Phoenix Suns: 5 Midseason Takeaways

3. The Season Is Lost

At 13-30, the Suns have lost 14 of their last 15 games. They’ve gone 7-26 since their 6-4 start, they’ve lost their best player who was in the middle of an All-Star caliber season and over the last month, THIS is the abominable list of losses that have threatened to push this team to a new season low with every passing game:

• vs. Milwaukee Bucks (no Giannis Antetokounmpo, nine-point lead in the fourth quarter)
• @ Utah Jazz (no Rudy Gobert, 21-point loss)
• vs. Denver Nuggets (no Danilo Gallinari, Emmanuel Mudiay, Jusuf Nurkic or Wilson Chandler)
• vs. Philadelphia 76ers (a home loss to a 1-30 team supplied by Ish Smith‘s revenge game and Bledsoe’s injury)
• vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (a narrow home loss where the Cavs pulled away on a lucky bounce that led to Kyrie Irving‘s clutch three-pointer on a broken play)
• @ San Antonio Spurs (a 33-point defeat at the hands of the team that won the LaMarcus Aldridge sweepstakes)
• @Oklahoma City Thunder (a four-point loss that is one of only two respectable losses on this list)
• @Sacramento Kings (a 33-point pounding that saw the Kings put up a whopping 142 points in regulation)
• @Los Angeles Lakers (a 20-point smackdown that saw the Suns score 77 points against the NBA’s worst defense)
• vs. Miami Heat (a gut-wrenching, close loss in Goran Dragic and Gerald Green‘s revenge games)
• @ Indiana Pacers (the Suns were outscored 36-21 in the final period after taking a third quarter lead)
•  @Boston Celtics (Boston blew the game open late in the second quarter and held a 21-point halftime lead)
• @Minnesota Timberwolves (an embarrassing 30-point rout against a team that had lost 13 of its last 14 games)
• vs. Indiana Pacers (a respectable loss to a good team, but one that saw only Devin Booker give a damn for the first two and a half quarters)

PHEW. That sound you heard was the sound of Suns fans vomiting uncontrollably.

It’s not just the manner of the losses either. Though the Western Conference has gotten off to a shockingly slow start, the Suns have worked their way to six games out of the eighth seed in the Western Conference. Even if Phoenix somehow made an improbable run to the postseason, they’d be crushed in the first round by the Golden State Warriors or San Antonio Spurs.

“Now without Eric, we almost all have to be hitting on all cylinders to win,” Hornacek said before the Pacers game. Unfortunately for the Suns, they rarely have three players hitting on all cylinders these days, let alone everyone.

While playoff experience would be good for youngsters like Knight, Booker, Len and Warren, it’d serve no purpose for this team moving forward. More importantly, it’s not going to happen anyway. With that in mind, the only silver lining here is the abundance of minutes that the younger players are earning in what has become a developmental year.

"“That’s the way you have to look at it,” Hornacek said. “It’s not like we’re just giving them the minutes right now, they’ve kind of earned them for their positions and again, they’re gonna have bright spots and they’re gonna have not so bright spots. And that’s part of the growing process with young players. “There’s not too many teams you see in the league that are winning a ton of games with two young players and you really look at Brandon Knight only being 24 — he’s been in the league for 4-5 years, whatever it is — but when you have a couple of young guys that play big minutes, sometimes it’s tough. But again, that’s gonna bode well for the future with those guys.”"

With the Suns sporting the fifth worst record in the NBA, their best player out for the rest of the season and the team in a complete downward spiral, the stars are aligning for a top-five pick in this year’s draft. Building from the middle up was a valiant effort, but now the focus needs to be tanking for a franchise superstar so this team can begin to assemble a true title contender.

Next: No. 2