Where do the Suns Rank Among the Teams in the West?

Where do the Suns Rank Among the Teams in the West?

Hello everyone and welcome back to another weekly live stream here on Suns Digest. I’m your host Bruce Balez and today’s weekly live stream we have some things to discuss as with the Suns they have been mentioned in the news areas revolving around Jonathan Kaminga and stuff like that but as conflicting reports have been going back and forth from the videos that I have made on the channel you can kind of understand that it doesn’t seem very likely of happening so instead of jundling and talking about that news and going into that stuff I wanted to get an exercise going and something that I think would be very on just looking at the Phoenix Suns and comparing them to the rest of the Western Conference here, trying to place where I think they ultimately will fall. And ultimately, we can go over if you guys think that is right or wrong, comparing the rest of these Western Conference teams against the uh other rosters here in the West. So, I think it’s going to be a fun exercise. I hope you guys are excited. Thank you guys for all being here and hanging out. We got ZBA the goat saying what’s up. How you doing? Doing good. Saul is also here asking a question. I’ll get to that in a second. And we got Dwight Vanderpool. What’s up guys? How you guys doing? Saul’s question before we get into the breakdown here goes wonder why the Suns don’t try for Giddy as much as they have gone for Jonathan Kaminga. That has been a little bit of a discussion in the Suns media space and you know Sun’s fan base. I seen some articles over on Bright Side of the Sun written about that and a lot of people in the fan base have been asking that question not only just you saw but in my comment section as well because I think Josh Giddy can be this solid playmaker and could be that potential point guard to play alongside Devin Booker for the duration of his career. Now, one thing that I do think when looking at Josh Giddy compared to Jonathan Kaminga is I think that Jonathan Kaminga fits what they want in a wing player that can be a developmental piece alongside Deon Booker, right? They already have Kamawatch, who was their center that they just drafted. They believe in him. They have Deon Booker and Jaylen Green in that guard room. don’t think they wanted to have three guards in that room and Josh Giddy, Jaylen Green, and Devin Booker all competing trying to be that secondary star specifically with Jaylen Green and Josh Giddy competing because they do believe that Jaylen Green can rise to that occasion and be that secondary ball handler, secondary scoreer within this unit here alongside Devin Booker. So, I think that’s kind of the case for that ballpark. I ultimately don’t know where Josh Giddy’s like who’s interested in him, what he’s really getting offered in my opinion because I think it’s been very radio silent from what the Bulls have kind of said. It’s it’s been reported that he’s obviously not going he wasn’t at summer league with the Bulls watching them. He obviously wants $30 million, but like the other restricted free agents, Quinton Grimes, Cam Thomas, Jonathan Kaminga, they all seemingly want a little bit more than what these teams are willing to give them. And that’s because once again, the teams have the leverage, but also because of these aprons, it’s very difficult to give these guys these long-term contracts because you get put yourself in a situation where you have an untradeable young guy that doesn’t really pan out making 25 $30 million a year. And if you’re a team to realistically flip to go in a direction to compete or to strip down, you have to either a include a bunch of draft capital to get offset piece if they don’t pan out or b have to buy them out. And what we’ve seen with this uh free agency is a lot of players have gotten bought out, right? Jordan Clarkson got bought out, Bradley Beal got bought out, Damian Lillard got bought out, DeAndre Eaton got bought out, and teams are trying to avoid those type of contracts and trading for them, acquiring for them, signing them their own players to those contracts if they don’t truly believe in them that they can take that next step. And I think that’s where these kind of teams are with uh Josh Giddy as well. You think he fits better than uh Jonathan Kinga? I I don’t know about that. Josh Giddy like solid playmaker. He can be a great on ball guy to set up this offense and kind of do that, but he’s not the greatest defender. And again, this team needs defense at the guard position. I truly do think I don’t think Jaylen Green’s a spectacular defender, but his aggressiveness and his uh willingness to go downhill and be a little bit, I guess, more of like a slasher, I think, kind of gives me the fact that he’ll just be a little bit more aggressive on the defensive end. Personally, I want a playmaking defensive point guard for this team. I know someone wrote about it on Bright Side of the Sun for us today, looking at potential pieces that the Suns could get like analytically. And one of the players that they wrote about was Andrew Nehard. I think he’d be kind of a perfect fit for this Suns team potentially down the