As I write this, the Phoenix Suns seem like a long shot to win the NBA Championship in 2024.
The series with the Minnesota Timberwolves isn’t over, but the Suns look old, slow, and disorganized. And even in the event of a comeback, it seems hard to envision this Suns team beating any of the other elite teams, including the Denver Nuggets.
Naturally, many fans are looking not forward, but back. Back at the road not taken. The alternate reality. The one in which the Suns did not execute a blockbuster trade on Feb. 2023, sending the beloved Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson to the Brooklyn Nets for Kevin Durant.
And perhaps even a world in which the Suns didn’t part ways with Deandre Ayton, the franchise’s only #1 overall pick in history, when they packed him off to the Portland Trailblazers in September of last year in a deal that largely landed them Grayson Allen and Jusuf Nurkic.
It’s hard to blame a fan for being a revisionist under these circumstances. The future seemed bright before the KD deal, didn’t it? After all, that was a core that had come close to winning an NBA title not long ago. And now the future looks limited, given Durant’s advancing age.
But I’ll say what may surprise some: I would probably take the same path again. Why? That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?
Well, honestly, I’ll grant it may. But I am personally loving (most) of the bold actions taken since Robert Sarver gave way as owner to Mat Ishbia. No longer is this the do-nothing franchise, the team afraid to take a real big money risk, the team that simply accepts its status as a mid-market also ran and hopes to be able to contend every few years.
No. This is a bolder Suns that was willing to roll the dice on a high-risk/high-reward series of moves it knew wouldn’t be popular with a sizable chunk of fans. That saw a chance to bring an all-time top scorer to Phoenix and jumped despite the cost.
It may be true that standing pat, running it back, trying to grow the “core” Suns into something beyond what they had been was the safe choice. An untestable hypothesis is that it may have been the correct choice.
I hope this isn’t the end for the 2024 Suns. I hope they can find another gear and make a deep playoff run. I really do.
But even if not, I won’t wish they’d played it safe. Fortune will favor the bold. Eventually. I have to believe that.