With legitimate roster comes real expectations, pressure for Suns

We are out of the worst of it. I think.

The Phoenix Suns have averaged fewer than 22 wins per season in the last four years. That’s more than 60 losses a year, guys and gals.

Even in the worst of outcomes over the next few years, though, it’s hard to imagine even flirting with a number in that range.

General manager James Jones and head coach Monty Williams have the Suns still in the “rebuilding” stage as they take the reins. Well, in theory.

Technically, you can’t “rebuild” a culture that was never there. So, this is more like building.

They will still be one of the worst teams in the NBA. It’s a roster still far too reliant on youth and inexperience that, while talented, is lacking in top-tier proven commodities.

I will yell and argue right through your face that Devin Booker is one of the 25 best basketball players on Earth but he’s been the top dog for that 22-win average and he’s also 22 years old. Deandre Ayton has to figure out how to be consistent before he can be great. Ricky Rubio is a great stabilizing tool but there’s not much gusto there in terms of him pushing a team a level or two above its current state.

That’s not what this is about.

The 2019-20 season for the Suns is about finally hitting their starting point toward reclamation. Let’s not get mixed up in grand proclamations here, by the way. When I say reclamation, that’s getting back toward respectability — the first or second thing out of someone’s mouth when discussing the Suns not being goat poop.

I hesitate when they get grouped into a “rebuilding” phase, not because of the culture jab, but because of how much young talent is already on the roster.

Booker (22), Ayton (21), Mikal Bridges (23), Kelly Oubre Jr. (23), Cam Johnson (23) and Ty Jerome (22) is a suitable youth movement, and even more so, Booker and Ayton are franchise pillars one and two.

That’s enough. Grabbing the likes of Rubio (28), Tyler Johnson (27) and Aron Baynes (32) as a veteran supporting cast is a start, or should we say a solid enough second attempt after the catastrophe that was the Trevor Ariza and Ryan Anderson combo platter.

There is depth on this team.

Scanning Booker’s teammates the past two seasons, I count T.J. Warren (2017-18), Richaun Holmes (18-19) and Troy Daniels (17-18) as real NBA players who were not in their rookie seasons that played through the whole year in their role. Seriously. Three. That’s it. Go look. Tweet me where I’m wrong. I’m on there a lot. I’ll see it.

Not including Booker, I get to seven for this season, not including the first-year guys who were drafted because they are ready. That has to mean something, right?

Like I said, I think they’re out of the worst of it.

With that notion, however, comes hope for the greater basketball ahead. Fans are smarter, or at least they’re far more informed now. I mean, seriously, did you see how many people had a Terry Rozier take in July?

Nearly everyone seems to have come to a general understanding that the Suns have an adequate roster, and in turn, they should expect more winning.

I’ve had dozens of people ask me what my win number is. I say 29, which hardly draws much of a response. That comes with the asterisk of, “Hey, I think they’re going to be competent still!”

The most common feedback is that the bare minimum should be 30. Understandable.

In their own weird little way, the Suns have made it more difficult on themselves to be properly judged this season because of the hilariously low and inept bar they set the past four.

Most fans have had enough and aren’t willing to use that as an excuse for lowered and more friendly expectations.

I think Booker is getting there too, and that’s terrifying. In the back of my mind, I can’t get past a 26-win season, him looking around and going, “Seriously?! Y’all still managed to screw this up?! If we can’t improve with this group, how do we win here at all?!”

There are a lot of swinging variables here.

Even with the experience edge Williams has over the past two whiffs at his head coaching position, we don’t really know if he is a good head coach. If he can groom young talent. If he can balance the demands of a high-volume ball-handler and a big fella that still requires nurturing at this stage. If he can hold a locker room once the real string of losing hits, because let me tell you something, that’s coming. ‘Tis the reality of not having one of the 10 or so certifiably good head coaches in the league.

Booker has to get used to sharing the ball after hitting this level of individual play. Ayton must keep improving defensively and take another huge step offensively. Rubio’s gotta back up the talk that this is indeed the peak of his powers, the height of his prime, and not the end of it.

Oubre has a $15 million price tag to live up to. Bridges’ “oh god where did this come from please make it stop” wonky three-point stroke needs to go in the hoop so he can stay on the court. Dario Saric has to settle in quicker than he did in Minnesota.

To be fair, those are the defenses coming up that four years of abject misery will produce for you.

This will be the best Suns team in years, even if that’s not saying much. It’s more relief than anything, if we’re being honest.

That becoming a fact by April will happen if this regime and roster achieves the small task of getting this thing out of the driveway. I have no idea how much further they can take it, if they can even get up the street and onto the freeway.

But at least the Suns are out of the worst of it. I think.

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