line. He kind of does all the things that you would want to do in a, you know, I guess comboes playmaking uh defensive scrappy point guard. I think Kase Wallace from the Thunder is another type of uh player that they would like to get potentially down the line or someone that I think they should get kind of down the line or some sort of, you know, player in the mix of of those two kind of builds for the point guard position to kind of build up with this team. Who is more likely to be starting, Rashier Fleming or Ryan Dunn? Ryan Dunn 100%. I don’t think Rashir Fleming is going to be starting. Rashir Fleming from what I kind of can conclude from what people have kind of mentioned about the starting lineups and stuff like that he does seem like he’ll be competing for that backup power forward spot. My guess is I know I talked about how like also in the starting lineup but I do think the starting lineup will be Ryan Dunn Dylan Brooks at that 34 Mark Williams at that five with Jaylen Green and Devin Booker at the one and the two. Colin Gillespie as of the roster stands right now Colin Gillespie would be playing that backup point guard. Grayson Allen would be playing that backup shooting guard. Then you could argue who’s going to be playing those backup three and four minutes. I think you could say uh Royce O’Neal, Rashier Fleming, maybe Nigel Hayes Davis, but he might be a little bit lower on the totem pool compared to some of the younger guys. Oso Igadaro, Kama Malawatch, and Nick Richards I think would all compete for those backup three, four, and five minutes. But I think Rashir Fleming would most likely be a rotational piece as a bench player. Who’s JG? JG’s on our team. If we’re if we’re talking about Josh Giddy, I don’t know if they can get Josh Giddy at the trade deadline. It all depends on what type of contract he gets because once again, they’d have to figure out if he’s making $18 million. I know that they’re out of the Second Aprons now. They have the flexibility, but they’re going to have to have the right contracts to trade to the Bulls or whatever team signs them to kind of get the right deal done ultimately. So, I don’t necessarily know they’d be able to trade for for Jaylen uh Josh Giddy or Jonathan Kim at the deadline. And Jonathan Kinga doesn’t want to be on the Golden State Warriors. So, I do think he kind of wants to go somewhere else and I don’t think that I mean he can always go back, but I don’t think that that’s his main goal. I think if he goes somewhere else, he’s not going to want to go there and then get traded. But without further ado, let’s dive in and let’s get into what the stream is about today. as we dive in and explore this. And I’ll come back up here so you can see me. But we have the tier list. Ah, and in this tier list, we’re going to be ranking the teams where the Suns could fall. And first, we’re going to do the Suns, obviously, and then we’re going to edit the tiers and go back in. But as you can see, every Western Conference team is listed down here. We’re going to grab grab them, drag them up, explain where I think they fall. There are four categories here for this tier list. There is tier one, which is the Western Conference Finals, which will be the two teams that I think will be in the Western Conference Finals or the top two teams in the West throughout the regular season. Tier two will be the playoff teams. That will be teams from slates three, four, five, and six where they obviously are a guaranteed playoff spot and don’t have to participate in the playin. Tier three is obviously the playin which is 7, 8, 9, and 10. Those final two playoff spots with the two playin teams is obviously a seventh or eighth seed will definitely make the playoffs, but one of them could potentially fall out if the 910 wins both of those games. And then we’ll dive into the not in playoff tier, which will be the five remaining teams down below. So, let’s start it off. And like I mentioned, the first team we’re going to be talking about is the Phoenix Suns. And I’m going to be putting them in the playin tier as of right now. And know a lot of people could disagree with that, maybe think that they’re in the playoff tier, but I think playing is probably the best area. I don’t know necessarily if that’s a 7 to eight seed playin. I don’t know if that’s a 9 to 10 seed plan. We’ll get into that in a little bit. With Deon Booker being this number one option here for the Phoenix Suns, obviously losing Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant, they’re going to be a little bit worse offensively, but that’s going to allow Devin Booker to go back to that, you know, MVP hopefully type of Booker that we saw when they were trying to go to the finals where he can lead this offense and be this central focus of that where guys like Jaylen Green, uh, Ryan Dunn, Mark Williams, Dylan Brooks can play off of it and be able to work as a cohesive unit to construct a solid squad around Booker. We’re obviously going to see the rise of some players. The team is going to be more younger, which is which is honestly going to make them more athletic, hustle more on defense, and be a little bit better on that side of the ball. I do think they will