Why Is Nobody Talking About the Phoenix Suns?? | HHT 67

Why Is Nobody Talking About the Phoenix Suns?? | HHT 67

This is like Oakland Athletics, like Moneyball, basketball to me. And not in terms of like an analytics perspective, but really in terms of the players that they have, the collection of guys that they’ve gotten together. It’s a bunch of undervalued guys who are just all better than people think they are. Royce O’Neal has been underrated forever. Grayson Allen is consistently one of the most underrated offensive players in the league. Mark Williams, the Hornets were desperate to basically give this person away. They were like, “Please, someone Lakers, just take him.” The guy is 24 years old and he’s an absolute monster when he plays. He’s undervalued due to injury concerns. Dylan Brooks, who has been obviously much malign throughout his entire career, he’s great and he’ll absolutely help this team because again, he fits right in with his shooting and his defense. And then like you mentioned, Jordan, forward-thinking head coach, the president of basketball operations, Brian Gregory. Is this not the 2002 Oakland athletics, Jeff? Am I Am I totally off base here? [Music] This is Hot Hand Theory. This is a podcast where we talk about the NBA and break things down from an analytical perspective. I’m your co-host, XJ. As always, I’m joined by my brilliant co-host, Jeff. And Jeff, there’s a redhot team that is quietly flying under the radar out in the Western Conference. Uh, I haven’t heard this team talked about very much in the media. They are an extremely fun team to watch. This team is over the past couple of weeks. The number one team in the NBA against the spread. So, even Vegas has not even caughten up caught up with this team. The Phoenix Suns are getting slept on right now. Uh, the Phoenix Suns have assembled a sneakily well-built team based on a foundation that if you haven’t listened to the show before, you and I, Jeff, believe here on Hot Theory, and that’s the concept of synergy, which is getting a collection of players that can all be the best versions of themselves when they play together. So, not independently, but all together at the same time. And in my opinion, when teams have really high expectations and don’t perform to the standards of what you might expect based on their talent level, they don’t perform corroborate with their actual talent level. That’s because guys aren’t often able to play at their actual talent level because they’re like sacrificing, which Jeff is seen as a virtue in the NBA, the idea of sacrificing. But to me, it’s best when guys are not sac I mean, we can talk about minutes or something like that and that’s one thing, but you don’t want to sacrifice being the best version of yourself. That’s not helping your team. And the Suns seem to have internalized some very important lessons uh from their previous iterations. And then now very quickly built one of the most fun, the most synergistic, the most fundamentally sound. And according to all of the data and Vegas and all these other things, one of the most overperforming teams in the NBA. So there’s a million places to start specifically with the Suns. Where do you want to go first with this Jeeoff? It’s weird because when you look at just you you run through the numbers, you watch the team, I feel like the natural place to start would be Devin Booker. It would just be like he, you know, Booker had a very strange career arc. He had those teams where he was by far the best player, but they didn’t really amount to much. Then they had the perfect team. We actually talked about it um in the first year of our show. Like they had the perfect team construction, that 2021 and 2022 team that uh got upset by Dallas in seven games. That was the best team in the NBA that year. that that that team should have won the title. It was a perfect team. And for whatever reason, the front office said to itself like, “Oh, we need to go away from this. We need to hunt stars.” And they went away from the synergy of the team. They they basically did the opposite of what you were talking about. And surprise, surprise, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker couldn’t be maximized together. Who that big time shocker there? And they made these trades to get these stars. And I don’t know about you, XJ, but this off season when we were running through the teams, I was like, man, we’re never going to talk about the Suns. Like, it’s just never going to happen. They’re in such a bad spot. They’re just in hell right now. What are they supposed to do? Like, they’re giving away picks. They’ve lost all their players. I don’t really know what they’re supposed to do. And then they hired a guy by the name of Jordan Hot. And that’s where I want to start because I think he is the number one reason why all the things you said