- Devin Booker is expected to carry more of the Suns‘ offensive load with Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal gone, so Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic examines whether he can average 30 points per game. Booker scored 25.6 PPG last season with uncharacteristically low shooting numbers, so Rankin believes 30 PPG is well within reach if he takes at least 20 shots per night, goes to the free throw line more often, improves his three-point efficiency and gets more easy baskets in new head coach Jordan Ott‘s offense.
Suns majority owner Mat Ishbia has conceded that he made some team- and culture-building missteps during his first few seasons at the helm. Ishbia is on his fourth head coach in as many years and has already cycled through multiple Hall of Fame players since the end of the 2022/23 season when he assumed control of the franchise.
In an interview on Arizona Sports’ Burns and Gambo show, Ishbia took the blame for the club’s struggles to define its culture. He has addressed this issue in other media appearances this offseason.
“We have young players that are ascending instead of players that are descending,” Ishbia said. “We have players that wanna be here, that are bought into the Phoenix Suns’ culture. I can take the criticism for not defining (that culture) well enough when I bought the team, but it is defined very clearly now.”
These pointed remarks certainly seem to be allusions to the awkward fit of two pricey veterans, All-Star forward Kevin Durant and former All-Star guard Bradley Beal. Neither player remains on the roster, although Phoenix reaffirmed its commitment to homegrown superstar guard Devin Booker this summer with a two-year extension that could be worth up to $145MM.
Here’s more from Ishbia’s interview, which is well worth hearing in full:
On the current roster’s buy-in:
“There is not a player on the team that does not understand what we’re about. There’s not a coach, there’s not anyone in the front office that does not understand that it’s for the fans, and we’re gonna develop a team that they’re gonna be proud of year in and year out.”
On the revamped team’s new long-term title trajectory:
“What I expect is we’re gonna be competitive, a team that you’re gonna be proud of and we’re gonna be building… Over the next couple years, you’re gonna see us follow that same Phoenix Mercury path to be competing for a championship, playing hard.”
On his original expectations for a ready-made champion when he bought the team:
“When I bought the Suns originally, I thought we were on third base… Now, I’ve set a vision. I’ve said, ‘Hey, I know what kind of guys I want, we ain’t trading for guys who aren’t like this.’ …Do I expect it to take a couple years to get to the point where you’re like, ‘Wow, I see the vision?’ Yes.”
There was reportedly a minor bidding war for Rasheer Fleming ahead of day two of this year’s draft, with teams vying to move up to No. 31 to select the former Saint Joseph’s forward. The Suns won that bidding war by sending Minnesota the No. 36 pick and a pair of future second-rounders.
Fleming is coming off an impressive junior season in which he averaged 14.7 points, 8.5 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.5 blocks per game in 35 appearances (31.1 minutes), with a shooting line of .531/.390/.743. In July, Phoenix signed the 21-year-old to a four-year, $8.7MM contract using the second-round pick exception. He got three fully guaranteed years, with a fourth-year team option.
In a recent interview with Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic, Fleming discussed a handful of topics, including his approach to his rookie season.
“Honestly, my main goal is obviously be the best player I can be, but I think I can do that by starting off on the defensive end,” said Fleming, who emphasized that his offense would develop from there.
First-year head coach Jordan Ott has similar expectations for the young power forward.
“He’s really high on me on the defensive end and getting me on the floor doing that,” Fleming said of Ott. “He sees the potential offensively, too, but his main focus for me is, he was telling me the other day, to focus on getting us more possessions. Whether that’s defensively, like getting steals, guarding people, defensive rebounds or on the offensive end with offensive boards. Just getting us more possessions.”
Rankin notes that Fleming made three appearances during Las Vegas Summer League, averaging 7.3 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.7 steals while shooting 50.0% from the field and 36.4% from long distance in 16.8 minutes per game.
“It was a great experience overall,” Fleming told Rankin. “I know it’s not technically an NBA floor, but just to be in the NBA-type of game. It was a fun and good experience for me. Just getting the feel and the pace of the NBA game and getting ready for the season. It was really cool.”
As for what he’s currently focused on, the New Jersey native said he’s trying to improve his on-court decision-making by being a little more methodical.