be better defensively. I do think they will be a little obviously worse offensively, and that will kind of put them into this kind of middling tier. I do think there’s a lot of teams that are very similar to the Phoenix Suns in this category. So, when we do get to them, we will, you know, move them up and down the list. But I do think at the best the Phoenix Suns could be the eighth seed personally. And I do think at the worst they could potentially be out of this playin scenario in general. But right now I’m going to be putting them in the playin category as I do think they have enough talent to make the playin, but I don’t necessarily justify them to kind of be that outstanding team in the Western Conference. Next, Oklahoma City Thunder. They’re obviously going to be better than the Phoenix Suns. They’re going to be going into my Western Conference Finals category. The defending NBA champions lost seemingly nobody brought they only lost Dylan Jones who they traded for Kobe Jones and they brought in Thomas Sorber as that replacing spot. Once again, SGA, Chet Homegran, Jaylen Williams all going to stay healthy, can still compete. Caruso, Lou Dort, Hartinstein, Kase Wallace getting better, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, Usman Dyang. This team is going to be still one of the top. I do think they might have to make some consolid consolidation moves here if some of these pieces don’t really work because the West is a little bit stronger now with everybody trying to compete against OKC to dethrone them. But I do think that if the Thunder get into that position where they have to move off a couple contracts or if some guys get injured, they could go out there and do that to make this team even more stacked with the amount of draft capital they have with the young talent and prospects that they still do have on their roster as well. Not to mention Kola Topic, who I just forgot their top six pick from last year’s draft, who was out the entire rookie season, is going to be making his debut. I obviously would put them over the Phoenix Suns here in this category. I don’t think that the Suns are going to be competing with the Thunder. They couldn’t last year with their roster construction and you could say that this team might be better fit to be a winning team this season. But obviously when you’re looking at the namesake of this roster compared to last year’s, it’s not better. So clearly the Thunder are going to be better than the Suns. The Blazers are the next team. And the Blazers I’m going to put in the playing category as well, right alongside the Phoenix Suns. The Blazers made some good additions this offseason. Obviously bringing back Damen Lillard, but that’s not going to kick into play this year because he’s going to be out for the season rehabbing his Achilles. But they waved DeAndre Aon. They traded Anthony Simons for Drew Holiday. And they have some young players that are on the rise. Shaden Sharp had a good second half of the season la or Scoot Henderson had a good second half of the season last year. Shayen Sharp looked pretty solid as a wing scorer for them and a slasher. They had Tummani Kamar and Denny Avida look like these very very solid wings for them in my opinion. And I do think that this Blazers team is going to continue to grow as a younger unit. Last year they finished 12 or 13th in the Western Conference I do believe, but did have a stretch of basketball where they went on like a seven to eightgame win streak and I think we could see that kind of transpire with this Blazers team going into the season. I think they fall really close to the Phoenix Suns. I do think the Suns have a better team, per se, because they’re led by Devin Booker. I do think that that star-led power will be able to, you know, overpower a little bit of a young team, but the Blazers are very, very effective on the defensive end and if the Phoenix Suns already looking a little weak on the offensive end here going into the season, that could be a struggle in some of these matchups when they do play against the Blazers. So, right, as of right now, I think they’re going to be right next to each other, currently sitting in the playin. The Sacramento Kings are another team that I think is going to be in this conversation. They’re going to be going into that playin category behind the Blazers and the king and the the Suns for many reasons. I think the Kings are a little bit in a confusion here with the with their direction. They have Lonzo or Zack Lavine and Demar Rosen. Who knows where Rosen’s going to go? There was rumors that he’s going to be traded all offseason and he still hasn’t been moved. So, will he get bought out? Will they somehow figure something out after this Jonathan Kaminga situation because they’re involved with him as well, including with the Suns? We’ll have to keep our eyes on it. Demartha Sabonis is there. He could potentially request a trade at any time. They signed Dennis Schroeder. They want Russell Westbrook. They they’re willing they had no trade value for Malik Monk. They’re willing throwing to uh Devin Carter in deals. They’re not extending Keon Ellis. I really, really don’t understand where the Sacramento Kings are going