Suns having their best regular season ever

[insidehoops]

This has been the best Phoenix Suns season in franchise history. Some notes:

http://www.insidehoops.com/blog/?p=27956

[wagexslave]

IF the Suns manage to win out, is this the greatest regular season by any team ever? Serious question. They probably have a stronger case than you might think.

Yes winning out would only give them a tie for the top 5 all-time record. But as far as I'm aware, none of the teams who had more wins in a season had to go through even CLOSE to the same level of BS and adversity the Suns have had to put up with this season. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.

But right off the rip, the Suns(and ofc Bucks too) came into this season experiencing the 2nd shortest offseason in NBA history. Only the bubble Lakers/Heat had a shorter offseason. But at least those 2 teams had already gotten a fat break from the COVID season cancellation. And let's not forget that last year's regular season and even playoffs were condensed af compared to usual, playing so many more b2b's and less rest every week, so these players have been on the f*cking GRIND.

On top of that, Booker and McGee spent most of that offseason in Tokyo competing for a gold medal. Those 2 dudes have gotten damn near 0 free time to rest and enjoy life, family, vacation, etc ever since last season. The team in general did not look like they were ready for the short af offseason to end. And it showed in their play the first handful of games. They looked like a shell of their former(and current) selves, dropping to 1-3. Which is kind of crazy when you think about it... 3 of their 14 losses were in the first 4 games and easily could have been attributed to the burnout that this weird ass grindy couple of seasons have caused.

Then you gotta take into account all of the injuries and COVID bs the Suns had to deal with this season. According to Man-Games Lost, as of March 18th this is how their leaguewide chart stands:



With the Suns never-ending list of quality starters, rotation players, even MVP candidates etc constantly missing games due to injury, the fact that the Suns have managed to keep any semblance of consistency should be considered a miracle. In terms of flat out players missing games, the Suns were/are 6th in the league. And in terms of the actual value that those players contribute on the court over the value their backup replacements provide(aka their VORP stat), the Suns are 3rd in the league in missed talent on average this season according to these calculations.

Which makes sense, because damn near EVERYONE on the entire team(aside from Mikal Bridges who's still never missed a game in his career, god bless his soul) has missed decent chunks of time due to either injuries or COVID. Even Coach Monty and various other members of the coaching staff have been out at times. We just barely got Chris Paul back yesterday from that torn thumb ligament, he'd been out abount a month and a half. Our 6th man best 3pt shooter in the league Cam Johnson is still out ever since he had that insane 38 point game with no Booker or CP3 playing, where he hit that Buzzer Beater 3pt game winner... of course he has his career game and gets injured. Kaminsky was finally looking like he was having a breakout season and ofc he got injured early-on in the season and is still out. Saric has been dead cap since last season's NBA Finals where he tore his ACL. Payne, Crowder, Book, Ayton, Etc all missed significant stretches...

... Anyways you get the picture. I still don't understand how we've managed to rack up THIS many wins with all of the adversity this year. I've never seen anything quite like it. If anyone can think of another team that won 68 games or close with that many injuries and BS, let me know so I can give them the credit they deserve.

[wagexslave]

Damn I wrote this long ass post not realizing it was being posted on this inactive af team board.