The Official 2025 Offseason Thread #5 Dog Days

[bwgood77]

ESPN’s NBA insiders ranked the Phoenix Suns as one of the teams most likely to tumble in the upcoming 2025-2026 NBA season.

Mat Ishbia:

I'm not worried about what the so-called experts think. They had us as a title contender the past two years and were wrong then. We're focused on making our fans proud by playing great as a team and building a brand of basketball that's tough and gritty.

Making the Suns an even bigger joke nationally. Almost everyone is laughing at this one. I'm not.

But hey, why doom n gloom when you got Ishbia and Booker leading the way. Its gonna be such a fun season following those two winners.

I saw Mat's post. I haven't been around in like a month, because I figured it would be the same discussion repeatedly. Anything new?

[bwgood77]

That's kind of a low projected win total for the poll. I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable but I did an earlier poll and put ranges and most people were I think in the 36-40 range.

[Frank Lee]

Stfu Mat
Kind of makin me miss Bobby Sarver. Think I’d take his ignorance over Wishbia’s arrogance.

[Frank Lee]

That's kind of a low projected win total for the poll. I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable but I did an earlier poll and put ranges and most people were I think in the 36-40 range.

Most people lose money to the bookies

[Saberestar]

That's kind of a low projected win total for the poll. I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable but I did an earlier poll and put ranges and most people were I think in the 36-40 range.

The Phoenix Suns have a win total of 31.5 at the BetMGM online sportsbook ahead of the 2025-26 NBA season.

[Biff]

That's kind of a low projected win total for the poll. I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable but I did an earlier poll and put ranges and most people were I think in the 36-40 range.

If we won 40 games I would be astonished. We won 36 last year and we lost our best player. We were horrendous when KD was out, even when Booker played. I think even 30 games is somewhat optimistic. Wouldn't be surprised to see 25-26 wins. My prediction is 28-54.

[bwgood77]

That's kind of a low projected win total for the poll. I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable but I did an earlier poll and put ranges and most people were I think in the 36-40 range.

If we won 40 games I would be astonished. We won 36 last year and we lost our best player. We were horrendous when KD was out, even when Booker played. I think even 30 games is somewhat optimistic. Wouldn't be surprised to see 25-26 wins. My prediction is 28-54.

In the first thread I predicted 26-30. Yeah, I don't really see how we can win more than last year after losing KD and even Beal. I like our young guys and am actually more excited to have a team with some young talent (hopefully), but I can't think of a team we should finish ahead of, realistically. I guess maybe Utah...possibly the Kings, but I am not sure I even see that. But even if we got up to 13th, how many wins does a 13th place team usually have?

[bigfoot]

Last year's team lacked passion. They were not fun to watch. Low energy. Horrible rebounding. Horrible defensively. How bad were they defensively? The second worst defensive rating in the league. In fact, their defensive rating was a franchise worst. Fifty plus years and they put up a absolute stinker defensively.

Williams, Brooks, and Green should be improvements. Also, Maluach and Hayes-Davis. Just playing league average defense should make this team better.

[garrick]

Last year's team lacked passion. They were not fun to watch. Low energy. Horrible rebounding. Horrible defensively. How bad were they defensively? The second worst defensive rating in the league. In fact, their defensive rating was a franchise worst. Fifty plus years and they put up a absolute stinker defensively.

Williams, Brooks, and Green should be improvements. Also, Maluach and Hayes-Davis. Just playing league average defense should make this team better.

More watchable sure but better overall?

You really can't replace KD's offense and even Beal too when he was actually on the court so we took massive steps backwards offensively.

[lilfishi22]

Last year's team lacked passion. They were not fun to watch. Low energy. Horrible rebounding. Horrible defensively. How bad were they defensively? The second worst defensive rating in the league. In fact, their defensive rating was a franchise worst. Fifty plus years and they put up a absolute stinker defensively.

Williams, Brooks, and Green should be improvements. Also, Maluach and Hayes-Davis. Just playing league average defense should make this team better.

More watchable sure but better overall?

You really can't replace KD's offense and even Beal too when he was actually on the court so we took massive steps backwards offensively.

I feel we're better than a 31 win team but it's kinda hard to reconcile that with the fact that KD himself was worth at least a half dozen wins on his own and losing him means we lose that. So to go from a 36 win team and losing 6wins from KD, you're probably back below 30 wins.

I know it's a better team attitude, enthusiasm, effort and generally good vibes etc etc but does it account for the wins KD himself would be taking with him?

