Suns guard Jalen Green shoots as Los Angeles Clippers forward Derrick Jones Jr., left, and guard Kris Dunn defend during the first half of an NBA basketball game Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif.
Phoenix Suns guard Collin Gillespie, right, regains control of the ball against Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander during the first half of Game 4 in a first-round NBA playoffs basketball series, Monday, April 27, 2026, in Phoenix.
LAUREN GILGER: The Phoenix Suns start their 2026-27 season tonight in Portland against the Trail Blazers. The Suns ended last season with 45 wins, good for eighth in the Western Conference. And after making it through the play-in round, they got swept out of the playoffs by the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder.
But despite the result, many observers considered the Suns’ season a surprising success. So how do they follow that up this season?
My co-host Mark Brodie spoke with Duane Rankin about that. He covers the Suns for the Arizona Republic. And they started with the fact that the team management seemed generally happy with last season’s team and, by and large, decided to bring back many of those players.
DUANE RANKIN: They were happy in terms of how they played. They were big on identity, new identity, new culture, play hard, be physical, be aggressive. And so that all played into all the changes that they made. When you trade away Kevin Durant and then you bring in a Dylan Brooks who is a culture setter — he’s been that, that’s what he’s been his entire career—that was a huge change in the sense of last year’s team.
So for them to have 45 wins, new head coach, basically elevated Brian Gregory to the GM. When you do all these moves, OK you do all this, what’s going to be the result of it? And the result of it was getting to the playoffs, and even though they were swept by Oklahoma City, the defending NBA champs. Everything that they wanted to happen in terms of establishing an identity led by Matt Ishbia, that all came to fruition.
So now it’s how do you build off of that and keeping continuity, and resigning Collin Gillespie, Mark Williams, Jordan Goodwin; Dylan Brooks got a new deal. So you’re doing all those things to keep that continuity, but they made some subtle changes ... with the Miles Bridges, trade away two shooters and got a player that’s younger, more athletic. And then added Luke Kennard. So they made some changes here and there, but they were big changes.
MARK BRODIE: Let me ask you about the Miles Bridges trade, because that one obviously came with a lot of questions from off the court, in addition to what he would bring and how he would fit into the Suns’ style of play on the court. Does that seem to have been a distraction at all for this team, as it seems like it maybe could have been?
Partial silhouette showing the chest and shoulders of an athletic-looking man gripping a basketball in both hands, shrouded in thick smoke. The whole image has a purple tint.
The Phoenix Suns start training camp for their upcoming season later this month. It’s been an eventful offseason for the Suns, after their surprise trip to the NBA playoffs last season. And one of the most talked-about moves was for a player named Miles Bridges.
DUANE RANKIN: Within the team, no. But we’re not going to sugarcoat this and act like the issues with Miles Bridges coming to the team. There’s ... a certain segment of the fanbase that still isn’t happy with the trade. But on the flip side of that, in terms of his play, I think what the Suns tried to establish in trading for him is a younger, more athletic player who they can have for years to come to play along with Devin Booker.
So there’s a lot of talent that comes with him, but the idea of bringing in a player like this is still going to be something that’s going to be a topic of conversation because of his past. So that’s something that you’re going to have to determine throughout the season whether someone likes it or don't like it. But at the end of the day, as far as on the court, he’s a player that brings a high value. So I’m curious to see how they utilize him throughout the year, because he can do a lot of things.
MARK BRODIE: You mentioned the Suns won many more games last year than a lot of folks expected, they made the playoffs, they got swept by the defending champions. But a lot of people, as you referenced, still considered last season a success. What seems to be a reasonable expectation, or maybe what is the team’s expectation for itself going into this season?
DUANE RANKIN: I think the team believes that they can have a better year. In fact, I know they think they can have a better year. The problem is that the West is a monster.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah.
DUANE RANKIN: You can have a better team. I’ve been saying all summer, I think they can have a better team than they had, but not have a better record — or just have the same record they had last year. I think they could win between 45 and 49 games, but be better, a better team. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to translate into you winning the first round of a playoff series, because looking at this as steps, the next step is be a top six seed and win a playoff series. Well, if you are a six seed, you’re still going to be an underdog in the series.
So you’ve got to look at the West, and it’s San Antonio, it’s Oklahoma City, Denver, Houston, Minnesota, Lakers. Utah will be better. It’s a lot. You can go on and on with the teams in this conference.
One of the things that’s been brought up is that a lot of teams were tanking last year. Now with the new anti-tanking rules, you’re not going to get some of these wins that they may have gotten last year because teams were tanking. And so that’s going to change, the NBA hopes, significantly on competition. So we’ll see the competition and how they respond to it. But they believe they have a better team, they believe they have more continuity, and they believe they can go further than they did last year. Now, believing and doing is two different things.
MARK BRODIE: Right. OK, so obviously, Devin Booker’s performance, his health, would seem to be a key to the Suns’ season, as it seems to be every year. Beyond sort of the top guy or couple of guys, from your perspective, who are some guys where if the Suns are to have a better year this year, they are going to have to step up and maybe take their games to the next level?
DUANE RANKIN: I think you’ve got to start with Booker, because he has to shoot the ball better from three than he did last year. Now, part of that is creating shots for him and things of that nature, but you still have to start with Booker. Maybe it’s more assists, maybe it’s higher percentage from three, maybe it’s defending better.
Right now they have four guys on their team that’s averaged 20 points at one point in a season: that’s Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks, Miles Bridges and Devin Booker. You’ve got four guys that’s capable of giving you that every night. So how that’s dispersed will be interesting to see.
But if I’m looking at a couple players, one is Jalen Green, because they’re going to ask him to handle the ball more, facilitate more, get more guys involved. So he’s going to have to be able to do that without turning the ball over and be able to get guys shots. So that’s the first aspect I’m looking at.
Then the other part is at the big position. No Mark Williams for, I would dare to say, the first three months of the season for sure, if not the first four with the shoulder, with the torn labrum. So [Oso] Ighodaro and Khaman Maluach at that center position is huge. They’ve got to be able to hold their own at that spot. That doesn’t mean .... they don't have to be Nikola Jokić.
But they’ve got to hold their own. They can’t be a liability on the court. And if they do that, then this team could do some damage — particularly Maluach, because there’s going to be some games that, quite frankly, he’s going to have a tough out there. It’s going to be a rough night. But then there’s going to be some games he’s going to play well. So the fewer rough nights and the more good to possibly great nights, the better for the Suns.
MARK BRODIE: All right, it’ll be interesting to see, for sure. That is Duane Rankin. He covers the Phoenix Suns for the Arizona Republic. Duane, thanks so much. Enjoy the season.
DUANE RANKIN: No problem. Thank you, guys.
KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created for audience accessibility. Transcripts are created on deadline with the assistance of AI tools and then edited, and may not be in their final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio segment.
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