are true and why they’re flourishing in a very specific way. And when you look at the type of basketball that they’re playing right now, the style that they’re playing, where they’re shooting their shots, how they’re passing the ball, that all falls under deployment. It’s not that these guys were never capable of it, but their coach is incentivizing them to do so. And he’s pushing certain principles on them that encourage them to do these things and play this way. So, you know, you take a look at guys like Royce O’Neal, guys like Dylan Brooks, Grayson Allen, these are all very, very on their own, they’ve proven to be good role players in a vacuum. But you put them together, you put them around Devin Booker, a guy who has proven to be a star. And then you encourage them to play the optimal style for each of their skill sets. You’re starting to see how a group of guys that was clearly underrated in the offseason. Not only can the hole be great, can can it can it match the sum of its sparks, it’s it can exceed it. And that’s what h that’s what’s happening in Phoenix. And I don’t want to give too much credit, but I think a huge share of the credit goes to Jordan and what he’s doing. No, I totally agree with you. I think he’s doing tremendous work. I think that kind of young upand cominging coach who has been brought up under the toutelage of really innovative uh you know brilliant coaches in the league is is is is an undervalued kind of crop to to to pick from in terms of finding coaches who can lead a team just that’s constructed like this one. It seems to be a perfect fit. And when you were talking about a group of guys who seem to be, you know, undervalued, it’s it’s a perfect segue to what I was thinking. I want to run this by you cuz I was just this was occurring to me as I was watching a recent Suns game. But um I feel like this is like Oakland athletics like moneyball like like basketball to me. And it’s just and not just not in terms of like an analytics perspective but really in terms of the players that they have the collection of guys that they’ve gotten together. It’s a bunch of undervalued guys who are just all better than people think they are who work extremely well together. Um and you talk through some of the names. Royce O’Neal has been underrated forever. Like as a three and D wing with like really good size who has kind of rotted away on bad teams because there they didn’t have the requisite kind of foundation for his role to be as valuable as it is. But you put him on the team, you put Grayson Allen on the team. Grayson Allen is consistently one of the most underrated offensive players in the league. This guy shot 40% from three or better every single season of his career besides one. And most recently shot 46 and 43% from three. And he just hit 10 threes in in 28 minutes against the Pelicans. Like this guy is unreal. And he can do more than just shoot, by the way. Like he can attack the basket and and and score on the interior. But this is a super underrated offensive player. Mark Williams. Mark Williams, who was obviously in and out. The Hornets were desperate to basically give this person away. They were like, “Please, someone, Lakers, just take him. Uh, you know, we we’ll just give them to you.” And they couldn’t because of health concerns. And this is a player who I said is one of the most talented centers in the entire NBA and will be a force once he gets right. The guy is 24 years old and he’s an absolute monster when he plays. He’s undervalued due to injury concerns. Like classic money ball. Like what’s wrong with him? I don’t know if we if he’ll ever be healthy. Guess what? If he is now, you just got to steal a monster down low for a very low price. Colin uh Gaseeppi, I don’t even know how to say his name right. I always say I always want to say Jeppi. I know it’s Gaseeppi. um undrafted due to the classic something that you and I talk about the classic size and athleticism issue, right, with like college players. But guess what? He works perfectly playing off of Devin Booker. He knows how to play basketball. Sorry, he doesn’t have the the requisite athleticism and and and upside and size, but he knows how to do the thing you’re trying to draft him to do. He can play great off of Devin Booker and jacking up threes and he can also run pick and roll with bigs. Like he is a good playmaker that is developing into being better and better. Dylan Brooks who has been obviously much maligned throughout his entire career who Memphis basically had enough of and said we need to get this guy out of here. Um and then Houston didn’t seem like they were so thrilled with him. Although his play was really good, he hasn’t even played much, but when he does play, he’s great and he’ll absolutely help this team when he’s healthy because again, he fits right in with his shooting and his