Phoenix Suns Bet on Toughness, Continuity and a Breakout Big Man

The Phoenix Suns went 45-37, lost their play-in opener to Portland, beat Golden State to back into the eighth seed, and were swept out of the first round by Oklahoma City. That's a season that reads like progress on a ledger and like nothing at all in the standings. Jordan Ott's first year as head coach was perfectly respectable. The problem is that respectable has been costing this franchise an enormous amount of money, and the front office spent this offseason trying to make the roster tougher and younger without adding to the bill. The honest summary of the Phoenix Suns this week: no blockbuster, but more real change than the headlines suggested.

Miles Bridges in, Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neale out

The trade was agreed on June 28 and processed in mid-July: Phoenix sent Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale and a 2033 first-round pick to Charlotte for Miles Bridges, a 2029 first and a 2027 second. Bridges, 28, spent all seven of his NBA seasons with the Hornets and averaged 17.1 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists on 46.0% shooting across 77 games last season.

What Phoenix gave up was shooting. Allen put up 16.5 points and 3.8 assists a game; O'Neale made 212 threes at 40.8%, which ranked 17th in the league in total makes. What Phoenix got back is a forward who can create his own shot, hold up physically on the wing, and turn a distant future first into a nearer one. It's a defensible trade for a team that got shoved around by Oklahoma City. It is not, on its face, a trade that fixes what this roster was worst at.

The Suns re-signings: three players, roughly $105 million

• Mark Williams — three years, $38 million, fully guaranteed. The restricted free agent center averaged 11.7 points and 8.0 rebounds in 60 games with 55 starts.
• Collin Gillespie — four years, $48 million. He posted 12.7 points, 4.6 assists and 4.1 rebounds and set a franchise record with 232 made threes at 40%.
• Jordan Goodwin — three years, $19 million, with a player option in year three. 8.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and the Majerle Hustle Award.

All three became official on July 7. General manager Brian Gregory said the group "embody the effort, toughness and competitiveness that define our culture," which is front-office for: we were not going to start over again. Gillespie's deal is the one that will get argued about in Phoenix all season. Twelve million a year for an undrafted guard is a straightforward bet that the last two seasons were the real thing rather than a sample size.

Luke Kennard and the spacing problem

Phoenix signed Luke Kennard to a two-year, $13 million deal at the end of June. He led the entire NBA in three-point percentage last season at 47.8%, finishing strong with the Lakers, and Phoenix is now his sixth franchise. On a per-shot basis he is comfortably the best shooter the Suns have employed in years, and $6.5 million a year for that is close to theft.

He also plays limited minutes and does not defend anybody. The larger issue is arithmetic: the projected starting five of Devin Booker, Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, Bridges and Williams shot a combined 33.2% from three last season. Kennard repairs the spacing for the stretches he's on the floor and does nothing for the stretches he isn't. Whether Ott is willing to close a playoff-caliber game with him out there is probably the most interesting tactical question of the Suns' preseason.

Khaman Maluach was the story of Summer League

The 7-foot-1 center, taken 10th in 2025, averaged 19.5 points, 12.8 rebounds and 2.0 blocks over four games in Las Vegas before Phoenix shut him down. He dropped 21 points with four blocks and a plus-18 in a 95-88 win over Milwaukee, and he shot 40% from three on five attempts per game, a genuinely new wrinkle after a quiet rookie season.

He wasn't the only one. First-round pick Koa Peat, the Arizona forward taken 30th and a local product, averaged 16.8 points and 2.2 assists and flashed the physicality and defensive versatility that got him drafted, though the jumper remains a project. Rasheer Fleming added 12.0 points and 6.5 rebounds on better than 42% from three, including a 22-point, eight-rebound game against Detroit. Phoenix pulled all three after four games, having seen what it needed to see.

The complication is that Maluach's emergence runs straight into the three-year, $38 million commitment the Suns just made to Mark Williams. Backup center Oso Ighodaro is the likelier casualty of a minutes squeeze, but if Maluach plays anything like this in October, "backup" is not going to describe him for long.

The Phoenix Suns cap sheet and the Bradley Beal hangover

Phoenix is still paying for the last era. Roughly $23.2 million in dead money sits on the 2026-27 books, most of it the stretched remainder of Bradley Beal's contract. Before the re-signings, the Suns had 11 players under contract at about $185.7 million against a $200.47 million luxury tax line, a $209.06 million first apron and a $221.74 million second apron. Booker at $57.1 million is the only player above $40 million; Green ($36.3 million) and Brooks ($21 million) both arrived in the record seven-team Kevin Durant trade.

The roster is effectively full at 15 standard contracts plus three two-way players, including guard Koby Brea, who returned on a two-way deal on July 6 after averaging 16.4 points across 34 G League games. Barring a trade, Phoenix is finished for the summer.

It is worth remembering how recently this looked completely different. The Suns broke up the Booker-Durant-Beal core inside of about a month last summer, moving Kevin Durant to Houston in a record seven-team trade that returned Green and Brooks, then waiving and buying out Beal. The dead money is the bill for that decision, and it is the single biggest reason Phoenix could not chase a starter-quality free agent this July even if one had been sitting there. Ott, who won Coach of the Month for January after an 11-5 stretch, has been handed a roster assembled under those constraints rather than one built to a blueprint.

What's on the calendar

The Suns announced their preseason schedule on July 29: five games, three on the road.

• Oct. 5 at Detroit, 4 p.m. MST
• Oct. 7 at Chicago, 5 p.m. MST
• Oct. 10 vs. San Antonio, 7 p.m. MST
• Oct. 14 at San Antonio, 5 p.m. MST
• Oct. 16 vs. Utah, 7 p.m. MST

Two home dates at Mortgage Matchup Center, and two looks at the Spurs inside five days. Single-game tickets go on sale in mid-August, after the league releases the full regular-season schedule. Training camp opens in late September, Emirates NBA Cup group play starts October 30, and Phoenix hosts All-Star Weekend on February 19-21, 2027, which raises the stakes on being worth watching by February.

The through-line of this offseason is restraint, a word nobody has attached to this franchise in four years. The Suns kept their own free agents, took one swing on a forward with two-way ability, added the league's most accurate shooter on a modest number, and stayed under the tax line. Booker, now wearing No. 15 after 11 seasons in No. 1, is entering his 12th year and has not won a playoff game since 2023. That number should bother anyone following the Phoenix Suns more than any cap figure does. This roster is deeper and more athletic than last year's, and it is still, on paper, a play-in team in a West that got no easier. The upside case runs through Green taking a leap in his second season here and Maluach becoming a two-way center faster than the plan called for. Both are plausible. Neither is something you can put on a schedule.