at that spot, with Devin Booker and Bradley Beal also likely to play some minutes in the backcourt next season.

Inside the paint, gone is the undersized Drew Eubanks of a year ago, replaced by the still athletic at 34-years-old Mason Plumlee. The Suns weren't done there though, managing to draft a pair of guys in Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro who can take some of the load off the limited shoulders of Jusuf Nurkic.

That's right, the front office even took the NBA Draft seriously in 2024. They weren't done there though, as preceding all of these moves was the addition of a new head coach in Mike Budenholzer. The Frank Vogel experience was a...weird one, as even though on paper he was an ideal defensive specialist, it just never quite happened for him in The Valley.

So not only are the Suns bringing back a pair of gold medallists - plus a Bradley Beal who they hope will be healthy from the jump - but a new head coach who is from Arizona and sees it as a dream to be in the building. How could any of this be viewed in a negative way?

This is the point where we have to regrettably agree with Aldridge though - because although the Suns have had an excellent offseason by their standards - it is all relative. As an organization in the second apron, managing to get Jones is a minor miracle. Convincing Morris and Plumlee to take the minimum is solid business.

But it doesn't move the needle like the Philadelphia 76ers - who swung for the bleachers and convinced Paul George to sign - or even the San Antonio Spurs getting Chris Paul down to Texas. The ranking still feels a little low, the Suns were at least trying to remedy their many shortcomings from last season, and they did an admirable job in shoring up the roster.

Any roster that has Booker and Durant has a chance, and the Suns have tried to retool the team around their talents. That's got to be worth more than the 21st most productive summer in the league, but only time will tell if Aldridge was too harsh, or if he got this one just right.