With Steph Curry gone, the Warriors are facing their most uncertain summer to date following a play-in loss to the Sacramento Kings. The aim is clear, no matter what it takes. Curry tells The Ringer, “Pure and simple, I want to win.”
Officially, the Phoenix Suns are finished. The Minnesota Timberwolves swept the most dismal, fiscally irresponsible, and hopelessly hopeless team in the NBA on Sunday night to conclude a first-round series that hardly ever felt competitive. It was a tough, muddy match that made it clear whose team is better.
How Phoenix lost is stunning, even though the club came in as a resilient 49-win 6-seed that successfully clawed its way out of the play-in throughout the entirety of March and April. This is the worst way a team featuring Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal could possibly lose in the first round of the playoffs. Is KD still standing in the corner? Phoenix flailed through crucial offensive possessions without any purpose or urgency, and the Suns gave up a playoff-worst 123.2 points per 100 possessions, which was met with widespread disinterest. They contributed to transforming a mediocre Timberwolves assault into an unstoppable barrage.
After all, the 2023–24 Suns were little more than a simmering tease, a fistful of pure talent that deceived a lot of people into thinking that skill could compensate for a lack of a proven identity, defensive prowess, flexibility at point guard (oops), or lineup versatility. Because Phoenix features three generational scorers who will never have to play in a crowd, I projected before the season began that they would have the most efficient offense in NBA history.
In the best-case scenario, I assumed they would operate similarly to the 2020–21 Brooklyn Nets, a squad that witnessed Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving (briefly) demonstrate their advanced individual skill sets inside a highly effective isolation-heavy system. I think the Nets would have won the championship if they had been healthy; it’s a fun discussion that should not be missed. Rather, these Suns showed themselves to be paper-thin, prone to injuries, and, as the playoffs demonstrated, built to rule a league that no longer exists.