The mirage of championship odds fading fast for Phoenix

The Phoenix Suns’ early struggles have set the stage for a challenging remainder of the season.

It’s been a rocky, gut-punch of a start for the Phoenix Suns. A cocktail of frustration and déjà vu. Unexpected? Sure. But maybe we should’ve seen it coming. After all, we watched this same tragic play unfold last season.

Back then, we blamed it on the supporting cast. The depth — or lack thereof — surrounding the Big Three. Damn you, Yuta Watanabe! Sprinkle in a dash of terrible luck with injuries, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for underperformance relative to expectation, especially when crunch time rolled around.

Flash forward a year, and it’s the same tired tune. Through 32 games, this team has scraped together 15 wins and swallowed 17 losses. The narrative hasn’t evolved. It’s just wearing a slightly different outfit.

Let’s not sugarcoat this. Health — or the glaring lack of it — is enemy number one. Let’s stop kidding ourselves and admit the obvious. When Devin Booker and Kevin Durant share the floor, the Suns are a dazzling 13-4. When one of them is out, though? A brutal, soul-sucking 2-13. That’s the story, folks. Everything else that’s wrong with this squad — pick your poison: cohesion, depth, consistency — all stems from that one brutal truth.

And let’s not forget, they’ve had the second-highest payroll missed in the league, according to Spotrac. Let that sink in. Pretending injuries aren’t a factor here isn’t just naive. It’s flat-out delusional.

You can keep pointing fingers at the roster construction. It’s low-hanging fruit, and honestly, you wouldn’t be wrong. The Suns gutted their future, shipping off one of the most reliable ironmen the league has ever seen in Mikal Bridges for an aging Kevin Durant. They traded seasoned leadership for the frailty of Bradley Beal, a guy whose “day-to-day” status feels more permanent than his contract. And yet, here we are, watching the dream of a championship drift further away like a mirage in the desert.

The Suns are further away from a championship now than they were two years ago.

Pull up any metric that tracks the Suns’ odds of winning a title, and you’ll find yourself shaking your head, maybe even laughing to keep from crying. This was supposed to be the team, the juggernaut perched at the top of the Western Conference, lording over everyone. Instead, they’re sitting at 11th, barely visible in the standings. And believe it or not, that’s one of the more flattering stats in this dumpster fire of a season.

FanDuel: +2300 to Win the NBA Finals

Let’s talk about the gambling apps for a second. Despite their misfortunes, whether self-inflicted or not, the Suns somehow still cling to the 8th-best odds to win the championship this season. Yeah, you read that right. Kind of wild when you think about how poorly they’ve performed, isn’t it?

Remember that meltdown against the Pelicans? The team that had dropped nine straight games and somehow the Suns gifted them just their fifth win of the year? Yeah. They haven’t won since. But sure, let’s keep pretending everything’s fine.

Still, Vegas hasn’t completely soured on Phoenix’s championship odds. Maybe they know something we don’t. Maybe they’ve crunched the same numbers and come to the same conclusion: if this team has Devin Booker and Kevin Durant healthy and on the court, they’ve got a shot. And let’s be honest—that’s what we’re all clinging to at this point.

As for other odds?

• +390 to win the Pacific Division (behind the Clippers, Lakers, and Warriors)
• +1500 to win the Western Conference (7th)

Tankathon: Suns will have the 12th pick in the NBA Draft

Oh, but it goes to Houston.

Remember Tankathon? Gosh. For a decade, I lived on that site, predicting where the Suns would land in the lottery, looking at prospect profiles, and trying to predict who they would draft. De’Aaron Fox? No, Josh Jackson. Luka Doncic? No, Deandre Ayton.

Well, Tankathond believes the Suns will miss the postseason as well, this time earning the 12th pick in the draft. But, seeing as we sent all of our draft capital to Brooklyn, who then traded it to the Houston Rockets, we’ll get to watch who they choose. Yeah, the Rockets, who are currently the third seed in the West.

Basketball Reference: 0.0% of Winning a Championship

Well, that’s a number that makes my stomach churn. And it’s not from the chocolate martini’s on New Year’s night…although those did do their damage.

Pop over to Basketball Reference’s ‘Playoff Probabilities’ page, and you’ll get a sobering dose of reality. This is where their cold, hard data predicting how the league shakes out lives. Spoiler alert: it’s not exactly a love letter to the Phoenix Suns.

Right now, the algorithm has Phoenix stumbling to a 38-44 finish, which feels like a gut punch compared to the preseason hype and that shiny 47.5 over/under Vegas dangled in front of us. We all believed that over 47.5 was the way to go.

But wait, there’s more! Let’s sprinkle in some other percentages to really get your blood boiling or, at the very least, make you question your life choices for buying into the hype. Shall we?

• 1.6% chance of winning the Pacific Division
• 11.6% chance of making the playoffs
• 62.8% of missing the postseason/Play-In

How’s that for crap in a bucket?

---

The odds are not in our favor.

Phoenix has dug themselves a hole, and the way out of it is not to keep digging. The talent is there, but I’m not sure if, as constructed, this team has the ability to do so. When you’re handing the Pelican their only win in the month of December, when you’re losing to a Grizzlies team that only has nine players available, there might be issues greater than the talent you possess. Odds are you need to make a change.