The Phoenix Suns’ championship aspirations are melting faster than an Arizona popsicle in July. Their Friday night defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder (128-103) laid bare the team’s struggles, casting a long shadow over their playoff hopes.

This season, the narrative for the Suns hasn’t been about a lack of talent. It’s been about a lack of cohesion. Despite boasting a star-studded roster featuring Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal, the Suns have yet to click throughout the season. The sportsbooks are beginning to take notice.

Before the season tipped off, the odds for the Suns to win the NBA Finals were +600. Just a few weeks before the Play-In Tournament and Playoffs are set to begin, their odds are growing longer and are now +3000. Savvy bettors have picked up on this, paying close attention to NBA betting lines and adjusting their wagers to reflect the Suns’ injury problems and inconsistency.

The Best Ability Is Availability: Injuries Have Derailed the Season

Injuries, to be sure, have played a huge part. Question marks surrounding Bradley Beal’s ability to stay healthy when he came over from Washington seem to have been justified. The 6’4” guard from Florida has missed 30 games in his first season in the desert. He averages just 17.8 points per game – considerably less than his career average of 21.9 PPG. With two other elite scorers, this shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise. For that matter, he likely is averaging many more assists per game, right? Well, not exactly.

In his 44 games in an orange and purple uniform, Beal is averaging 5.2 assists per game – just one assist better than his career average of 4.3. Even without a “true” point guard, the Suns boast the 12th-most assists in the NBA at 27 per contest. If Beal had been healthy all season, who knows, perhaps the Suns would be well-positioned at the top of the Western Conference standings. As it is, they are fighting for a chance just to make the playoffs.

Booker – the face of the franchise – has also missed a handful of games. He’s been out of the lineup for 14 games or nearly 20% of the season. When he’s been in the lineup, he’s been a killer. For his part, though, Book is averaging a career-high 6.9 assists per game. Throughout the season pundits have talked about how running the offense through Book would be a detriment to his scoring prowess, but that hasn’t turned out to be the case. The shooting guard from Kentucky is averaging the second-best scoring output of his career at 27 PPG.

Despite being the oldest, the 35-year-old former Longhorn has been the most resilient of the Big Three, missing just 7 games all season, and seems to be getting better with time. The Suns may still be Devin Booker’s team, but Kevin Durant has been the most effective player on the court. Easy Money Sniper boasts a career-best 58.9 effective field goal percentage and is shooting nearly 42.5% from behind the arc.

The main criticism KD has faced is that he has sometimes been a bit too unselfish. In their recent 140-129 loss to the Bucks, Durant only attempted 10 shots. And even though he shot the ball well, there is no world in which Royce O’Neale should be getting up more shots than the legendary Durant.

Move the Ball, Win the Game: How Ball Movement Creates Champions

Even casual fans know good basketball when they see it. It starts with good ball movement – penetrating, collapsing the defense, kicking the ball out, swinging it, and making that extra pass often leads to open looks. Dedicated Suns fans rightly feel frustrated more often than not seeing the Big Three playing hero ball and settling for contested jumpers. When the Suns have moved the ball well this season, they look like an unstoppable team. When they don’t, they look like a team that will be soaking up the sunshine in Cancun when the playoffs start.

In their recent 104-97 win against the defending champion Denver Nuggets, the Suns assisted on 29 of their 39 made field goals. Beal had seven and Devin Booker looked more like ‘Point Book’ with nine assists and 17 points. Phoenix was moving the ball well and looked like a completely different team than the one that lost 104-102 to the Spurs without Victor Wembanyama.

Against Denver, KD was the best player on both sides of the ball. Shooting 12 of 20 from the field (including 3 of 4 from deep), Durant scored a game-high 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Phoenix was without their big man, Jusuf Nurkic for the night, putting more pressure on the Slim Reaper to grab boards and protect the rim. Perhaps most impressive of all were his 5 blocks. When the 2x Finals MVP plays like that the Suns can beat any team. But the other two of the Big Three must make meaningful contributions, too.

A Rollercoaster in the Valley of the Sun

It’s been a season of ups and downs. The Suns will play inspired ball one night and lay an egg the next. In one game, Grayson Allen – the league’s most efficient three-point shooter – will get 14 shot attempts from deep, and on other nights, Phoenix creates just a handful of opportunities for the sharpshooter. The resurgent guard from Duke is having a career year but went just 1-9 against OKC.

Devin Booker, the Suns’ electric shooting guard, looked frustrated throughout the game, finishing with a meager 14 points. Kevin Durant, the team’s marquee offseason acquisition, managed 26 points, but it lacked the explosiveness that propelled them to victory against the Denver Nuggets just a few days prior.

Head Coach Frank Vogel, in his first year with the team, must feel like he’s staring at a Rubik’s Cube – all the pieces are there, but getting them to click is proving an annoying challenge. To make matters worse, the Thunder’s recent dominant performance came without their MVP candidate, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. His absence, his third this season, should have been a golden opportunity for the Suns. Instead, it felt like a footnote. OKC dominated from the tip, shooting a lights-out 62% in the first half and never relinquishing control.

“Nope.”

Frank Vogel when asked if the Suns being 26th in #NBA in turnovers is due to not having a traditional point guard. #Suns pic.twitter.com/TxnKdyp2QC

— Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) March 11, 2024

Gut Check Time for the Suns

With just eight games left, the Suns have fallen to the seventh spot in the standings, while Dallas currently holds the sixth spot, having gone 9-1 in their past 10 games. They are now 1.5 games ahead of Phoenix and hold the tiebreaker for winning the season series. The Suns have their work cut out with the league’s toughest remaining schedule. It looks certain that they will be in the Play-In games, trying desperately to secure a spot in the playoffs.

Can the Suns live up to the pressure of a team pegged to win now, or will the season that started with so much promise come to a disappointing end?