Can the Suns Keep Burning Bright?
The Suns have been the biggest surprise of the season, but can they keep it up?
The Phoenix Suns have, without a doubt, been the most pleasant surprise of the season. Following an offseason that saw them offload Kevin Durant for a lukewarm package, buyout Bradley Beal, and replace Mike Budenholzer with rookie head coach Jordan Ott, the expectations in the desert were lower than Death Valley.
Well, we’re nearly halfway through the regular season, and the Suns are seventh in the Western Conference, only half a game out of sixth, and have outperformed their preseason expectations more than any team in the league. Using Hoops Rumors’ over/unders, I calculated which teams are on pace to most outstrip their preseason win totals based on their current win percentage, and the Suns come in at a whopping +17.7.
Now, using a team’s current win percentage isn’t the best way to predict future performance. Point differential is a better predictor of future performance, and the Suns have been a tad fortunate on their way to a 24-16 record. However, even when you factor in their expected record over the rest of the season using their current point differential, they still hold the top spot, but their win pace slides ever so slightly to 48.15, which would still net the largest overperformance in the league.
The Suns, forecast for a cloudy 82-game season, have been radiant and look poised for their season to continue past mid-April. But, and I hate to say it, preseason expectations exist for a reason. They’re not etched in stone, but they’re also not conjured out of thin air, and a lot of the Suns’ success is coming from surprising sources.
Solar Energy
The Suns headed into the 2025 offseason with a plan to embrace a hard-working, gritty brand of basketball. Now, every front office, owner, and coach professes their intention to be the bluest-collar basketball program, but the Suns put their roster where their mouth was. As part of the Kevin Durant trade, they landed Dillon Brooks, who had helped install a hard-nosed defensive culture in Houston. Their buyout of Bradley Beal opened up minutes for more defensive-oriented players. And they brought in Mark Williams at center to address one of their biggest weaknesses from the previous season.
As great as it is to say you’re going to build a tough, hard-working team, it’s a hell of a lot tougher to do. But the Suns have managed to thread the needle. Their 115.9 offensive rating ranks 13th, a smidge above the league average of 115.7. But their defense ranks eighth at 113.2 points per 100 possessions, in a virtual tie with the Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves. And, they’re playing a very particular brand of basketball.
The Suns’ defense has been excellent, but it isn’t a juggernaut across the board. They rank 26th in defensive rebound rate (72%) and 23rd in free throw to field goal attempt ratio (.223). On top of that, their opponent effective field goal percentage of 54% only ranks 12th, and is more mediocre than good. However, to offset their issues on the boards and with fouling, they’ve been elite at generating turnovers, ranking second in opponent turnover percentage (15%).
The source of the Suns’ energy comes almost exclusively from turnover generation, which presents a problem. If they can’t turn you over, how are they supposed to stop you? Fortunately, turnover generation is a largely repeatable skill, and it doesn’t appear that the Suns are outperforming their underlying metrics. Deflections per game have a linear correlation of 0.85 to opponent turnovers per game, and the Suns’ 20.3 deflections per game rank fourth in the league, just behind the Cavaliers at 20.4 and Pistons at 20.7 in second and third.
If there is one concern with their turnover creation, it is who is doing it. Using steals per 36 minutes as a proxy for individual turnover creation, the Suns have a host of players who are way outperforming their previously established levels.
Suns Per 36 Minutes Steals, 2025-26 vs Career
*Yellow denotes career high is 2025-26 season
Among Suns who have eclipsed 500 minutes played this season, six are enjoying a career-high in steals per 36 minutes, and every single player is above their career average. This doesn’t suggest an imminent collapse, but rather presents more evidence of a clear tactical shift; however, it does create a small opportunity for regression, which could have a cascading effect, as their entire defensive approach is predicated on elite turnover generation.
However, I’m not overly concerned about the Suns’ ability to generate turnovers. There is ample evidence that this is how they intend to play, and their underlying metrics are in line with their results. If there is one thing for the Suns to be apprehensive about, it is opponent 3-point shooting.