defense. And then like you mentioned, Jordan, forward thinking head coach, uh the president of basketball operations, Brian Gregory, those are the my combined Billy Bean in this analogy because they don’t have an Art How character, thankfully. Um, I is this not the 2002 Oakland Athletics, Jeff? Am I Am I totally off base here? No, I don’t think you’re off base. And I was doing a little bit of a dive into some of the data as I was watching a couple of their most recent games to prepare for this episode. And, you know, in the Moneyball spirit, there there are a lot of things that they’re uh they’re leveraging and they’re they’re leaning on the undervalued market, per se. And so I was just looking at, you know, the individual stats and stuff popped off. Uh Dylan Brooks, 10 three-point attempts per 75 by far his careerhigh. Um uh Grayson Allen 9 9.9 three-point attempts per 75. Royce O’Neal 9.2 three point three-point attempts per 75. Good win 7.4. Colin 9.8, etc., etc., etc. And I was like, man, so are these guys just like chucking contested threes? What’s what is happening here? Like, how is this happening? Because I don’t know about you, XJ, but when I think about teams that shoot a lot of threes, I think about two things. One, I think about teams that just have elite shooters who move a lot and they can shoot deep threes. They can shoot contested threes. They can create threes even without anything happening inside the ark. And then I think about teams with elite rim pressure who force those collapses and then spray it out. The Suns don’t have either of those. Like they don’t get to the rim very much. They’re second to last in the NBA in shots inside 5T. like they don’t even really try to to get all the way to the rim. And then I noticed that on drives they have a 46.2 pass percentage and a 12.4 assist percentage more than any team in the league in either of those places. And I started to dig a little bit deeper. Second in the NBA in catch and shoot points, second in the NBA in uh catch and shoot three-point percentage and and second in the NBA in E field goal percentage off catch and shoots. They’re one they’re they’re averaging 1.2 25 points per possession on spot-ups, best in the NBA. And I was just like, how the hell are they doing this? And then it occurred to me watching one of their most recent games. They catch a guy leaning and they pass before you expected them them to. With if you think about the modern NBA, every single defense is saying, “We’re going to pack the paint.” Or almost every single defense is saying we can pack the paint and then we’re athletic enough to recover. We trust our rotations. So, we’ve kind of gotten and established this pattern of the offensive guy isn’t going to take a mid-range shot. He’s going to try to get to the rim. That’s where we will meet him and then he’ll kick it out and we will start the rotations. The Suns don’t do that. They catch defenses leaning right when they get inside the ark. And shockingly, this fits Deon G Devin Booker’s game perfectly because he’s not trying to get to the rim. We all know he loves the mid-range shot. So now you’ve got guys like Grayson Allen spraying from the mid-range. A and I want to throw this back to you, XJ, because I find this so interesting. I would wager that no team makes that first kickout pass earlier than the Suns in the entire NBA. It blows my mind that a team can create this many spot up shots, this many catch and shoot threes just by making that first that first pass almost the the second they get inside the arc. Everybody else is trying to get to the rim. Everybody else is trying to get to floater range to create offensive rebounds. This team somehow looked at Devin Booker and said, “Okay, like we know you like your mid-ranges, but you got to make that pass if you catch the defense leaning.” They are looking for the defense to be pre-stunting. They are jam-packed with shooting and the second any single player on the court starts to lean to make some sort of rotation expecting you to get to the rim, they’re making the pass and they’re just shooting. It’s incredible to watch. And honestly, I I I don’t see many other teams around the league doing it like that. This is uh this is this is perfect um because it’s a perfect segue to where I wanted to go next. Um, and maybe it’s not the most positive framework in the world, but I have noticed a lot of what you talked about as well. I was looking at some of this some similar data around how infrequently they get to the rim. Um, and I’m I’m curious if you think I’m going to throw it back to you actually. I’m curious if you think this is sustainable. And by that I mean the I I I could see this being a sustainable approach potentially, but like in the way that they implement it currently feels slightly gimmicky. Uh and when I say gimmicky, I mean like in the if you were