RealGM

Pace: 97.3 (11), OffRtg: 106.1 (5), DefRtg: 102.9 (17), NetRtg: +3.2 (9)
Goran Dragic shot 5-for-27 from outside the restricted area last week, but was still the key to the Suns' offense. Phoenix has been much better offensively with only Dragic on the floor than they have with only Eric Bledsoe on the floor. Part of that is spacing from shooters Channing Frye and Marcus Morris, who have both played 100-plus more minutes with Dragic than they have with Bledsoe

Can you really win in the NBA by riding two great guards and surrounding them with young, exuberant, athletic role players whose shooting won't seem to cool off? Can you believe we've been asking this question for almost 30 games? Hornacek & Co. keep winning with that exact mix.

7. Phoenix Suns
The longer this goes on, the more the Suns look like a real team and not some out-of-the-box fluke catching teams off guard with a dual point guard lineup, killer floor spacing, and a fast-breaking style. The Suns are plus-3.4 points per 100 possessions, tied with the Warriors for the eighth-best mark in the league, one that screams "LEGIT TEAM."

The Suns had no clue they'd be anywhere near this good after they unloaded Marcin Gortat. Channing Frye's name came up in various three-team trade proposals that would have sent Omer Asik elsewhere, and the Suns could still plummet down the standings if they move both Frye and Goran Dragic — or perhaps just one of them. Frye has perked up lately, and the Suns are thriving in a spread pick-and-roll attack based upon the ability of Frye and the Morris twins to hit outside shots. They're smoking teams when Dragic plays without Eric Bledsoe and struggling on both ends in the reverse situation.

This looks like an emphatic playoff team for now. Jeff Hornacek, the team's coach, says he has tried his best to get the team's mind off the possibility of making the playoffs. The team has the conference standings up in the locker room,8 and the players enjoy peeking at them and speculating, but Hornacek has tried to get them to focus on three-team chunks of games. "Win enough of those," he says, "and we'll probably be in the playoffs."

They're not a shoo-in, though. A trade could gut the big rotation, and P.J. Tucker is really the only natural small forward on the roster. The competition is stiff, and the Suns are a bottom-five defensive rebounding team. But they're more solid, so far, than any team below them here.

They are so consistent and fundamentally sound. Steve Clifford, Terry Stotts, both great choices but my pick for Coach of the Year early on, Non-Pop Division? Jeff Hornacek.

The Goran Dragic/Eric Bledsoe pairing is driving the offense most nights, but when Gerald Green gets rolling like he did against the Mavericks over the weekend (and the Suns are draining threes) they are especially dangerous

The Suns continue to play an extremely fun brand of basketball. Phoenix has one loss in their last eight games, and that was to San Antonio. In the last victory over the Mavs, the Suns put up 123 points and knocked 15 three-pointers, both season highs.

The Suns are on pace to win 50 games this season, which would be double their wins last season and far more than people expected out of the team that was supposed to finish in the West’s cellar. This pace is a gift, but the real treasure would be keeping it

A camera. To capture this moment right now. With a roster in flux, a first-year head coach calling the shots and a team that traded its starting center a day before the start of the season, the Suns are currently playoff-bound and the talk of the league.

The strangest thing about their success is that it actually is starting to make sense.

Fifth Horseman wrote:If we continue on this level throughout the season, Horny should be COY. The turnaround differential is the kicker. Just seeing how the players are playing with that sense of urgency and mentality is, running set plays, and executing, thats on the coach.