The Phoenix Suns enter the 2025-26 NBA season with expectations drastically different than the last few years. With Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal departed, the next 12 months will be about seeing what players the franchise will carry forward with them alongside Devin Booker to what they hope will be a brighter future.
Ryan Dunn, Oso Ighodaro, Khaman Maluach, Mark Williams and even Jalen Green will all be trying to prove that their future is in The Valley on what will one day be a winning team once again. Really this campaign is about getting a jaded fanbase back onside, something the NBA media at large have overlooked.
Lopsided roster will cause Suns big headache this season.
Yet for all of the change that has taken place in Phoenix, the front office failed to address one of the key issues this roster faces. They did their best to remake their center rotation and move on from the Jusuf Nurkic era, but they have zero point guards who are capable of starting and contributing in a big way in this league.
This has meant Booker has returned to the depressingly familiar role of being the lead creator here. Quite why the Suns continue to try and turn a guy who can routinely put up 30 points each night into a pass first option is anybody's guess, although it did make more sense when Durant was in town. That's no longer the case, yet it seems that Green will get to be the two-guard more often than not.
🚨 New Film Session 🚨
— Stephen PridGeon-Garner 🏁 (@StephenPG3) October 7, 2025
Plenty was said about Jalen Green after his first Playoffs, so I dove into the film on his performance that series in playmaking positions
Positives, the areas for growth, how the Phoenix context will benefit him, + more
WATCH: https://t.co/G1Sh2Wil3r pic.twitter.com/0VyFJyhIrB
Behind him you will find Collin Gillespie - a backup that we can all agree deserves this opportunity after how hard he played last season - followed by Jordan Goodwin and Jared Butler. There are positives to having both on the roster - this Goodwin's second stint and he continues to outperform expectations wherever he goes - but neither are capable of playing alongside the starters.
The Suns have had a turnover issue that not even Tyus Jones could fix stretching back to when Durant and Beal joined the team, while last season with Jones in Phoenix they managed 27.8 assists per game. That was actually the 10th best mark in the entire league, which you would think is a good thing.
But if the Suns are to be even above league average again in this area moving forward, it will require Booker to outperform the career high 7.1 assists he managed last time out. Further down the roster and making this problem even worse is the fact that the roster boasts centers Mark Williams, Khaman Maluach and Nick Richards.
When Williams is fit - and we are optimistically going to pencil him in for 50 games this coming season which would represent a career high - head coach Jordan Ott is going to have a job on his hands getting his big men minutes while also figuring out who sets the table. To play Goodwin more than Maluach for example would appear to contradict the re-tooling job they are attempting here.
Even when Williams is in street clothes, the coaching staff have to figure out how to use Maluach, Richards (if he hasn't been traded) and Ighodaro, which is just as tough. When you have not enough high quality point guards - as well as too many bigs with varying degrees of question marks over their heads - it is tough to win consistently. This is a problem that will get worse before it gets better.