How have the Phoenix Suns caught the NBA off guard this season?

How have the Phoenix Suns caught the NBA off guard this season?

All right, welcome back. Phoenix Suns off tonight. Actually, don’t play until Friday. Feels weird. Uh, but Bobby Marks is joining us right now sports on ESPN Front Office Insider. Always good to talk to Bobby Marks. What’s going on, Bobby? How are we doing? Good. Doing good, man. Thank you, Bobby. We’re doing pretty good with this basketball team in town that uh I don’t know about you. Fun when there’s no expectations. Yes. Yeah, exact. I was just going to say they’ve definitely already exceeded my expectations. Um that win over the Lakers on Monday in LA basically without Deon Booker, without Jaylen Green, without Grayson Allen, you know, you could probably find two or three, maybe even four signature wins already for them this year, but might be the top. Oh, sure. Sure. I mean, especially how the Lakers have been playing and how well um you know, with Luca who you know, certainly struggled turning the ball over in Austin Reeves and you get LeBron back and um you know, they’re sitting in the two- hole in the Western Conference and you go into you go into Los Angeles and you lose Deon in the beginning and you win by 17 points. Yeah, that’s definitely a uh that and you had lost two tough games, you know, with OKC in Denver. Certainly that OKC game was a tough one. Um you uh that is certainly a signature game for uh for them and it’s much needed. I mean you guys look at the schedule and see what’s coming up um with Houston and Minnesota and uh you get a cup game with the Thunder which will be awesome um because it’s kind of you know put these guys in a position where a lot of them haven’t been you know something that means something here. See how players react. Uh but yeah I think you have to you have I think you have to be pleasantly surprised u as far as where they are right now. And Bobby, when you watch where they are right now in the fact that they’ve played as many games as they have, I mean, is this something that you can now expect from the Phoenix Suns going forward? You know, it’s funny. It’s a good question. It’s usually you, you know, you kind of have an identity of kind of who you are after 20 to 25 games and now we’re on we’re going into game 23. I would say yes. Um, but I just think your margin is, you know, it’s it’s not like you have, you know, Kevin Durant to bail you out or somebody else to bail you out here. You know, it’s this team is more built on, you know, team related here where everyone has to kind of do their part. I I think your your your wiggle room, you know, how long is it sustainable some of the injuries as you mentioned, you know, Jaylen’s been out for a while um and with Grayson and we’ll see with with Devin. Um, as far as where, you know, how sustainable it is, especially with the schedule that’s coming up. That’s going to be the hard thing. But I would say you got to like what you seen. I mean, Colin’s been terrific. Um, it’s like, god, you needed him like two years ago in your back court. He’s been really good. And, uh, I don’t know if you’re going to get the Dylan Brooks performance like you saw the other night in Los Angeles offensively here. Sometimes it’s like close your eyes and hopefully it goes in. Um, but as I said, if you can defend and you can execute on offense and they look like they’ve certainly bought into their new head coach who’s done a really good job so far, um, you know, I I do think it is somewhat sustainable and I do think, you know, when you guys look at the Western Conference standings, um, you know, even if you you go on a little bit of a skid, you look at the teams in the back end, whether it be the Clippers and Utah and and um, you know, you know, some of the New Orleans, you know, teams like that. Memphis is starting to play a little bit better here. Uh, you could at least say, “Hey, you know, we’re in a, you know, we’re in a position for, you know, we’re going to be one of these playing spots.” Bobby, would you look at the Phoenix Suns and say they’re the biggest surprise of the association right now? I would just because Yeah, I would. Um, you know, I mean, I think there’s a lot of great stories. I think Detroit is a really terrific story as far as um what what they’ve been able to do, but they made the playoffs last year and Oklahoma City has one loss, but they won the NBA championship here. Um so I would say based on where the expectations were um which weren’t very high at all. Um I do think it’s probably the probably one of the I think it’s probably the best story um you know in a positive way that um that that we’ve seen here just because um as I said when you’re when nothing is expected of you and then you come out and you you know you win a bunch of games and you’re 13 and N that builds the community that probably had lost probably some hope with this organization the last few years. Talking to Bobby Marks. Bobby you bring up Oklahoma City the NBA Cup. The Suns are one of eight teams that have a chance to win it, but they have to go through Oklahoma City next week. Um, are the Thunder ever going to lose? I mean, they could easily be 22 and0 right now. And in light of what’s going on with the Clippers, man, that that trade to to bring in Paul George and get Kawawaii, hindsight’s 2020, but that’s rough. The gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah. I I said this I think it was in September. I was on NBA today and they asked me about the Thunder about them winning 60 games and I was in 60, how about 70? And I kind of said that tongue and cheek and now look where we are right now with them. I I think it’s sustainable to go on, you know, to challenge the record um you know that or that Golden State team from a long time ago just because their depth is really good and they’re young. You know what we’ve seen with AJ Mitchell and and you know with him Jaylen Williams now finally gets back. um you know they’ll lose Hartinstein for a little bit here but and Shay is Shay is as good as it you know is there anyone out there. I think the the hard part for the rest of the league here is as you mentioned you know that they have the Clippers unprotected first