Who: Phoenix Suns (0-0) @ Los Angeles Lakers (0-0)
When: 7:00pm Arizona Time
Where: Acrisure Arena, Palm Desert, California
Watch: Arizona’s Family 3TV, Arizona’s Family Sports, NBATV
Without further ado, the curtain lifts on the first step toward the 2025–26 season. No, the result won’t matter in the standings. But this isn’t Summer League, and it’s not a scrimmage tucked away from the spotlight. This is the Phoenix Suns, lacing up under the lights, presenting a glimpse of the team that will define the months ahead.
There’s a spark in the air, the kind that crawls across your skin before the tip, because tonight, the Phoenix Suns play basketball.
PHOENIX, AZ – SEPTEMBER 24: Devin Booker #1, Jalen Green #4 and Dillon Brooks #3 of the Phoenix Suns poses for a portrait during Media Day on September 24, 2025 at PHX Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2025 NBAE (Photo by Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images) NBAE via Getty Images
It begins in Palm Desert, where the Suns meet the Los Angeles Lakers in the first of four preseason tilts. From there, it’s a journey across the globe, as the team heads to Macao, China, for a two-game showcase against the Brooklyn Nets before returning home.
Four games in total, a slim slate by NBA standards, but enough to whet the appetite and shape first impressions.
This moment is less about wins and losses and more about unveiling. For the first time, we see the Suns stripped of the “highest payroll in basketball” label, yet free from the crushing weight of last year’s expectations. It’s basketball in its most intriguing form: a preview, a promise, a chance to watch the raw clay take its first steps toward becoming sculpture.
I’m taking a stab here. It’s the preseason, after all.
Mark Williams — OUT (Coach’s decision)Jalen Green — OUT (Hamstring)LeBron James — OUT (Glute)Maxi Kleber — OUT (Quad)Marcus Smart — OUT (Achilles)Adou Thiero — QUESTIONABLE (Knee)
I’ll be watching everyone tonight. Not for the box score, but for the little things. How they move. How they carry themselves in live action.
And then there’s Jordan Ott.
This is our first chance to see his fingerprints on the Suns, both offensively and defensively. Early whispers point to a philosophy built on chaos: extra possessions, crashing the glass, full-court pressure, disruption at every turn. It’s ambitious, it’s risky, and it begs the question: how will it actually look when five players are trying to execute it in real time? More importantly, how will this roster respond?
Layer that with his first crack at rotations. Preseason lineups are never gospel. No one should overreact to who checks in at the eight-minute mark of the first quarter. But they do offer hints. The choices Ott makes now, even in a game that technically doesn’t matter, will ripple forward into how this team begins to define itself.
And of course, the rookies. This is their night. Devin Booker won’t be playing 35 minutes in Palm Desert, but that only widens the stage for fresh legs. Rasheer Fleming, Koby Brea, Khaman “Man Man” Maluach. Their real introduction comes here. Not Summer League speed, not practice reps, but NBA pace against NBA players.
Wins don’t matter in the preseason. Not in the box score, anyway. The column doesn’t count, the standings don’t shift. What matters is far less tangible but infinitely more important.
A win is seeing a group of players buying in, voices rising in unison as they communicate through new systems placed before them. A win is confidence pulsing through rotations, movements that look less like guesswork and more like instinct. A win is the chatter on defense, the quick handoffs on offense, the kind of dialogue that turns schemes into muscle memory.
Most of all, a win is attitude. Effort. The unteachable pieces of basketball that you recognize not in the stat sheet but in the body language, the energy, the way five players move as one.
That’s the win column that matters in early October.
Predictions don’t matter in the preseason. They’re about as useful as Summer League box scores or August power rankings. But fine. I’ll throw one out there anyway.