to be honest. I think they’re retrospectively the Chicago Bulls of the West. They’re just a mess. And I think playing just from looking at their roster perspective, you could argue that they could be in that conversation because they were last year. But with the West getting stronger, they also could be in a worse situation. And if you compare the Suns roster to this team, obviously Lavine, Zabonis, and D Rozan namewise is better than Devin Booker, Kamalatch, and Jaylen Green. But I do think that the Suns style of play would be able to kind of be able to beat the Sacramento Kings as they’re not great on defense. They heavily rely on three-pointers, and if this offense isn’t flowing, then they’re not going to be that great. Both teams coming in with newer coaches. Obviously, the Sacramento Kings using their uh associate from last year after firing Mike Brown. So, we’ll have to see how that translates going into this year. I think the Kings could be bumped down to uh not in playoff team, but we’ll have to wait and see. The Spurs are a team that I think are going to be better than the Phoenix Suns. And I think they’re going to take that leap this season with Victor Webbyama at the throne. They were rumored to be in the Chem Durant sweep stakes. They didn’t want to get involved cuz they didn’t want to give up too much capital and I think that was a smart decision for them. Ultimately, they’re able to keep their number two overall pick. Select Devin uh Dylan Harper. They still have obviously uh Stefon Castle, the rookie of the year from last year. They traded for De’aran Fox. They have Victor Webbyamu, who’s supposedly going to be healthy going into the season, not dealing with the blood cutting issue. They added uh uh Luke Cornett. They traded for Kelly Olen. They drafted Carter Bryant. This team is setting itself up to be effective and these young players like Devin Bell, Jeremy Sohan, Kellen Johnson, they are on tradable contracts for this Spurs team. Devin Vel makes roughly I think around 20 to 25 to $30 million. Jeremy Sohan is still on his rookie year deal and Kell Johnson makes roughly around $15 million. And with the Spurs having this flexibility going into the season, if one of those players doesn’t really stand out or if they need a an additional role that they currently are lacking, you know, potentially in the wing position or with a a defensive point guard, they have the contracts and the draft capital to go out and reshape this roster. They went and did that bringing in Dear Fox basically for uh scraps for them as expiring contracts or contracts that weren’t really playing for theirs for them last year. and they didn’t even get to see the full potential of the Victor Wimyama Dear and Fox duo. I can’t I completely believe that with once again the defensive play of Stefon Castle in the guard room having Dylan Harper being that secondary playmaker to run that unit, Deon Vauel shooting on the wing, Kell Johnson’s athletic abilities, Jeremy Sohan’s passing and ability to switchable be a defender with Carter Bryant also being a three-point shooter and being a switchable defender. Their main problem was Victor Womenyama was completely awful when the Spurs were awful when Victor was off the court. Now they filled that with Luke Cornet who is the best backup big in the NBA. I will say it, he does everything that the Spurs will need him to do. And coming from a system like Boston now going to San Antonio, they’re both wellrespected franchises. I expect him to fit in like a glove. Adding Kelly Ool Lin as a spatial and shooting big man to kind of compensate for Luc Cornet’s ability to just be a rim runner and a passing big and a rebounder. I think the Spurs are going to take that leap. I could potentially see them being in this playoff discussion, but ultimately I do think the Spurs will finish right outside of that where they’re the seventh eighth seed, but I think they’ll lock themselves going into the playoffs. Victor Webbyama, it’s his year three. Let’s see that leap take off. Next, the Jazz. The first team I can say I fullheartedly know that is not a playoff team. The Jazz this off season maybe held on to some contracts for a little bit long and had to bite the bullet of that. They had to wave Jordan Clarkson. They traded away uh John Collins for what? Kevin Love and um Kyle Anderson. They uh trade away Colin Ston for Ysef Nerk. They’re not going to be good. They’re clearly stating that they don’t want to be good. They got all these bad expiring contracts. They did good in the draft. They’re trying to find out who was going to be their next star to really take over, right? They they draft Ace Bailey. They really did go out and get a guy in um uh Walter Clayton from the March Madness tournament that was very solid as a shot created scorer. Has that confidence especially in a guard room that hasn’t had that guard to really take that leap in Keonte George or Isaiah Collier yet. I think adding Walter Clayton to that mix can really not only push those guys to be a little bit better, but prove to you who’s going to be that standout guard in that rotation and who you could potentially move off of to fill other pieces. They obviously have Kyle Philipki