The Phoenix Suns received an impressive B+ grade from Bleacher Report's three-quarter season report cards released today despite playing wildly inconsistent for majority of the year:
"Another team that took a while to find its groove, the Phoenix Suns are 9-4 in their past 13 games. Though anyone could have (and probably should have) foreseen struggles with availability, Phoenix is steamrolling opponents when its stars play," wrote Andy Bailey.
"With Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal all on the floor, the Suns are plus-12.0 points per 100 possessions.
"But they don't deserve all the praise for the team's success. The bet on Jusuf Nurkić over Deandre Ayton has paid off. His passing alone has really opened things up for the stars. And Grayson Allen has been one of this season's best and most dynamic floor-spacers.
"The amount of talent and capital expended to turn this roster has left it with little depth. That's still a concern, but it has one of the best starting fives in the league. The recent addition of Royce O'Neale should help a bit with the second unit, too."
Phoenix is just 2-4 emerging out of the All-Star break with the league's toughest schedule (in terms of strength of schedule/opponent winning percentage) remaining in their 21 games.
Continuity has been a big topic in Phoenix as the team's big three has largely struggled to stay healthy together.
"We got time, but we can’t keep saying we got time. We got 20 games left. It is a good amount of games to get us going and get us going right before the playoffs," said BeaI this past weekend.
"I think that will be really good for us, but we do got to get rolling. We can’t keep talking about it, we can't keep coming to you guys and say, ‘We got time, we will fix it.’ We got to do it. We have our team now going into the playoffs, we got to hit this steamroller head on. We got a lot of playoff teams coming in here ready to go. It is a good challenge for us.”
Phoenix currently sits with the No. 7 seed in the West. They've got some massive matchups on deck - which you can read more about below:
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