Suns have already leapfrogged one rival in Western Conference pecking order

The Phoenix Suns are going to be a very different roster to the one we are used to seeing in the 2025-26 season, and perhaps no stat best sums that up than the fact Grayson Allen is now the second longest tenured player in The Valley. For those keeping score at home, 29-year-old Allen has only played two full seasons with the team.

While the franchise has worked hard to move on from Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal - and make themselves younger in the process - there is no guarantee that will lead to success. There's a reason many experts out there have them sitting at around 31 wins - and behind the scoring exploits of Devin Booker - sit a lot of question marks.

Suns already in a better place than struggling Utah Jazz.

Yet for all the uncertainty in Phoenix right now - and first year head coach Jordan Ott only adds to that - they at least have a superstar in Booker. There may have been calls to blow this thing up entirely and go back to square one, but you need only look at the Utah Jazz as the very reason not to do that.

Back in 2022 they traded both of their star players in Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, and nearly four years later have precious little to show for it. Despite getting draft picks and young players - including Lauri Markkanen, their current best player - the Jazz are still in a worse spot than a Suns organization that was operating in the second apron until it bought Beal out.

Perhaps no player can embody the struggles of Utah more than former Suns' center Jusuf Nurkic. He has somehow found himself on the Jazz having been shipped there by the Charlotte Hornets, with the Suns able to raid Charlotte for a pair of better options in Nick Richards and Mark Williams. It's becoming a running joke now but if you have Nurkic on your roster, you've put together a dud.

There is hope for the Jazz in the form of Ace Bailey, but the Suns at least have five attempts to find a player as impactful as he might be. Their trio of rookies in Khaman Maluach, Koby Brea and Rasheer Fleming all have a ton of upside - albeit incredibly raw in the case of Maluach - although Brea received "Booker-Lite" comparisons during a brief Summer League appearance.

Then there is Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro, a pair of returning sophomores who looked like they had both filled out and allowed the game to slow down for them in their own Summer League adventure. None of those guys currently has the ceiling of Bailey, but the floor of Dunn and Brea looks a lot steadier too.

Which is why the Suns won't be the worst team in the Western Conference next season. Scant consolation considering they're not in control of their lottery pick, but a better starting point than could have been expected after ending the Durant experience. As for the Utah Jazz, they are proof that Phoenix needs to keep Booker for as long as possible. Finding the star is the hardest part.