{"id":551534,"date":"2026-01-21T19:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/551534\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T19:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:07:15","slug":"national-respect-is-finally-catching-up-to-the-phoenix-suns-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/551534\/","title":{"rendered":"National respect is finally catching up to the Phoenix Suns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crow. Best served cold, apparently. I should know. I have spent plenty of time eating it myself after takes that aged poorly. But around the league, there is a whole lot of crow getting passed around right now as the Suns keep churning out an unexpectedly successful season and quietly building one of the better stories in the NBA so far.<\/p>\n

You do not have to take my word for it. National outlets are starting to say it out loud. Phoenix is earning respect.<\/p>\n

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John Schuhmann of NBA.com has the Suns slotted at the fifth overall spot in this week\u2019s power rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Suns were without Devin Booker in Detroit on Thursday, when they blew a 16-point lead and lost by three, scoring just 15 points on 25 fourth-quarter possessions. Their offense hasn\u2019t been great (115.8 points scored per 100 possessions) with Booker on the floor, but they\u2019re now 1-3 without him, having scored just 101.3 per 100 over those four games. Of course, all four have been on the road and against teams \u2014 Houston, Minnesota, Oklahoma City and Detroit \u2014 that rank in the top nine defensively.<\/p>\n

Booker returned on Saturday, when the Suns beat the Knicks, who were playing without Jalen Brunson. Mitchell Robinson was there, but the Suns outscored New York (21-17) on second chances. While Phoenix is one of nine teams that have scored fewer points per 100 possessions than they did last season, it\u2019s seen the league\u2019s biggest jump in offensive rebounding percentage, from 26.4% (26th) last season to 33.6% (sixth) this season.<\/p>\n

The Suns\u2019 starting lineup didn\u2019t have its best night at Madison Square Garden, but bench minutes were huge as they erased\u00a0two separate, 10-point deficits. Grayson Allen continues to close games, and the Suns have outscored opponents by\u00a013.4 points per 100 possessions\u00a0in 486 minutes with both Jordan Goodwin and Oso Ighodaro on the floor, and they have\u00a0the league\u2019s fifth-ranked bench\u00a0overall.<\/p>\n

ESPN dished out midseason grades<\/a>, and Kevin Pelton gave the Suns an \u201cA\u201d for their efforts thus far.<\/p>\n

Thus far, team owner Mat Ishbia\u00a0was right\u00a0and the experts (myself included) were wrong about the Suns\u2019 offseason makeover, which saw them say farewell to marquee additions\u00a0Bradley Beal\u00a0and\u00a0Kevin Durant. In their place, Phoenix has built a hard-playing squad\u00a0in the image\u00a0of newcomer\u00a0Dillon Brooks\u00a0that excels at forcing turnovers and has barely dropped off offensively from last year\u2019s star-studded team, going from 13th in offensive rating to 15th.\u00a0Collin Gillespie\u2019s emergence as a capable starting point guard has been one of the season\u2019s best stories \u2014 earning him the nickname \u201cVillain Jr.\u201d from Brooks \u2014 and new coach Jordan Ott looks like he\u2019ll put an end to the revolving door on the Suns\u2019<\/p>\n

The Athletic is a bit more bullish on the Suns than most. They have Phoenix sitting ninth<\/a> in their power rankings, tucked right behind the Golden State Warriors. Because of course they do. The Warriors are always going to live near the top of those lists. Clicks are undefeated.<\/p>\n

Law Murray put it this way:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it is likely that Booker gets selected as a starter, but I feel like he should be rewarded for a Suns team that basically is in the same spot in the standings as the Lakers despite significantly less talent. Jalen Green is expected to finally play his sixth quarter of the season this week. Booker is one of 20 players averaging at least 25 points per game, and of those 20 players, only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cade Cunningham and Jamal Murray have won more games than Booker this season.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s power rankings have the Suns sitting in 9th, and despite a three-game winning streak, they dropped one spot in their rankings. Make it make sense. Dave McMenamin had this to say<\/a>:<\/p>\n

How will\u00a0Jalen Green\u00a0be integrated into their success?<\/p>\n

After making his return Tuesday, his first game action since early November because of a right hamstring issue, the Suns\u2019 rotation will now shift to fit Green into the rotation. Adding a 23-year-old dynamic scorer is undoubtedly a good problem to have for first-year head coach Jordan Ott; shuffling things on the fly, however, is always a challenge, and Phoenix has had a good thing going so far this season and is riding a three-game win-streak.<\/p>\n

Does any of that actually matter? Not really. The Suns still have to look inward and keep doing the work. They are in the middle of reintroducing Jalen Green into an offensive and defensive system that has been working. That is not plug and play. A player with that kind of shot appetite is going to require adjustment. If they can navigate that while stacking wins, that is success.<\/p>\n

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What someone writes in The Athletic is noise. And yes, I know I contribute to the noise. Sometimes loudly. But what I think does not matter. What matters is what happens in that locker room, the alignment inside the organization, and the way this team performs on the floor.<\/p>\n

This season has already been fun. The national guys are starting to notice. The best way to keep their attention is simple. And to keep doing it the same way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crow. Best served cold, apparently. I should know. I have spent plenty of time eating it myself after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,3086,909,4216,296,2292,1195,164,7781,288,861,762,397,938,304,1247,6,475,11328,2065,10831,209,2152,6445],"class_list":{"0":"post-551534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bradley-beal","10":"tag-cade-cunningham","11":"tag-collin-gillespie","12":"tag-detroit","13":"tag-devin-booker","14":"tag-dillon-brooks","15":"tag-golden-state-warriors","16":"tag-grayson-allen","17":"tag-jalen-brunson","18":"tag-jalen-green","19":"tag-jamal-murray","20":"tag-jordan-goodwin","21":"tag-kevin-durant","22":"tag-knicks","23":"tag-mitchell-robinson","24":"tag-nba","25":"tag-oklahoma-city","26":"tag-oso-ighodaro","27":"tag-phoenix","28":"tag-power-rankings","29":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","30":"tag-the-lakers","31":"tag-the-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115934661617495992","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551534","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=551534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}