who looked really good in the summer league, Walker Kesler, who could potentially be a trade asset, Lorie Markin, who I think eventually will be on the move if it’s not this off seasonason by the trade deadline because I think the Jazz will want to tank. It just doesn’t make sense for the Jazz to want to compete, specifically in a stacked Western Conference where they don’t even know who their number one star is yet. Makes sense to put them here. Next, the Dallas Mavericks. This is tough. This is tough. They’re okay. The Kings are going into the non-playoffs. They’re going to be better than the Jazz, but they’re not making the playoffs from looking at all these other teams. They’re not making the playoffs. It’s just going to be said the Mavs. I’ll put them in the plan as now, but like I don’t know. And that it’s because the middle teams haven’t really been found yet. I haven’t been able to to kind of break those down. But the Mavs I think would be really good. I think the Mavs, Cooper Flag, the number one overall pick, Anthony Davis, they do have a log jammed front court with Daniel Gaffford, PJ Washington and stuff like that. No Kyrie for the start of the year, but I think they will make moves. I think throughout the season when Kyrie does come back that this Mavericks team will be kind of somewhat afloat, maybe around that nine 10th seed, and then once you add Kyrie Irving to this unit, it’s only going to make it a little bit better. Like I mentioned, they still have the flexibility to move a Daniel Gaffford if they want to keep Derrick Lively and run with them. They still have the flexibility to move a PJ Washington if they don’t want to extend him, a Klay Thompson, etc., etc. I do think that they are, you know, in a situation kind of like the Suns where it is kind of that one star in the beginning with Anthony Davis versus kind of Deon Booker kind of leading their their their um their teams. But obviously the Mavs have a little bit more veteran depth and have been in better positions than the Phoenix Suns these last couple years with their head coaching staff that I think they’re going to be a little bit better than the Suns. But I do think especially when Kyrie Kring does come back in the second half. But that being said, I think they’re kind of in this tier. Think they’re a little bit worse than the Spurs, though. Next, the the Nuggets. The Nuggets. Come on, boys. Let’s go. The Nuggets are my two seed. The Nuggets and the Thunder are the top two teams in the West. Surprised? Probably not. The Nuggets this year obviously made some big moves. They traded away their 2032 overall first round pick. Basically sacrificing their future for Joic and went and got Cam Johnson. They traded away Michael Porter Jr. They brought back Bruce Brown. They brought back a bunch of veteran minimum contracts into this team and they went and traded for Yonas Valenunis. They they they won the fight for Yonas Valenunis with Pathnakos in Greece. They’re going to get their backup center. Don Holmes is coming b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b bouncing back off of an ACL. We’ll see where he can make some uh improvements for them in their front court. I just think that these are the top two teams. The Nuggets pushed the Thunder to their limits the most in the playoffs, right? The Nuggets and Thunder went seven games. Both of those games it was just, you know, one offense really dominating the other, one defense really shutting down the other’s offense. I think for the Nuggets here, they add more depth, which is going to make them be able to combat a little bit more vers Oklahoma City Thunder and it will allow them to not basically just lose games because Michael Porter Jr. can hit an open three. At least they have a little bit more versatility within their lineup and have a little bit more flexibility to make those moves. This opens now them for them to extend Christian Braun down the line and still be able to keep this kind of core intact while still having the flexibility of guys like Pete and Watson and all the Julian Strawther and stuff to potentially dangle out there on the market to get either veteran guys or to fill in those rotations spots and when they continue to grow when these veteran contracts kind of do age out. I do think for the Denver Nuggets this is the spot they deserve to be. You could you could say they potentially could be in the playoff, but I do think they are in the Western Conference Finals. So, as of now, Thunder and Nuggets are my top two. I think the Kings and the Jazz not making the playoffs. And as the playin stands, as of now, we have the Spurs, the Mavs, the Suns, and the Blazers. So, let’s get in to it some more. The next team to discuss is the Warriors. The Warriors been very quiet this off season. They haven’t really been doing much. Obviously, they’re still mulling their Jonathan Kaminga situation, but besides that, they’ve lost Kevon Looney, but they’re basically expected to sign Al Horford, expected to bring back the Anthony Melton, potentially working to bring back Gary Payton, and a bunch of other moves behind the scenes. Once this Kaminga situation kind of gets solved, they’ll actually do their decision-m which