The Phoenix Suns are not lacking for confidence heading into the 2024-25 NBA season despite last season's sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves. While Kevin Durant knows that the team still has some tuning up to do, it appears that overall, things are looking quite optimistic out in the desert.
One person who agrees with that perspective is former NBA big man and current ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins, who recently took to ESPN's NBA Today to give a huge endorsement of what the Suns have in store for this upcoming campaign.
“They are my dark horse to win it all,” said Perkins, via NBA on ESPN on X, formerly Twitter. “We saw a disgruntled, unhappy Kevin Durant average 27 points last year, and he wasn't seeing eye to eye with Frank Vogel. Now he's coming in, fresh start, fresh off of winning a gold medal. We saw the joy that he was playing with. Now he has Mike Budenholzer over there… Bradley Beal is happy. We saw how great that Devin Booker looked in the Olympics. And they filled in the pieces.”
Can the Suns turn it around?
As Kendrick Perkins referenced in his soliloquy, the Suns did indeed bring in former Milwaukee Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer this offseason after firing Frank Vogel, who was unable to make the Suns' severely top heavy roster work during his lone season at the helm.
Budenholzer won a championship with the Bucks in 2021 but saw his in-game decision making called into question over the ensuing two postseasons.
Meanwhile, Durant proved at the Olympics that he still has plenty left in the tank, and has continued to show as much during the first couple of games of preseason action.
The Suns did lose some depth this offseason in the form of Eric Gordon but do have the added benefit of having a full offseason of work for their star trio of Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal.
It's unclear at this point how Budenholzer plans to utilize this three-headed snake on offense in a way that they don't cancel out each other' strengths, as they so often seemed to throughout the course of last season.
In any case, the Suns' 2024-25 season is slated to begin on October 23 on the road vs the Los Angeles Clippers. The Suns will then stay in the City of Angels for a matchup with the Lakers two nights later.