{"id":29339,"date":"2025-05-13T08:11:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T08:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/29339\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T08:11:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T08:11:13","slug":"phoenix-suns-roughed-up-by-nba-draft-lottery-as-west-gains-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/29339\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Suns roughed up by NBA Draft Lottery as West gains strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Suns GM Brian Gregory working on proving to fans he was hired on experience not friendship<\/p>\n

“I’m going to be held accountable to the success of this team,” Brian Gregory said.<\/p>\n

Phoenix Suns<\/a> fans were prepared for the nightmare, but it didn’t arrive in its most obvious form.<\/p>\n

The Houston Rockets<\/a>, who held the Suns’ first-round selection, had a very slim chance (3.8%) at winning the May 12 NBA Draft Lottery, and, in keeping with the odds, drew the No. 10 pick.<\/p>\n

Disaster avoided, right?<\/p>\n

Well, another Suns rival in the Western Conference, the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>, had an even slimmer chance to win the lottery. The Mavs cashed in on its 1.8% chance, winning the right to select generational talent Cooper Flagg, who played at Duke<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many NBA analysts ripped the Luka Doncic to the Lakers trade earlier this year, and now, many NBA conspiracy theorists have made their opinion clear: The NBA “thanked” the Mavericks for propping up the league’s cash cow by giving Dallas the top pick in the June 25, 2025, draft.<\/p>\n

The Suns’ PA announcer, Vince Marotta, issued a thinly veiled post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Suns, who have their own challenges, must face what surely appears to be an even stronger Western Conference. They saw the Lakers gain a life preserver in April, the Mavericks gain a likely superstar from the lottery and the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> gain the No. 4 and No. 12 picks in the 2025 draft.<\/p>\n

The Rockets, who claimed the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference this season, are still young and hungry, and the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> sure appear capable of winning 55 games next season.<\/p>\n

And then there’s the Warriors<\/a>, Clippers and the NBA Finals favorite Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> to consider.<\/p>\n

Before the 2025-26 season, Phoenix is likely to see some major changes that push toward improving on its 36-46 record in 2024-25. Best case might be competing with Memphis, Sacramento and New Orleans for a play-in position.<\/p>\n

Still, as challenging as the Suns’ immediate future appears, the news on draft lottery night could have been worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suns GM Brian Gregory working on proving to fans he was hired on experience not friendship “I’m going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[299,673,1085,7,243,311,559,686,149,667,509,98,666,692,309,164,292,194,300,298,135,150,508,368,166,318,307,152,70,85,6,12,62,239,1090,67,310,179,61,81,2065,472,4045,211,672,474,66,83,534,17,604,312,308,1084,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-29339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-angeles","9":"tag-antonio","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-blue","13":"tag-city","14":"tag-clippers","15":"tag-dallas","16":"tag-dallas-mavericks","17":"tag-devils","18":"tag-doncic","19":"tag-draft","20":"tag-duke","21":"tag-duke-blue-devils-mens-basketball","22":"tag-golden","23":"tag-golden-state-warriors","24":"tag-houston","25":"tag-houston-rockets","26":"tag-lakers","27":"tag-los","28":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","29":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","30":"tag-luka","31":"tag-luka-doncic","32":"tag-mavericks","33":"tag-mens","34":"tag-minnesota","35":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","36":"tag-national","37":"tag-national-sports","38":"tag-nba","39":"tag-nba-draft","40":"tag-neutral","41":"tag-new","42":"tag-new-visitors-az","43":"tag-news","44":"tag-oklahoma","45":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","46":"tag-overall","47":"tag-overall-neutral","48":"tag-phoenix","49":"tag-phoenix-suns","50":"tag-phoenixsuns","51":"tag-rockets","52":"tag-san","53":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","54":"tag-sports","55":"tag-sports-news","56":"tag-spurs","57":"tag-state","58":"tag-suns","59":"tag-thunder","60":"tag-timberwolves","61":"tag-visitors","62":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}