a team with Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green, even if it is a little bit older in this Western Conference, I think they’re going to still be in some conversation. So, they’re going in the playin tier. They’re going to go Because the roster is not built as of now, I’ll put them here, which would move the Blazers out of the playoffs. Ah, we’re putting them ahead of the Kings. Next, the Rockets. This is easy. They add Kevin Durant. They add Dorian Finny Smith. could argue that even as the number two team in the Western Conference last year, it’d be criminal to say that they drop from two to three with adding Kevin Durant, adding Dorian Finny Smith, adding Clint Capella, restructuring uh Fred Van Fleet’s contract, and keeping all their depth pieces together. But I do think that the Denver Nuggets are a little bit better than the Rockets. The Rockets are going to be an impressive offensive and defensive team. I just do think that the Nuggets with Jokic is just going to be a little bit more overpowering. But we could see the rise and growth of guys like Aean Thompson, Al Prince Shenun, Tari Ein, Jabari Smith really sharp, really show through and start to maybe change that matter of the fact to put the Rockets in this contention spot. Once again, I do think it’s kind of neck and neck between the Nuggets and the Rockets. I do think that they’re better than the Suns. It’s clearly obvious that that’s the case. They were better than them last year and now they are adding better players. They’re going to be better. Clippers, they’re going to be going into that conversation as well alongside the Rockets. They are a little bit worse than the Rockets in my opinion just because they are quote unquote the UNK squad, but I would not be I would be lying if I said that I’m not going to be secretly rooting for this Clippers team this season. Obviously, with the signing of Chris Paul, it is going to be funny to see them being there. But Chris Paul, James Harden, Brad Nibil, Kawhi Leonard, Nvika Zubach, John Collins, Chris Dunn, Derek Jones Jr., uh, Nicholas Batum. There is so many interchangeable pieces within this roster. Once again, like we mentioned, it is a, uh, older roster. I think their average age besides some of their younger guys is like 28 or 29 or something like that. It is really, really bad. So, for the Clippers here, it is going to come to show once it gets to playoff time. Obviously, what’s really happening? Can they be healthy to make these moves? Chris Paul’s expected not really to play that much. Bradley Beal, I think on a $5 million deal and in this type of role for the Clippers is going to look a lot better than he did on the Phoenix Suns. Zubac is a top five big. They added John Collins. I’ve completely forgot to mention that they added Brook Lopez as well as a backup center. This team just really is going in in this all two-year push with Kawawaii, with Harden. They’ve structured this team for this reason with all their guys either being expiring this year or next year so that in two seasons they can completely clear the books. just have Zubac on the roster and then have the potential of being a key free agent spot being in LA to sign guys and continue to build their roster that way. So, I do like the direction that this Clippers team is going. Do think they’ll be better than the Suns ultimately. Like I said, they just have there’s really no no explanation as like we we should understand this. The Suns just aren’t in a good spot. The Clippers have a better roster put together. Next, the Lakers. The Lakers. The Lakers. The Lakers. The Lakers. The Lakers. The Lakers puzzle me, guys. The Lakers puzzle me because they have LeBron. They have Luca. They have DeAndre Aon. Oh my god. Like, they’re probably going to be a playoff team, a playin team. I’ll give them playin, but I don’t think they’re going to be anything spectacular. They’ve kind of already made that notion forward that they’re not going all in to win this year. They’re going all in for next off season. Will that be telling if a LeBron trade comes through? I don’t know. But as we kind of look at their roster now, I do think that they’ll try to be in the playoffs or in the plan at least to make some noise. But obviously, they’re not going to be winning it. They were what, the three seed last year, obviously with a little bit of different scaling because when they got Luca and LeBron, they started to really take off. I think playing’s comfortable for now. I think behind the Spurs makes sense, too. I I just think the Spurs are a little bit more built and complete. The Pelicans, we’ll just put them here. Get the Pelicans over with. They’re not in the playoffs. I don’t know why they traded their first round pick. Doesn’t really make much sense. They have no number one option because Zion’s going to be hurt half the time. I do think Herb Jones and Trey Murphy are very, very solid. They look really good. I don’t know if they’re good enough to be in the playin. Derek Queen, Jeremiah Fears, their two rookies. We’ll have to see how they look. Once again, they added Jordan P. Procedure McCullum. That doesn’t really scream to me like, oh yeah, this is going to make us be better and