to put them in a playoff series and a team was to just scout this, I don’t know how effective that would be. I think they have to get to the rim more um for this to like really really be effective long term. like they are so they are so they are so bad at getting to the rim. It’s um like you said they’re like second last in rim frequency. If you look at uh you know cleaning the glasses location effective field goal percentage which basically just says if the team shot league average field goal percentage from each location, what would their effective field goal percentage be? It’s just purely looking at the spot of of at which they take these shots, not the players taking those shots. They are 27th in the NBA in location effective field goal percentage. And that doesn’t mean you can’t be an elite offense. You can’t be a great offense. You can’t be really really good because I think this team is it’s sustainable that this team is well-rounded and will be good because they’re solid both offensively and defensively. And I think they’re their their rim attempts will be higher when Mark Williams is able to play. But I don’t know if that’s super sustainable when we’re talking about long-term. We’re talking about uh teams game planning. we’re talking about playoffs type dynamics um without kind of like more that goes into it. So, what are your thoughts there? So, I think I’m going to say something here that you’re not going to be a fan of, which is very, you know, if you’re new here, is very rare for this show. We actually get yelled at a lot for agreeing too much. So, this will be fun. Maybe you won’t agree. Maybe maybe we’ll get to you and I for the last couple seasons. Uh we did it once on air and we’ve had many conversations about it. We’ve often talked about what the ideal situation for Jaylen Green is because Jaylen Green’s a guy who likes the ball in his hands and he likes to operate from certain spots. And it’s rare for a team to be it’s hard for a team to be good and not already have what Jaylen Green provides. That is it’s just like if you’re a good team, Jaylen like the things Jaylen Green does well, you probably have somebody who just does them better. And so like this synergy that we’re talking about, you don’t want Jaylen Green doing those things cuz he’s redundant with another player and then it’s like this other player is sacrificing his peak impact so that Jaylen Green can do a worse iteration of it. That’s not a good thing. I think the Suns need exactly what Jaylen Green brings. And I saw I I don’t know if you agree with this. I think we saw glimpses of it in that Clippers game a little while back when he played. He was incredible in that game. And he and Booker actually had a shocking amount of not playing off each other, but like it didn’t feel like they were stepping on each other. Was already staggering them. He was making sure one was on the court at all times, but like because they get their offense in different spots because I mean Jaylen Green has been between the 73rd and 80th percentile on rim attempts every year of his career. So like that’s the rim pressure we’re talking about. We know he’s an amazing offensive player. I think he’s an underrated defender. I don’t think he’s as bad as people think he is. And I think if you get a coach like Joe or not to be like, “Dude, this is Devin Booker’s team. Like you’re gonna get your touches, but you got to do the other things. You got to shoot.” Like I think may and I know I’m probably overreacting to that limited time he played at the Clippers game, but I was very very impressed by how they were using him out of the gate and how Jaylen Green was embracing this sort of role where he was not perfectly additive. I don’t think a Jaylen Green can ever be perfectly additive in the way like you know an elite role player is. But I do think that he can be more additive in this exact situation and he can be more synergistic with Booker and a bunch of role players than he could anywhere else. And I think that’s where they get their source of rim pressure when he returns. I actually don’t think it’s going to be one of those situations you and I have talked about where a good player returns to a situation but actually they don’t get better because he’s taking away more than he’s giving. I think he’s going to be more additive than many might expect from Jaylen Green and I think he’s going to play the best basketball of his career if his health permits. If he’s able to come back from this inj injury, have the athleticism, have the shot. He has all the tools and I think the Suns have the surrounding pieces and the coaching to really um elevate him in a way that he’s never been elevated from a team impact standpoint. Um I can’t believe you just said that, man. I think that’s an incredible answer. No, I I think I think I think that’s a great