The Phoenix Suns Had A Surprise Comeback Season Despite Playoff Loss

BusinessSportsMoneyThe Phoenix Suns Had A Surprise Comeback Season Despite Playoff LossByBarry M. Bloom,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Boomskie on BaseballFollow AuthorApr 28, 2026, 10:00am EDTDillon Brooks and Jalen Green joined the Suns in an offseason trade that sent Kevin Durant to Houston. Despite serious injuries to both players, they helped remake the team. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)Getty ImagesPHOENIX -- The Suns were swept out of the first round of the NBA playoffs by the defending champion Thunder on Monday night at the Mortgage Matchup Center, but there’s nothing for them to hang their heads about. By any stretch of the imagination, this was a successful season coming off last year’s debacle.“We have a good group, and nobody expected us to be in this position,” guard Grayson Allen said in the hours before the Suns dropped a 131-122, Game 4 decision to Oklahoma City. “During the regular season we realized what we had. Expectations grew about what we could accomplish. But we’re not happy with saying we just got into the playoffs.”Kudos to majority owner Mat Ishbia for rebuilding the entire Suns basketball operations and roster on the fly. That came on the heels of his restructuring the WNBA Mercury into a fast-paced product that was quickly wiped out of the playoffs in 2024 at the end of the Diana Taurasi-Britteny Griner era to a team that surprisingly made the finals in 2025.Like the Suns, the Mercury went four and out against a much better Las Vegas squad that won the WNBA title for the third time in the past four seasons. But the resurgence of the Mercury was evident. Ishbia opened a state-of-the-art practice facility for the women and restocked the team. “They went out and got great players in the offseason,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said at the time. “When you do that, other players want to come over and join them. They also did a nice job getting overseas talent. And there’s the...