more competitive. I don’t know. I think Pelicans are Pelicans and the Jazz are probably the worst two teams here in my opinion. And then we got the Grizzlies and the Timberwolves. The Timberwolves Let’s move them. They’re going to be my six seed or my five seed, excuse me, just for the sheer factor that they made the Western Conference Finals backto-back years. They extended everybody. They kept Nas Reed. They didn’t go for the Kevin Durant trade. They didn’t lose anybody besides Nikil Alexander Walker, who yes, will be, you know, a big piece that they do miss. But obviously having the young guns of Rob Dillingham, Terrence Shannon and even Joan Barrett, John Baron Jay who looked good in summer league hopefully can fill those roles and minutes for the them in the type of minutes that Michael Alexander Walker was given. They can run different lineups. I think the Timberwolves are still going to be a top team in the West. Next and last the Grizzlies traded Desmond Bane as we all know. Got Cedric Coward still going to be a young exciting team. Jiren Jackson, John Morant. Going to be fun. New coach. All right. So, this is how it’s going to be. This is how it’s going to be unfortunately. So looking at this list, we got the Thunder one, Nuggets two, top two teams. The Rockets three, really solid playoffs culture already. Built from their team last year, young guys still continue to get better. Added DFS, added KD, added Quinn Capella. Clippers, really solid playoff team last year. lost in the first round. Going to continue to add guys like they just did all their veterans. They’re going to be a top team. Timberwolves maybe could pass the Clippers if they have a lot of injuries, but I do think that the Oopsies. I do think that the Clippers will be ahead of them just because I think they have a little bit more depth than the Timberwolves are. They’re banking in a lot of the guys, younger guys in my eyes. The Spurs, I think, are going to be that young, fun, exciting team that takes that leap. Darren Fox, uh, Dylan Harper, Victor Womenyama, they’re set to make the stage. That’s where the Lakers and Warriors kind of come in as those seven and eight seeds. I do think there’s the possibility of the Warriors and Lakers being a little bit better, obviously with having Steph Curry and LeBron James, Luca Donuch, and Jimmy Butler being on those rosters, but I do think that the age maybe does catch up to LeBron and Curry and Jimmy this kind of season and some of these younger players do kind of start passing them. We do kind of see Father Time coming into this Lakers squad and maybe Luca isn’t able to lead them enough offensively to take them into this promised land. Who knows? They could be a top five seed. I could just be spewing. But I do think that as of right now that these two would be here, the Grizzlies and the Mavericks at 9 and 10. I do think you could argue the Suns, maybe even the Blazers being ahead of one of the Grizzlies or the Mavericks. But standing at this point, I do think by the end of the season with the Mavericks getting Kyrie back, having all that flexibility and trade and with the Grizzlies having their new head coach, playing through John, wanting to play through that system with Jiren Jackson, I do think they will be a little bit better. if injuries do come into play to one of these rosters that I do see the Suns being that 10 seed and kind of coming into it. But similarly to last season, I see of this I have the Phoenix Suns finishing 11th in the Western Conference just where they fell last season when they had the 10th overall pick. Not where you would want to see the Phoenix Suns, unfortunately. But this is where I think with this roster, with the rookies, with their direction, with how everyone looks in the Western Conference, with their rosters kind of set up, I do see them falling. Could they be better than some of the teams ahead of us if they do have some injury lines? I do think so. Could some of these teams behind the Phoenix Suns surprisingly be better than them? That’s also possibly the case. Ultimately though, like we’ve kind of said, I didn’t think that the the Suns were really really that uh showcasing this year that they wanted to be in that top mix because they’re resetting and trying to get everything good to go for the future seasons. And that’s what’s kind of implicative with this list here. Thank you, Saul. Just saw this message here, but he’s saying going to be interest. We’ll close out of this and we’ll go back to here where we are with you and you said this going to be interesting to see you on locked on suns. Ben Garcia is great and I appreciate that so much Saul. I was on Locked on Suns. You guys will see that episode coming out I believe today or this evening. I don’t know when but it was an awesome time. Luckily enough, Ben was gracious to reach out to me as I was to have him on my show and we had a great discussion talking about some fun things and I hope you you enjoy that episode and let me know what you think down below in the comment section. I really do appreciate that and I’m very excited to be able to do this by being on Sun’s Digest. It’s allowed me to have these other conversations, have these other