Each week the Fantable — a round table of Bright Siders — give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.
Fantable Questions of the Week
Q1 - Which Suns player on the Suns’ roster do you believe is the best bet to outperformfan expectations this year?
GuarGuar: I think Jalen Green is the best bet to outperform fan expectations this year. He’s still very young and is coming from a team that finished 2nd in the west in which he was a leading scorer. He just had an awful first round playoff series so I’m hoping that was a wake up call for him and he’s really worked hard this summer to prove people wrong. There is undeniable talent with Green, it’s just about becoming a more efficient version of himself.
Ashton: All the onus is on Booker. Again.
He needs to manage the ball-handling duties while trying to reassert his all-star role as a shooter. No big ask there, right? I see nothing changing in Jonathon Ott’s offensive scheme in Point Book, but Booker did not exactly overwhelm in the last season. Decent numbers, but he must involve his young teammates without doing too much. Just during crunch time.
But what is the question asking, who do you see as out-performing fan expectations? So, you have to deep-dive the ones that are mentioned the least.
Grayson Allen.
Is he traded, or is he not? But bulked up GA after finally getting some sleep from having a child last year and then starts to hit from three with regularity. Let’s go with the low-end of 34 percent from beyond to the arc to help free up Book in his middle range shooting while Book still trying to facilitate the Pick and Roll with the Bigs.
Again, this is a tough question, but if the Suns have a true threat at the three, then the other options become possible rather than ISO/ turnover KD. Does Book do the same?
OldAz: This one is really hard for me because so much of this Suns team is new. There are so many new players, in a new offensive and defensive scheme that we have yet to see, with a new coaching staff and FO whose philosophies we have heard but not seen in practice.
All this combines to make it really hard for me to get a good handle on setting expectations for any player beyond maybe Booker and Dunn. I include Dunn because of what he showed in his rookie season, and demonstrating a strong desire to improve over the offseason as shown in Summer League play. This leaves me with 2 options for this question. I can either go with the player I have the lowest expectations of or the young player that I think will get enough opportunity to really outperform what a rookie can do.
NBAE via Getty Images
Since we don’t know how minutes will be divided among the front court, I will go with option A and go with Grayson Allen. GA had a down year last season, and most are attributing that to gaining weight (muscle) last off season, but I suspect becoming a new father also played a role, and he just never got back on schedule. This season no one seems to know how he will fit in or what his role will be. If they want to trade him before the deadline, they will have to find him minutes. He is also a gritty vet who can shoot, and if he gets enough time on the floor, he could easily exceed many fans low expectations for him.
Rod: Nigel Hayes-Davis. He seems to be ignored by many fans, and I suppose that’s because he’s played most of his career in Europe. I believe he’s going to be a surprise to many as a solid team player that could be a key piece in Ott’s player rotation simply because he’ll play smart and not make many mistakes. He won’t be a spectacular player that makes you go “Wow!” a lot but a glue guy that helps everything else hold together instead of falling apart.
Q2 - The Suns’ current roster’s average level of NBA experience is 3.4 years, and only four players currently on the Suns’ roster (Booker - 10, Brooks - 8, O’Neale - 8, and Allen - 7) have more than 5 years. The league average for 2024-25 was 4.065 years, and only 3 teams had a lower average than this year’s Suns.
Does this lack of experience concern you?
GuarGuar: Well this lack of experience makes me think it’s going to be very hard to make the playoffs in this crazy tough Western Conference. There’s still a big learning curve for the majority of our players, and that’s something that’s hard to overcome while winning at the same time. It’s not a concern for me as long as there’s big time growth from multiple players this season.
Ashton: Honestly, not that much. This is the way of the NBA and CBA these days. The older you get, the more expensive you get. Such is life.
If the CBA caps are increased or at least punitive in a voted player/owner CBA in 2028, I have no doubt that Ishbia will use it to his advantage.
I assume this is part of the master plan to stay under the second apron and so I am not shocked at these numbers. Suns and fans just have to hope their draft picks hit while remaining young. The pick cupboard is bare, so I imagine it will take some hardcore Suns fans to remain young while watching this team for the next few years.
OldAz: This is another difficult one for many of the same reasons I mentioned in question #1. If the former front office were still around and Monty were still coaching, then it would be pretty close to the worst-case scenario because Monty all but abandoned development of young players to basically let CP3 dictate how they would play. Hard to blame him when it led to so many wins, but I was always wanting more emphasis on player development because more was needed from those players when the playoffs came around.
But this is a new regime and a new staff is in place. They have said all the right things and having a younger crew should allow them to play with more tempo and energy that was so lacking the last 2 seasons. There will be mistakes made, but I am excited to watch a team play with passion and effort, and also get better as the season goes along.
Rod: It doesn’t concern me a lot as the Suns’ 4 most experienced players are all expected to be starters or rotation players instead of end-of-their-career vets on minimum contracts that would mostly sit on the end of the bench while hopefully mentoring their younger players. As the Suns had the 3rd most experienced team in the NBA last season…well, we all saw how well that worked out so I’m not particularly concerned that they’ve swung back to the other extreme. Hopefully they haven’t swung too far back in the opposite direction but, with the exception of the rookies, the youth they have this season have had meaningful court time experience rather than just spot minutes during their time in the league. Sometimes it’s the quality of the experience rather than the quantity that matters most, and I think most of the younger guys will be a big plus for the Suns this year.