[garrick]

Last year's team lacked passion. They were not fun to watch. Low energy. Horrible rebounding. Horrible defensively. How bad were they defensively? The second worst defensive rating in the league. In fact, their defensive rating was a franchise worst. Fifty plus years and they put up a absolute stinker defensively.

Williams, Brooks, and Green should be improvements. Also, Maluach and Hayes-Davis. Just playing league average defense should make this team better.

More watchable sure but better overall?

You really can't replace KD's offense and even Beal too when he was actually on the court so we took massive steps backwards offensively.

I feel we're better than a 31 win team but it's kinda hard to reconcile that with the fact that KD himself was worth at least a half dozen wins on his own and losing him means we lose that. So to go from a 36 win team and losing 6wins from KD, you're probably back below 30 wins.

I know it's a better team attitude, enthusiasm, effort and generally good vibes etc etc but does it account for the wins KD himself would be taking with him?

If we added Williams, Brooks and rookies last season then yeah we are looking at a playoff team but the new additions don't make up for the super efficient offense that KD brought to the table.

Defensively we are also better but not an elite defensive team where we can eke out wins based on defense alone.

[Mr Puddles]

My main issue with the offseason moves is not centered on if we're better or more watchable than last season. I'm looking beyond this season: even if we defy expectations and reach the play-in tournament this year, there is a very limited pathway to improvement.

Basically our strategy is hoping we're extremely lucky with internal player development, and that we can hopefully land a good MLE player next season. Compare that to the situations other teams are in: far greater tradable assets and maneuverability than us (such as not having 20 mil a year in dead cap space).

There was essentially only one path towards rebuilding this team, and that was trading Booker. Isbiah forced his own hand here when.

Had we:
- traded Booker to the magic for the Bane return.
- did the same Houston trade, while using some assets from Orlando to get back our 2027.
- used the magic trade (or assets from the trade) to move below the second apron while keeping Beal.

We could have done a two year rebuild, getting back our own 2026/2027 (Washington's swap is protected) and then hit 2027 free agency with a bunch of cap space, two high picks in 2026/2027 and future picks left over from the magic trade.

That would have been a great position to be in.

Now we're basically looking forward to half a decade with a ceiling of mediocrity.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

I'm always for the return of the starburst but where is it on the jersey? Also is it true we're bringing the Valley Oops back? That one is already legendary in my books

[Sunsdeuce]

Read on Twitter

I'm always for the return of the starburst but where is it on the jersey? Also is it true we're bringing the Valley Oops back? That one is already legendary in my books

Changing the Suns uniform almost yearly loses the prestige factor. Boston, Lakers, Knicks don’t ever have to change uniforms and for the most part they haven’t except minor tweaks. Uniform style should have a 10 year life span. Never been a fan of changing uniforms all the time. Just loses the luster of the brand itself by doing it.

[lilfishi22]

More watchable sure but better overall?

You really can't replace KD's offense and even Beal too when he was actually on the court so we took massive steps backwards offensively.

I feel we're better than a 31 win team but it's kinda hard to reconcile that with the fact that KD himself was worth at least a half dozen wins on his own and losing him means we lose that. So to go from a 36 win team and losing 6wins from KD, you're probably back below 30 wins.

I know it's a better team attitude, enthusiasm, effort and generally good vibes etc etc but does it account for the wins KD himself would be taking with him?

If we added Williams, Brooks and rookies last season then yeah we are looking at a playoff team but the new additions don't make up for the super efficient offense that KD brought to the table.

Defensively we are also better but not an elite defensive team where we can eke out wins based on defense alone.

Adding Williams and Brooks will improve defense as we had the 3rd worst defense in the league last season but that's still contingent on Williams playing enough games and Brooks playing enough minutes too. I think overall, we should have a better defense (tough not to get better than 3rd worst) but I don't know how much better we would be and how many wins that would translate into. It's probably still a net decrease in wins as we're losing more games not having KD than we'll win playing better defense imo.

Once again, I think it basically comes down to coaching. The last couple of seasons, we obviously had world class talent but neither Vogel nor Bud had the formula to get it to work. This season, we don't have that top tier talent, so how Ott will coach this team so it's better than the sum of its parts will be the bigger x-factor.

