When Chris Paul joined the Phoenix Suns two offseasons ago, people felt he could take them to the playoffs, but that they wouldn’t do much there.
The Suns had looked good in the bubble during the NBA’s “seeding” games, but still, no one was expecting a lot out of them for the 2020-21 campaign.
But as he has done throughout his career, the “Point God” had a massive impact on a team he was new to.
Phoenix took the second seed in the Western Conference and advanced to the NBA Finals where they lost to Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Suns won 64 games this season, leading many to think they were on their way to winning their first-ever world championship.
Instead, they blew a 3-2 series lead and lost the final two games of the Western Conference semifinals to the Dallas Mavericks by a combined 60 points.
It is causing people to reevaluate Paul’s legacy and their own opinion of the Suns.
Chris Paul has turned 37 and gone from “Point God to Point Fraud,” L4G he’s got 25 assists and 18 turnovers, Maller Scale of Concern rising for Phoenix Suns. WATCH/SHARE: pic.twitter.com/7GBFEAcnGO #NBAPlayoffs #NBATwitter
— Ben Maller (@benmaller) May 13, 2022
It is now apparent that the Suns weren’t exactly the juggernaut they seemed to be these past two seasons.
Phoenix Often Looked Great
In sports, it is a cliche that great teams are greater than the sum of their parts, but that’s exactly what the Suns have been.
Perhaps they don’t have as much talent on paper as the NBA’s other title contenders, but they played together as much as any team and were efficient.
This season, Phoenix ranked fourth in offensive rating and third in defensive rating.
Paul’s scoring dipped this season to a career-low 14.7 points a game, but he is still regarded as a threat to explode offensively in big games and whenever his team really needs him to.
When the Suns’ offense gets stuck and they need a basket, they can go to Devin Booker, one of the game’s best one-on-one players who averaged 26.8 points a game this year.
Their bench has also been highly regarded, with notable contributors such as Cameron Johnson, Cameron Payne, Landry Shamet and JaVale McGee.
Was The Suns’ Run In 2021 Fraudulent?
When the Suns lost in the championship series last summer, then posted the best record in the NBA this season, there was no evidence that they were anything less than advertised.
But after Luka Doncic and company exposed them in recent days, one has to wonder if the Suns got lucky last year and are more of a regular season team in reality.
In the first round of the 2021 playoffs, they faced the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, who were starting to get healthy after injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Phoenix fell behind in the series 2-1, even though James was not close to 100 percent after a severe ankle injury he had suffered two months prior.
But when Davis went down with a groin injury midway through Game 4, the Suns dominated the rest of the way and took the series in six.
The absolute fraud of a team, the Phoenix Suns, got so lucky that AD went down last year
— gary partamian (@garypar14) May 16, 2022
They then swept the Denver Nuggets without All-Star-caliber guard Jamal Murray, then got past the Los Angeles Clippers, who didn’t have superstar Kawhi Leonard.
Over the past several months, many people have felt that the Lakers or Clippers would’ve beaten Phoenix had they been healthy.
There’s an old saying that it’s better to be lucky than good, but when one’s luck runs out, one has to be very good in order to maintain success.
It can now be safely said that the Suns were more lucky than good during their run to the Finals last year.
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