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Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green joined the Suns in an offseason trade that sent Kevin Durant to Houston. Despite serious injuries to both players, they helped remake the team. (Photo by Christian Petersen\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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PHOENIX — The Suns were swept out of the first round of the NBA playoffs by the defending champion Thunder on Monday night at the Mortgage Matchup Center, but there\u2019s nothing for them to hang their heads about. By any stretch of the imagination, this was a successful season coming off last year\u2019s debacle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a good group, and nobody expected us to be in this position,\u201d guard Grayson Allen said in the hours before the Suns dropped a 131-122, Game 4 decision to Oklahoma City. \u201cDuring the regular season we realized what we had. Expectations grew about what we could accomplish. But we\u2019re not happy with saying we just got into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kudos to majority owner Mat Ishbia for rebuilding the entire Suns basketball operations and roster on the fly. That came on the heels of his restructuring the WNBA Mercury into a fast-paced product that was quickly wiped out of the playoffs in 2024 at the end of the Diana Taurasi-Britteny Griner era to a team that surprisingly made the finals<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n Like the Suns, the Mercury went four and out against a much better Las Vegas squad that won the WNBA title for the third time in the past four seasons. But the resurgence of the Mercury was evident. Ishbia opened a state-of-the-art practice facility for the women and restocked the team. <\/p>\n \u201cThey went out and got great players in the offseason,\u201d Aces coach Becky Hammon said at the time. \u201cWhen you do that, other players want to come over and join them. They also did a nice job getting overseas talent. And there\u2019s the investment of the ownership group. You want to come into a practice facility like they have. You want to be treated well like they do. You want that kind of care. Phoenix has stepped forward and done all that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Suns Parlayed The Surprising Mercury Season<\/p>\n The Thunder far eclipse the current Suns, and the verdict is still out on whether they will repeat. There\u2019s three more tough playoff rounds to go for OKC, including another likely trip to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n The Suns couldn\u2019t stop star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had a Game 3 for the ages with 42 points on 87% shooting in all areas. He made 26 of 30 shots overall, missing only one from two-point range, two from beyond the three-point stripe and a single free throw.<\/p>\n Really?\u201d Shai said when told those numbers. \u201cI should have shot more.\u201d<\/p>\n The Suns tried to defend him and at times it got pretty physical. But you\u2019re not a league MVP without some sort of chops. Dillon Brooks, a friend of SGA and a fellow Canadian citizen from Ontario, said not to worry, “I\u2019ve got him in Game 4.” <\/p>\n Jordan Ott, at the end of his first season as Suns\u2019 coach, thought that was pretty rich.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, Dillon is as competitive as anyone,” Ott said. “He\u2019s got a little friendship there. We\u2019ve liked some of the looks we\u2019ve given [SGA]. It\u2019s a little different over time. There\u2019s not one guy that\u2019s ever going to guard him. We\u2019ll change the matchups, try to take the ball out of his hands and Dillon is certainly part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n All that didn\u2019t work very much better in Game 4, either, as Shai scored a much more pedestrian 31 points, on 10-for-17 shooting from the field and 9-for-11 from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have mutual respect,\u201d SGA said afterward on national TV about Brooks, his Team Canada teammate. \u201cHe\u2019s the ultimate competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n Be that as it may, the Suns have now dropped 10 consecutive playoff games dating back to Game 4 of a six-game series loss to Denver in the second round of the 2023 postseason. That was two coaches ago and a whole rash of player turnover. Devin Booker is the only one remaining from the 2022-23 team.<\/p>\n Ott Has Established Himself As The Suns\u2019 Coach<\/p>\n Ott is the fourth coach in the Ishbia era, following Monty Williams, Frank Vogel, and Mike Budenholzer \u2013 the Suns are still paying Vogel and Budenholzer. Ott\u2019s a slam dunk to be the first coach retained by Ishbia since he purchased the franchise from Robert Sarver for a value of $4 billion on Feb. 6, 2023. <\/p>\n Considering serious injuries to Allen, Brooks, Booker, Jalen Green, Mark Williams and Jordan Goodwin, Ott did a magnificent job keeping the team in focus and in contention.<\/p>\n Of the current roster, Booker, Brooks, and Green are the only sure returnees for next season. Everything else is fluid. Green and Brooks were the key elements of the trade that sent Kevin Durant to Houston. Brooks, with his hard-nosed hockey enforcer style of play, emerged as a leader of the team <\/a>along with Booker.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve just got to keep it going,\u201d Ott said. \u201cWe\u2019re right there.\u201d<\/p>\n