connections with other creators and I think it’s going to be great. I’m excited about this Sun team might be follow. I mean, I’m excited too. I’m definitely excited. Just because I think they’re going to be the 11th seed here in the Western Conference from my predictions so far, doesn’t mean I think it’s going to be a bad season. I think it’s going to be very intriguing to see what these young players look like. Right? I think if you’re a Suns fan, you kind of got to go with these expectations of not looking at the record, but looking at what you see from this team, right? The first thing that we’re going to look at is how Deon Booker works by himself in this offense, right? And if he can coexist by himself and be very dominant in this kind of uh style of play, then I can see the Suns still looking for a secondary scoreer, but trying to either find that within their team or, you know, developing one of their players to do so, so that they can complement that. If that’s not the case, Deon Booker kind of needs a little bit more offensive help. Maybe the Suns lookout in the trade market to go add another piece if one of these players like a Jaylen Green or one of these younger guys isn’t really panning out next year. They definitely have more cap space as well with uh guys coming off the books and with maybe Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neal being two-year contracts instead of three, maybe they’re a little bit easier to trade for the Phoenix Suns, they can kind of move off of those. They also have more draft capital coming into play as they I believe standard the luxury tax going into this season. They get the 2020 2033 first round pick which they can then use potentially in trades similar to how they wanted to you how they used their 2031 first round pick last trade deadline to get three first round picks. Like I mentioned though, I do think it’s a season to watch what this Suns team does. Evaluate Devin Booker, evaluate Jaylen Green, see how he looks as a second co-star. Kind of see the development of these rookies. How does Mila watch look? How does Rashier Fleming look? How does Kobe Breao look? Then looking at some of these other contracts as well. Is Grayson Allen playing really well by the trade deadline? Is he a positive asset that we can move off of because we don’t necessarily need him for the future? Similar with Royce O’Neal. How does Colin Gillespie fit into this rotation? Is he someone that looked really good because the Suns were such a bad product last season that he just shined or can he actually be that backup point guard that the Suns fans want to see thrive in this rotation and take that next step for them? That’s what I want to see from this Suns team. Ultimately, watching Jordan Au as well, seeing how he can control this offense and this defense, this locker room, because obviously we know that the stuff on the court wasn’t great with the Suns, but off the court in the locker room, it wasn’t great either behind the scenes. So, we want a good mesh of both of those coming together so we can have a very productive season to where even if once again the record isn’t showing that it’s being productive, the players are working towards that common goal of being better as a cohesive unit and being one, which can only help for the future seasons as they keep that continuity. As we all know, the Suns had a lot of roster moves those last couple of seasons, right? Just two years ago they traded for Brad Val had all these veteran minimums. Then they brought Royce O’Neal. Then they were signing other veteran minimums. Basically anyone they could grab to throw this roster together to be like go and compete. It didn’t work. Now we’re looking at this season. The Suns are taking that step back. They’re taking their deep breaths and they’re saying let’s evaluate this. Let’s take a guy. Let’s look at it and let’s see how they grow. And then in a year or two, if they’ve panned out, if they can fit the Suns system, if they look like they can be legit role players or starters for this team, they’ll stay put with Deon Booker. If not, the Suns will have more draft capital, will have more access as well in free uh out there in the open market to use some of those contracts to go out and flip them to get better players to bring to this team. That’s where I stand with all of this. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today’s live stream. I really do appreciate all you guys showing your support here as well down below in the comment section. But once again, thank you guys so much. I’ll catch you guys in the next live stream. We’ll be live hopefully next Thursday. I’ll keep you guys updated on that side of things. And if any news comes out about the Phoenix Suns, we’ll keep you guys updated here on the channel as always. So once again, thank you guys so much for tuning in. Hope you have a great rest of your night and I’ll catch you guys later. Peace out.

In this livestream Bruce Veliz is going to be breaking down weekly news on your Phoenix Suns. In these lives, he will be going over this Suns team as a whole in the mess we are in now. Let us know your thoughts down below!

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