this year. We all know where the Clippers are right now. They have they have the Sixers pick that’s protected. They have a Jazz pick and they got the right to swap picks with with the Clippers next year and they still have a bunch of other things coming. So, as I said, I wrote in the in the summer, if there’s a team that can beat the second apron or defeat the separate apron apron because their expenses are going to get higher, it’s the Clippers just based on how much young talent they have coming off the bench and how great some of these great contracts they have. When you got AJ Mitchell making $3 million a year, Bobby, when you look at Oklahoma City, um, what other team could challenge them? Who do you think could actually give them a series? Well, I mean, I think we saw Denver in that uh in that second round last year pushing them to seven games. Um, but Denver’s got to get there healthy. I mean, they’ve had injuries with Christian Brown and they’ve had injuries with Aaron Gordon and they they did a nice job with some of their veterans that they signed with Valentunis and Hardaway and Brown. Um, but I think it’s like all it’s a matter of like, you know, when you’re looking at the bracket down the road, who’s in the two to three range? Is it I mean you really are you ready to say that the the um the Lakers can challenge Oklahoma City? I’m not ready to to go there right now. So based just based on what we saw last year, I would probably put probably put Denver I guess above some of these these teams out there. Maybe I don’t know Houston’s just because their offense is so good, but they got to get stops. But it’s going to be hard. Um you know, you’re probably going to need them to have you know an injury down the road here. But as I said, you know, you still you’re out without Jian Williams for, you know, 20 games and you you won everyone except, you know, you won 19 out of those 20 games, man. It’s absurd. Talking to Bobby Marks. Uh Bobby, just circling back to the Suns for a second, they obviously haven’t had Jaylen Green much this year. Basically, not even a game and a half. When they get him back, you know, it’s it’s easy to fall into this thought of, well, they’re just going to start winning more when they whenever they get him back. Is it is it that simple or do you foresee they’re going to have to move some things around because the the the combination right now is working about as well as you could hope for. Yeah, I mean I think what you’ll get from him and what they what they’ll be able to benefit because I do think um you know this from a scoring standpoint I think defensively you’ve been you’ve been really good. I almost wanted to take that that Bill Simmons bet that he made in the the beginning of the year saying this is going to be the worst defensive team in in in the NBA this year. But I think where Jaylen will be able to give you is certainly a lot more offensive punch that maybe that you don’t have right now. I don’t see it disrupting, you know, maybe you go three guard lineup with him, you know, Colin and Devin. Um there you got three guys that can handle the ball which is really nice to have. Um, but I think I think it’ll be a positive there as far as the ability for him when he played, you know, the one or two games here. I thought he was pretty good. Um, so I don’t I don’t see him disrupting as far as what you have. I just think he’ll give you he’ll give you more offense than what you probably don’t have right now. Bobby, did you see the last game that Colin Gillespie played? Did you see it against the Lakers? I mean, listen, I’m still kicking myself. had an article out about a month ago on guys who are going to be free agents who are like my all free agent team and I left him off it and I really was going I started writing about him and I was like well he hasn’t like I like what I’ve seen but I need more and then he’s like taken off and I was like can I do a reprint on this article I really like I like I saw him last year in the second half I know he was on that two-way and everything here but I I like everything about him. I like the toughness. I know there’s going to be a lot of people comparing him to TJ McConnell and some of these other point guards out there, which is fair or unfair here. Um, but he can score the ball. He’s tough. He can defend. Um, he brings a calmness. Uh, you know, he’s like that quarterback out there that’s probably not going to get all pro um, you know, nominations or all these things, but just brings a really good presence to that to this team. Bobby, why weren’t they playing him more last year? I mean, I know you have no say over this. They should have been. They should have been because the numbers, you know, say what you want to say about analytics or stats or however you want to call it. The numbers said that Phoenix was a better team with with Colin on the court. Um, so yeah, he should have been he should have been on the court and fortunately they you’ve you know, you’ve seen what you’ve guys seen it through the first, you know, 22 23 games. Um, some really good things and I would expect his minutes to probably increase uh as this thing goes along. Bobby, it’s always great to talk to you. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Okay, ma’am. That’s Bobby Marks joining us right there on the Arizona sports line. Yeah, that had to kick him in the cradle. That trade, that Kawawaii trade. Basically, it was a Paul George trade, but it was to get Kawawaii. The fact that the Thunder are still getting picks from the Clippers and also got SGA in that trade. Like that might that might destroy the Clippers for a decade honestly. And I know hindsight 2020, right? You were trying to get Kawawaii. I get it. But man, that was brutal and still is brutal. Uh, and brutal for everybody, by the way, cuz the Thunder keep getting high first round picks when they are 21-1. So good. Thanks for watching Wolf and Luke. Tap to see more and click the button in the middle to subscribe to Arizona Sports.

Bobby Marks, ESPN NBA front office insider, joined Wolf & Luke to talk about the surprising start for the Phoenix Suns and if they can parlay it into a playoff berth.

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