As much as turnover generation is the straw that stirs the drink, the Suns’ defense needs to remain adequate at limiting opponent shooting efficiency. On the season, the Suns’ opponents have shot 34.9% from three, well below the league average of 35.8%. While the Suns don’t allow many threes in the first place, their 35.5 opponent 3-point attempts per 100 possessions is the eighth lowest; they do allow around a league-average rate of corner threes at league-average efficiency.
Fan bases swear their team is actually excellent at defending the 3-point line, and perhaps the Suns are, but they really need to be to make this all work. If the Suns had allowed opponents to shoot a league-average efficiency from three, they would have conceded 13 more threes, netting their opponents 39 more points. For a team that’s this close to average, marginal differences add up very quickly.
Basking in Boards
The Suns’ try-hard makeover doesn’t stop on defense. Similar to their defense, they’re largely powered by one weird trick. The Suns rank 16th in team eFG% (54.2%), 21st in turnover percentage (13.4%), 27th in free throw to field goal ratio (.185), but fifth in offensive rebound rate (29.5%). As the Rockets have shown, being excellent on the offensive glass is a legitimate offensive strategy, but there is one small, or big, depending on how you look at it, problem.
The Suns’ best offensive rebounder, by far, is Mark Williams. Williams’ 3.1 offensive rebounds per game leads the team by 1.2 over second-place Jordan Goodwin, and his offensive rebound rate of 14.3% is second to the oft-used Nick Richards. Williams has quietly had a very strong season, making real strides as a defender, but his offensive rebounding is critical to the Suns’ offense. Unfortunately, banking on him staying healthy will always be tough. The most games Williams has ever played in a season is 44, and he’s currently on pace to blow past that.
While Nick Richards could replicate his offensive rebounding, his defense is significantly worse. As far as sustainability goes, the Suns’ ability to crash the offensive glass is legitimate, but the trickle-down effects of a Mark Williams absence could be surprisingly stark.
Shooting Stars
Perhaps more concerning is that the Suns have been incredibly reliant on Dillon Brooks and Collin Gillespie this season. Brooks is averaging 21.3 points per game on a career-best 53.7% shooting on twos, while simultaneously taking the fewest proportion of his shots within three feet of the basket. Brooks is posting career-best efficiency marks in the short mid-range and mid-range, which screams regression. Gillespie has much less of a track record to go off of, but that’s kind of a problem in its own right. It’s possible that Gillespie really is a volume 40% 3-point shooter, but the Suns absolutely need him to be that to survive.
However, the Suns have an ace in the hole that could make all of these concerns a moot point– Devin Booker. Booker needs little introduction. He is by far the Suns’ best player. He’s averaging 25.2 points and 6.5 assists per game, but he has the lowest eFG% since his second season in the league and the lowest 3-point efficiency of his career. Booker is still an excellent offensive player, but over the past two seasons, he has attempted 752 3-pointers and converted 32.4%.
The Suns desperately need Booker to rediscover his 3-point stroke. It’s weighing down his overall efficiency, and it’s the best antidote to any form of regress they are likely to experience. For as fantastic a season as the Suns are having, the most surprising part has been Booker’s lack of influence. It’s not that he’s not wildly important to the team, but the idea that the Suns beat the odds with a ho-hum Booker season would have sounded absurd five months ago.
The Suns probably aren’t quite as good as they’ve shown over their first 40 games, but this is definitely a far better team than expected. Even if their true talent level is just .500, that’s still a 9.5 win improvement on their over/under. While I expect the Thunder, Rockets, Nuggets, Timberwolves, and Spurs to all finish ahead of them in the standings, they’re a far better team than the Lakers and have a 2.5-game lead on the Warriors. I can’t believe I’m typing this, but at this point, I’d be disappointed if the Suns didn’t snag the sixth seed in the West.
For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.