PHOENIX — The 2024-25 NBA season is officially upon us – as the Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics are set to open up preseason camp this week before the Phoenix Suns open up their season with Media Day on September 30.

The Suns – by many accounts – had a quality offseason, especially with necessary context added that the second apron rules under the new CBA constrained them greatly.

Despite the purported success they had in the offseason, the franchise is still very much receiving a mixed reception coming into the season – especially pertaining to the “title contender” label.

While some believe that Phoenix is bound to grow past what was widely considered a disastrous season in 2023-24 – especially with a new coach and a better roster, others believe that Kevin Durant will start a steady decline in productivity in his age-36 season, that the Suns lack a true rotational POA stopper on defense, among other things that will ultimately hold Phoenix back in year one under Mike Budenholzer.

ESPN’s Zach Lowe was a guest on the most recent edition of the “Bill Simmons Podcast” – where a segment of the show was dedicated to discussing the Suns’ fortunes going into the new year.

Lowe appears to be very much in the camp that is bullish on Phoenix moving into the regular season opener on October 23.

Lowe’s belief is that the Suns have as good of a shot as anyone to break into the top-4 of the Western Conference despite the widespread belief that the Dallas Mavericks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, and Minnesota Timberwolves having an iron grip on first-round home court advantages.

That isn’t to say Lowe wasn’t a fan of the Suns’ offseason, as he went into below:

“They won 49 games (last season) that’s a lot of games, they upgraded at point guard that’s a meaningful thing, they brought back Royce O’Neale. Mason Plumlee is a legit backup center like they nailed the offseason given what they had to work with. I think they’re going to be a pretty good regular season team,” Lowe said.

This has been a frequent talking point on this site – as virtually everything that could have gone south did for Phoenix last season – from a coaching staff that was out of sync, to untimely injuries, to simply striking out on free agent signings.

This offseason, they went to great lengths to rectify some of these glaring issues, from picking up the top 2 players in assist/turnover ratio in league history to be the lead floor generals, to hiring one of the most accomplished head coaches in today’s league, to bringing in proven vets such as Plumlee in place of the risky additions of last offseason such as Drew Eubanks.

It is also frequently lost in the humiliating nature of the first-round exit in the 2024 playoffs that the Suns won 49 games despite the unfortunate series of events that took place over the course of the season. Last season’s team could have won several more contests if not for historically poor fourth quarter outputs – the addition of the stabilizing floor generals should largely aid in this obvious fatal flaw of the 2023-24 Suns.

Lowe eventually elaborated on the point that Phoenix could break the aforementioned “established order” that has been made this offseason:

“You can say all these teams are the clear top four, I just don’t think it’s going to unfold that way. There’s going to be an interloper from below somewhere – we’ve talked about Memphis – I think the Suns are maybe being underrated a little bit as one of those potential interlopers, because of the bad taste the playoff just obliteration by Minnesota (left), I mean they were awful”.

While the Wolves, Mavericks, Thunder, and Nuggets could end up being the top 4 after all, history has shown us that conference standings can have great variance on a year-to-year basis – and the ever-improving state of the West should bring more legitimate squads to the table that can break into the upper-echelon.

The presence of both Booker and Durant coupled with the volume-backed consistency of teams coached by Budenholzer points to the Suns being a clearly improved squad in 2024-25, but they have to back it up on the court at the end of the day.