Q3 - Which players would you choose as the best possible defensive lineup for the Suns?
GuarGuar: Our best defensive unit probably would be Goodwin, Dunn, Brooks, Oso, Maluach. Lots of switch-ability and grit in that lineup. I highly doubt that 5 man unit ever sees a single minute though!
Ashton: This question is drier than the current desert heat summers. We may get some precipitation this week, but that just means hot and muggy. Like North Carolina.
Looking up the best Phoenix Suns players DPTRG on Statmuse:
Gar Heard, Curtis Perry, Shawn Marion, Rodney Rodgers, Jason Kidd
Not a bad list!
Fine. I will leave the question there because I literally have no idea what all these new players are bringing to the table for the 2025-26 roster! This is such a trap question that it is literally unanswerable. But if Rod asks, then Rod gets.
Olympic Book. Okay, try not to laugh too much. When Book gets double-teamed, he goes and pouts to the refs, usually to his detriment.
Jalen Green. Nah, I am kidding here. A much-ballyhooed prospect in 2021 for his perimeter defensive skills, he is now dead on average in NBA DPTRG. Maybe he regains a better percentage with a change of scenery.
Brooks and Dunn. Sorry, I had to do it at least once. Eventually, you all will too! Where can I link YouTube again? But let’s just say that should cover the forward positions.
Center. Hmm…Does anyone realize that the Suns have four people at or over 7ft? That is one tall team. Mark Williams is a blocking force when healthy. It remains to be seen what he can do with defensive rebounds.
OldAz: The front court is easy for me, in that Williams, Brooks and Dunn appears to be a pretty potent front line defensively right out of the gate. We can all hope that Maluach and Fleming also develop into strong defensive forces because that would allow the Suns to move one of the aforementioned wings into a guard spot on the best defensive lineup.
As of now, the options for guards defensively are pretty abysmal. Booker might crack this backcourt to start the season, but every Suns fan should recognize that he is far from a defensive stalwart.
For now, I might shift O’Neale up to one of the guard spots if I wanted an all-defensive lineup, at least until some of the younger players get their feet wet and show they are ready for the NBA. That leaves me with Booker, O’Neale, Brooks, Dunn, and Williams, at least at the start of the season.
Rod: Jordan Goodwin, Dillon Brooks, Ryan Dunn, Oso Ighodaro, and Mark Williams. This group would be a bit ‘offensively challenged,’ which is why I wouldn’t trust it on the court for long periods of tim,e but if the objective was to get defensive stops, this is who I’d go with. Plenty of size in the frontcourt with Ighodaro and Williams, three defensive pests in the backcourt in Goodwin, Brooks, and Dunn, and this group should also be pretty good when switching.
As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!
On August 14, 2008, the Suns signed Lou Amundson as a free agent. While Amundson rarely made a big impact on the scoreboard, his enthusiasm and high-energy style of play quickly made him a fan favorite off the bench. In the 2009/10 season, he was part of the near legendary “Bench Mob” made up of Lou, Goran Dragic, Jared Dudley, Channing Frye, and Leandro Barbosa, who weren’t just good enough to hold a lead but at times could blow games open. Then coach Alvin Gentry utilized the bench mob like a hockey coach, structuring the minutes so that the entire second unit would be on the floor together to start the second and fourth quarters in every game. Lou is also remembered as the prankster who once filled Shaquille O’Neal’s ride up to the brim with popcorn.
On August 16, 1987, former Sun Nick Vanos and his fiancée, Carolyn Cohen, tragically died when their plane crashed after takeoff from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan en route to Phoenix. Vanos and Cohen were among the 154 passengers and crew who died in the crash. Vanos was 24 and had just finished his second season in the NBA after being selected by Phoenix in the second round of the draft with the 32nd pick. Vanos played college ball at Santa Clara University, the same college where Steve Nash would play almost ten years later.
Last week’s question was “How many games do you believe Suns center Mark Williams will play this season?”
??? - Less that half (41 games)
??? - 41-50 games
??? - 51-60 games
Because of the changeover to the new format, all the old polls disappeared so I don’t know for certain about the results, but the day before the changeover happened, “41-50 games” was leading by a wide margin in the voting.
Sept. 13 - Valley Suns Open Tryouts @ ASU Sun Devil Fitness Complex in Tempe (9 am-12:30 pm)
Sept. 23 - Media day
Sept. 24 - Training Camp opens
Oct. 3 - Preseason game vs LA Lakers @ Palm Desert, CA
Oct. 10 - Preseason game vs Brooklyn Nets (China)
Oct. 12 - Preseason game vs Brooklyn Nets (China)
Oct. 14 - Preseason game vs LA Lakers @ Phoenix, AZ
Oct. 20 - Rosters set for NBA Opening Day (5 p.m. ET)
Oct. 21 - Regular Season Begins
Jan. 5 - 10-day contracts may now be signed
Jan. 10 - All NBA contracts are guaranteed for the remainder of the season
Feb. 5 - Trade deadline (3:00 pm ET)
Feb. 13-15 - 2026 NBA All-Star weekend in Los Angeles, CA
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