answer, actually. Um I think you’re spot on. I love that answer because so here’s the thing. So, uh, the one part that I I’ll say what I disagree and then I’ll say what I agree with. The part that I disagree with is like the way that he played in that. So, I didn’t watch the full Clippers game, but I I watched a bunch of it and it felt more like a Jaylen Green is hot and is shooting a bunch of threes game. Um, I think he took like 12 or 13 threes in that game. Um, which is which is cool. Like there’s no problem with that. That’s totally fine. But what you were describing as far as like his rim pressure, like I don’t think people realize how good Jaylen Green is at getting to the rim. Like he is like an elite rim shot creator. Like it’s kind of crazy to say at 23 years old or however old he is, 22 or 23, he’s already been an elite rimshot creator like in the league. And so he’s only going to get better. and he does completely solve or add that missing piece to the puzzle that we’re describing because I see the Suns and I see what you described. I see their data. I see the way they play. I see Jordan A’s sort of perspective on the game and how it ends up kind of coming through and how the Suns like attack defenses and I really like it, but I’m like there’s something missing like that’s that that feels like it won’t be able to be sustainable without this thing. And really that is the rim pressure component. I don’t think you can get by, you know, with this purely, you know, perimeter to short mid-range attack. Uh, obviously you have Deon Booker and you have a really great advantage because you have one of the best mid-range shooters in the modern NBA history, but I don’t think it’s like enough to get them where they’re looking to go. But I I do like the angle that you just shared about Jaylen Green because again, this guy this guy gets to the rim at will. And when we’re talking about not only having the spacers that they have, so guys that are already really really good shooters to to to great shooters to elite shooters when we’re talking about like a Grayson Allen, now you have guys who are good to great to elite shooters who are all, like you mentioned, taking the most three-point attempts per 75 of their careers. They’re just jacking them up. So you have that threat. you have the the the the the threat of the quick pass to a shooter who’s going to pull the trigger immediately. And so now that softens the interior and so you have a guy in Jaylen Green who’s already able to create rim pressure out of thin air and can always get to the rim across his career from the time he’s a teenager to the time when he first could potentially drink uh in the United States. Now you have that dynamic and you’re able to add him into the mix. It’ll make it that much easier. So now you have this you have that missing piece. You interject that missing piece in a in the form of a player who is not quite a perfect player, has a lot of flaws, but really really fills this role extremely well if he’s able to be deployed in the right way. And I I trust not to do that. So I think that’s an incredible answer. So I I I love that. And the thing is is when we talk about the sort of dueling pianos thing or the dueling panos, Jesus. Dueling pianos. I just made up a I think that’s a thing. I think that’s a thing. Yeah. Yeah. In New York at least. Okay. Then when we talk about the dueling pianos thing, God, I hope it’s a thing. It is. It is. Usually in these situations when you have two like primary initiators, two onball initiators, the reason it’s so um not like negative or harmful, but the reason it’s so troubling or the reason it’s like hard to maximize both simultaneously is because a lot of times these teams have tertiary creation where it’s like, okay, well these guys are already getting touches. So like it’s like you have this primary initiator and then you also have these secondary creators who are have you know the these are mouths to feed too and so you’re really running out of possessions where two high usage primary creators can do their thing. This Suns situation is such an extreme example of like Booker and Jaylen Green can just take all the possessions like like not literally all of them because like that just would never happen. But like Royce O’Neal and Grayson Allen like they’ll they’ll mess around a little bit but they’re not going to be super high usage uh starting pick and roll guys. They’re going to attack closeouts. That’s how they’re going to they’re going to be they’re going to be third creators if anything. Like these are the definition of additives. Gillespie is Gillespie is the only one and and I think he’s put into that role because they don’t have Jaylen Green. But yeah. Yeah. And he’s fine. He’s fine. And like I agree with you. But my point is is like on the spectrum of roster constructions where it’s like, all right, we have all these mouth mouths to feed. This is one of the extreme outliers on the low end where I could see two guys who you would think stylistically are going to clash work together and not step on each other as much. