The Pulse: Lots of uncertainty about Suns making the 2014-15 playoffs
Dec 18, 2014, 4:49 AM | Updated: 5:08 am
In our most recent Sanderson Ford Poll Question of the Day, we asked our readers if the Phoenix Suns will make the playoffs this season.
We let readers vote through the end of the Suns’ victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday, which snapped a six-game losing streak for Phoenix and put the team at one game under .500.
The Suns missed the playoffs last season, even with a solid 48 wins, and they are certainly not on pace to replicate that success in 2014-15.
There was a lot of uncertainty among the answers, but what readers were least convinced of is the Suns definitely making the playoffs. Only 126 voters (10 percent) out of 1,306 answered, “Yes, this is only a bump in the road” — the “bump” referring to the team’s losing streak. This option was the least popular in the poll.
The most-clicked-on answer, with 42 percent of the vote (544 overall), was “Probably not, but I guess there’s still time.”
A quarter of all voters responded, “I sure hope so, but I’m not so sure.”
That left 24 percent of voters (316 overall) saying, “Not a chance, this team isn’t good.” Ouch.
The good news is that point guards Isaiah Thomas and Goran Dragic have returned from their respective minor injuries, and the team still has about two-thirds of its season to start making a playoff run.
In actuality, the Suns aren’t currently that far behind. As of Wednesday night, the New Orleans Pelicans are just a half-game ahead of the Suns for the eighth seed in the West. However, Phoenix also has to look out for the surging Oklahoma City Thunder, who are 12-13 and have won nine of the last 10, thanks to the returns of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant from injuries. The Suns are currently just 1 percentage point ahead of the Thunder in the Western Conference standings.
