Suns became even more dangerous

“There are people,” Jack told the group, “who don’t think we deserved to make it to the finals.”

The Suns’ first three playoff opponents, the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets and LA Clippers, were without star players for all or most of their series against Phoenix. Didn’t some in the NBA wonder: Sure, the Suns were good, but weren’t they lucky?

“We heard the noise,” says Devin Booker, Phoenix’s star point guard. “But it was almost better to hear it from someone [Jack] who wasn’t on our team last year. He confirmed it.”

As Jack continued, Suns head coach Monty Williams interrupted. “Maybe they’re right,” Williams said of the skeptics. “All the things they’re saying [about injuries] are true. But it doesn’t matter. We made it to the Finals. We took advantage of the breaks everyone said we had. Everybody deserved to be in that position.”

Privately and publicly, you rarely hear anyone inside the Suns mention the health issues they faced last postseason – Paul injured his shoulder in the first round, then missed Games 1 and 2 of the conference finals after testing positive for COVID-19; Dario Saric tore his ACL in Game 1 of the Finals.

“We’re not with all that,” Paul says of restarting injuries. “You can only play the games in front of you.”

Last season was over anyway. His trip to the Finals guaranteed nothing.

“If it was real, if it’s not, we’ll find out,” Paul said. The Suns were eager to resume their title chase.

“It’s good that maybe we’re not generously lauded as contenders,” said Cameron Johnson, the Suns’ backup sharpshooter. “That keeps the chip on our shoulder. We enjoy it.”

The floating doubts reminded the Suns with more time in charge of the run-up to the 2020 Orlando, Florida, bubble, which became a team-building centrifuge that is already taking a prominent place in Suns lore. The Suns and Washington Wizards were the worst teams, record-wise, to win bubble invites after weeks of bickering between NBA governors and team officials. Sarver relayed the inner workings of those conversations to Williams.

“Robert was fighting like heck to get us in,” Williams recalls. Williams kept Booker in the loop, knowing Booker would update the players.

Phoenix finished the pre-Pandemic part of the season ranked 13th in the West, with almost 0% chance of making the postseason. Critics (including this writer) decried the inclusion of Phoenix and Washington as a money grab that ran counter to the NBA’s stated goal of limiting personnel in Orlando as the pandemic raged.

“You heard the narratives,” Williams says now. “Nobody thought we should have been there.”

But the Suns had stayed prepared. They stayed fit and in touch. Williams was coming out of a workout when he got the official word: The Suns were in. About 15 minutes later, his phone rang. It was a text message from Booker: “Let’s go!”

“I was like, ‘Oh, he’s on a mission,'” Williams says. “I had no idea it would turn into 8-0.”

Meanwhile, Willie Green, then a Suns assistant, had been in regular contact with Paul, who was inside the negotiating bubble as president of the National Basketball Players Association. Paul and Green, now head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, had become close after two stints as teammates.

Once the Suns came in, Paul, then starring for the Oklahoma City Thunder, offered Green advice that stuck: the team that doesn’t complain will succeed. The conditions are not going to be what NBA teams are used to.

Green called Williams and suggested he schedule a team meeting to relay Paul’s words and empower the players.

“Don’t let anyone write your story by complaining while people everywhere are out of work,” Williams told the team. “Just attack the rim.”

Green says, “Chris impacted our team on the bubble without even knowing it.”

And so, in the most unlikely place, began the most unlikely rise of a distressed franchise: a journey that continues upward, with the Suns entering tonight’s game against the Lakers with the best record in the league.