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re both good shooters. So like yes, both players would prefer to have the ball in their hands, but you have a situation where they both kind of can have the ball in their hands as much as they’re used to having it. They’re both capable offball shooters. And Booker’s style of offense is three-pointers in mid-range. Jaylen Greens is rim pressure and three-pointers. They operate in different spots. I think they’re a strangely synergistic backcourt guard duo. And yeah, I I I’m just really excited to see this team at full strength with Mark Williams back when you have that offensive rebound and rim protection threat. Do I think they’re going to win a championship? I apologize Suns fans if you made it this far. I don’t think they’re going to win a championship, but like I said at the top of this show, we’re just a couple weeks in the regular season and this team is so much better off than I ever thought they would be. They’ve got the coach. There’s a path to moving forward with Devin Booker and like Jaylen Green was a lottery pick, a high lottery pick for a reason. He has a pedigree. He’s going to be in the situation where he can thrive. Now they’ve got a couple of young guys they can be excited about. We haven’t even said the name Ryan Dunn. They just took a center in the lottery that like they’re not playing, but he’s super young. Milwauke, I hope I pronounced that right. Apologies if I didn’t. Um, he’s super young and he’s super talented. Like, this is so far from the team that Bill Simmons was making fun of uh in the offseason and when he was like going at it with the owner. Yeah. No, that’s a good point. Um, I yeah, I I think I I I like everything that you said and I I agree as far as Booker and Jaylen Green’s potential for a synergistic dynamic. I think it will depend on Jaylen Green’s level of buyin. Um, it’ll depend on his role deployment and how well he’s able to stick to that role deployment. Um, so there’s some contingencies there, but I do think philosophically, theoretically, I I I I it absolutely can work really well. And it’s a team that if they hit on all cylinders, we’re talking about a team who, like you talked about, this this team takes the most wide openen threes in the NBA per game. like like if you’re generating that level of wide openen threes and you have this many really really good shooters and they’re all putting them up at super high volume and you’re talking about a guy again like we said in Jaylen Green who can get to the rim and then a guy in Devin Booker who we we haven’t talked about him that much because he really hasn’t played his best basketball like like we know what Devin Booker is capable of and he’s been good this season but he hasn’t been Devin Booker good. So there’s upside still there for Devin Booker as well. There’s tons of meat on the bone there as well. So it’s not even like they’ve hit what we might consider like their peak or like oh you know Deon Booker’s going off and carrying this team in an unsustainable way. So we’re going to see some regression there in my opinion from Devin Booker who is not 30 years old yet still smack in the middle of his prime. And with the spacing that we’re talking about here, the the the the ball movement, the fundamental basketball that they play on both ends where they’re a very very solid defense, I just need Mark Williams to be healthy, to be honest with you. I need Mark Williams to be healthy. I need Jaylen Williams to be healthy. Uh Jaylen Green to be healthy. And uh I need Jaylen Williams to be healthy as well, but not relevant to this conversation. Um and yeah, and I think this is I think it’s just a dangerous team. I think it’s a slept on team. I think it’s an explosive team. And I think it’s a fun team. And the fact that they’re really not getting talked about, I think is just indicative of sort of a bias of a preconceived notion. You talked about the Bill Simmons conversation and just like what people expected from this team coming in and the type of players that they have where it’s like, ah, yeah, Royce, whatever. Uh, Grayson Allen, whatever. H Dylan Brooks, whatever. It’s like, no, no, no, not whatever. Perfect fits for the team that they’re putting together. Um, and people just underrate how valuable that is. though. I I I I’m I’m excited to continue to watch them develop this season. Yeah, that’s just such a perfect cap on it. That’s exactly why they’re being underrated. It’s just the combination of this preconceived notion that’s been dug in with, well, these aren’t like the type of players I like. Like, these aren’t