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

I'm always for the return of the starburst but where is it on the jersey? Also is it true we're bringing the Valley Oops back? That one is already legendary in my books

Changing the Suns uniform almost yearly loses the prestige factor. Boston, Lakers, Knicks don’t ever have to change uniforms and for the most part they haven’t except minor tweaks. Uniform style should have a 10 year life span. Never been a fan of changing uniforms all the time. Just loses the luster of the brand itself by doing it.

Frequent design changes have become the norm in the NBA. In addition to the classic home and away designs (now called Association and Icon) and Statement edition (traditionally your alternate), there's now the city edition (more regional based design and changes every year). The classic home and away used to change every 4 years or so and now it's closer to 2 years.

But if you look at our main home and away, it's been a starburst since 23-24, before that it was a rather bland but clean design which had some small font variations but for the most part, was similar going back to 16-17 when we had a modern interpretation of the starburst going back to the Steve Nash/SSOL designs.

Some teams just stick with their minor tweaks, to the point where they look like they haven't changed in decades. But other teams' designs vary more so even though their designs change as often as every other team, they tend to be more noticeable.

I think the biggest factor in the issue you're bringing up is probably around the city and statement jerseys, whose designs change every year and often stray pretty far from the traditional team designs. The difference is that the Lakers, Boston and Knicks statement and even city jerseys tend to stay really modest and dare I say, not very exciting.

There's pros and cons to it for sure. If you're a Boston/Laker/Knicks then you'll rarely have a bad design but you're also never experimenting with newer, potentially better designs either, so while our worst jerseys are worse than their worst, I think our best easily beats their best.

These are the best rated jerseys according to Bball Jersey Archive for these teams:
Lakers - eh it's fine. Black mamba detail is kinda cool I guess

Spoiler:

Boston - also fine.

Spoiler:

Knicks - this is just their regular uniform, nothing special

Spoiler:

Suns - Instant. Classic.

Spoiler:

And you know, you don't deserve to have the Valley Oop era jersey if you don't take a gamble on these stinkers

Spoiler:

[Saberestar]

2025/26 Phoenix Suns Statement Edition shorts.

[Sunsdeuce]

2025/26 Phoenix Suns Statement Edition shorts.

These look like knock off shorts people use to buy back in the Kmart Era!

[Sunsdeuce]

I'm always for the return of the starburst but where is it on the jersey? Also is it true we're bringing the Valley Oops back? That one is already legendary in my books

Changing the Suns uniform almost yearly loses the prestige factor. Boston, Lakers, Knicks don’t ever have to change uniforms and for the most part they haven’t except minor tweaks. Uniform style should have a 10 year life span. Never been a fan of changing uniforms all the time. Just loses the luster of the brand itself by doing it.

Frequent design changes have become the norm in the NBA. In addition to the classic home and away designs (now called Association and Icon) and Statement edition (traditionally your alternate), there's now the city edition (more regional based design and changes every year). The classic home and away used to change every 4 years or so and now it's closer to 2 years.

But if you look at our main home and away, it's been a starburst since 23-24, before that it was a rather bland but clean design which had some small font variations but for the most part, was similar going back to 16-17 when we had a modern interpretation of the starburst going back to the Steve Nash/SSOL designs.

Some teams just stick with their minor tweaks, to the point where they look like they haven't changed in decades. But other teams' designs vary more so even though their designs change as often as every other team, they tend to be more noticeable.

I think the biggest factor in the issue you're bringing up is probably around the city and statement jerseys, whose designs change every year and often stray pretty far from the traditional team designs. The difference is that the Lakers, Boston and Knicks statement and even city jerseys tend to stay really modest and dare I say, not very exciting.

There's pros and cons to it for sure. If you're a Boston/Laker/Knicks then you'll rarely have a bad design but you're also never experimenting with newer, potentially better designs either, so while our worst jerseys are worse than their worst, I think our best easily beats their best.

These are the best rated jerseys according to Bball Jersey Archive for these teams:
Lakers - eh it's fine. Black mamba detail is kinda cool I guess

Spoiler:

Boston - also fine.

Spoiler:

Knicks - this is just their regular uniform, nothing special

Spoiler:

Suns - Instant. Classic.

Spoiler:

And you know, you don't deserve to have the Valley Oop era jersey if you don't take a gamble on these stinkers

Spoiler:

You are 100% right on everything you wrote. My point is, I kind miss sticking with a uniform for at least a decade so if there is a uniform change, it was huge news. Now we just change uniforms yearly so there is no magic/prestige behind the changes. It’s just summer fashion now. But it’s all about money so it’s going to be a thing now.