traditional stars. These are they only have one may maybe one allstar like in a in a at a time when the league is more jam-packed with talent than there’s ever been. Uh the Vegas o Vegas overunder before the season started was super low. How could this team be good? This is fake. And yeah, I think people just need to realize that this is a really well coached team that fits together super well. And they’re going to they’re going to make you earn it when you play. They’re going to shoot a lot of threes. They have a lot of really good shooters. They have a lot of high volume, high accuracy shooters. like they might they very well might have the most shooting talent in the NBA. It’s insane how many good shooters they have on their team and they can just put out there at all times. Yeah, absolutely. Um and if you’re a Suns fan who’s made it this far into the video, definitely appreciate you watching. I would love for you to make fun of the way I tried to pronounce Colin Glepsy’s name and I still can’t say. Can you say it? Can you just say his name for me? I like I just am unable to say it. Like I know how it’s spelled. I know how it’s said. I just can’t do it. Can you say it? Colin Gillespie. There you go. Why can’t I say Gillespie? It’s weird. It’s like a weird dyslexia. Anyway, I would love for you to make fun of the way I said it. Um, that would be a great comment to receive from you, but honestly, again, if this is your first time here, we break down teams in this level of depth every week. typically multiple times a week, but at least once a week on Tuesday mornings. So, please go ahead and give a subscribe, a like, a comment. We respond to every single comment we ever receive on this channel. That’s one of the trademarks of our channel. We love to engage with people who want to engage with us. Um, and we’ll love to hear your perspectives, whether you agree or disagree or think we were too high or too low or think the Jaylen Green thing doesn’t make sense or you’re super super excited to have Jaylen Green, we just love to hear your perspectives. Uh, but really appreciate you joining. And for Jeff, I am XJ. And this has been Hotand Theory.

On the 67th episode of Hot Hand Theory, Geoff and XJ break down how Jordan Ott, Devin Booker, Dillon Brooks, Grayson Allen, and the Phoenix Suns are outsmarting the NBA—and why their 5-game win streak isn’t luck; it’s brilliant roster construction meeting elite coaching.

The duo dives into the film and data to show how the Suns are winning by exploiting what modern defenses expect: passing BEFORE defenses rotate, generating the most wide-open threes in the NBA, and building a Moneyball roster of undervalued elite shooters and role players. While the rest of the NBA hunts rim pressure, Phoenix catches defenses leaning—and it’s working.

We explore why Jordan Ott’s early passing system is breaking modern defenses, how the Suns assembled a roster of criminally undervalued players (Royce O’Neal, Grayson Allen, Mark Williams, Dillon Brooks), and why this team leads the league in spot-up efficiency.

The Suns are on a 5-game win streak with strong metrics on both ends, and this isn’t just a hot start; it’s validation of an unconventional philosophy. We break down what it means for Phoenix’s identity, why their front office deserves credit for Moneyball-style roster building, and how Devin Booker and Jalen Green’s synergy could make them the West’s most dangerous duo.

We cover:
🔹 Why the Suns are winning by outsmarting defenses: early passing, wide-open threes, and perfect spacing
🔹 Jordan Ott’s system: catching defenses pre-rotating and exploiting the modern NBA’s biggest weakness
🔹 The Moneyball roster: Royce O’Neal, Grayson Allen, Mark Williams, Dillon Brooks (all undervalued)
🔹 Why the Suns lead the NBA in wide-open threes and spot-up efficiency
🔹 Why Jalen Green could be the perfect missing piece: elite rim pressure they’re lacking
🔹 What makes this roster construction genius: undervalued market inefficiencies
🔹 Can other teams copy this system, or is it Phoenix-specific?

💬 Let us know in the comments: Are the Suns the most underrated team in the NBA? And how far can this roster go?

If you value strategic analysis over hot takes and want NBA breakdown that explains HOW teams win, not just that they won, subscribe and catch every episode.

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Timestamps:
0:00 | Preview
1:02 | Intro: Phoenix is being slept on
3:30 | Jordan Ott is maximizing this roster
6:55 | Moneyball in the NBA?
10:45 | The Suns are launching 3’s without rim pressure
14:50 | Can they sustain this without constant rim pressure?
17:05 | Jalen Green is a key piece to the puzzle
24:30 | The Suns’ lightning-fast 180
28:00 | Devin Booker can still play better
30:45 | Please Comment & SUBSCRIBE

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