“I’m trying to not slow down in the sense of running slow or anything like that, but just slowing my pace down a little bit,” Fleming said. “I feel like I’m rushing sometimes when I’m doing certain things like when I’m shooting sometimes or about to make a decision. Just slowing things down a little bit and I’ve been getting really good at that over time in practice. I’ve just been slowing my pace down a little bit.”
The Suns have named Paul Jesperson the head coach of their G League affiliate, the Valley Suns, the team announced today in a press release.
“Paul is ready to take this next step in his career as he moves into the role of head coach,” Valley Suns GM Brendan Sabean said in a statement. “His background and experience complement our vision to utilize the G League as a lifeline of development for Suns and Valley Suns players. He’s a natural fit for the job and I’m looking forward to seeing the impact he can make as head coach.”
Jesperson was an assistant on the Valley Suns’ bench last season, so on one hand, the move looks like a fairly straightforward internal promotion. However, it happened in a roundabout way.
A report in May stated that the Kings had reached an agreement with Jesperson to make him their head of player development, and when Sacramento officially announced Doug Christie‘s staff a few weeks later, Jesperson was named to that position. However, earlier this month, reporting indicated that D.J. Ham had agreed to become the Kings’ head of player development after Jesperson stepped away from the team.
We now know that Jesperson left that new position in Sacramento in order to rejoin the Valley Suns. He’ll replace former head coach John Little, who was named an assistant under new Phoenix head coach Jordan Ott.
Jesperson, who played college basketball at Virginia and Northern Iowa before briefly spending time in the G League and in Europe, worked for the Hawks and the Oklahoma Sooners before joining Phoenix’s NBAGL team as an assistant last season.
Five NBA teams will play a league-high 16 back-to-back sets during the 2025/26 regular season, while six clubs will have just 13 instances of back-to-back games on their schedules. The remaining 19 teams will play either 14 or 15 back-to-backs.
[RELATED: 2025/26 NBA Schedules By Team]
Those totals – along with an overall average of 14.4 back-to-backs per team – are about what we’ve come to expect in recent years.
Prior to the COVID-shortened seasons of 2019/20 and ’20/21, the NBA’s regular season consisted of 177 days, and the league had made a concerted effort to reduce instances of back-to-backs. When the league announced its initial schedule in ’19/20, its press release boasted that teams were averaging a record-low 12.4 back-to-backs that season, marking the fifth straight year in which that number had reached an all-time low.
However, since 2021/22, NBA regular seasons have spanned just 174 days, making it a little more difficult for schedule-makers to avoid back-to-back sets. The average number of back-to-backs per team is still well below where it once was (teams averaged 19.3 in 2024/25), but it’s no longer at a record low.
Here are the back-to-backs by team in 2025/26:
- Charlotte Hornets: 16
Denver Nuggets: 16
Philadelphia 76ers: 16
Phoenix Suns: 16
Washington Wizards: 16 - Golden State Warriors: 15
Los Angeles Clippers: 15
Miami Heat: 15
New Orleans Pelicans: 15
Portland Trail Blazers: 15
Toronto Raptors: 15
Utah Jazz: 15 - Brooklyn Nets: 14
Cleveland Cavaliers: 14
Dallas Mavericks: 14
Detroit Pistons: 14
Houston Rockets: 14
Los Angeles Lakers: 14
Memphis Grizzlies: 14
Milwaukee Bucks: 14
New York Knicks: 14
Orlando Magic: 14
Sacramento Kings: 14
San Antonio Spurs: 14 - Atlanta Hawks: 13
Boston Celtics: 13
Chicago Bulls: 13
Indiana Pacers: 13
Minnesota Timberwolves: 13
Oklahoma City Thunder: 13
Having gone from two national broadcasting partners (ABC/ESPN and TNT) to three (ABC/ESPN, NBC, and Amazon Prime) ahead of the 2025/26 season, the NBA’s schedule will feature a significant increase in nationally televised games.
When the league unveiled its full regular season schedule on Thursday, it announced 237 nationally televised regular season matchups, along with the seven knockout round NBA Cup games whose participants aren’t yet known, for a total of 244 contests.
As Colin Salao of Front Office Sports writes in a subscriber story, the total number of nationally televised games is up by more than 40% from last season, when the league’s partners nationally broadcasted a total of 172 games.
Salao also points out that beginning in the middle of the season, when the NFL schedule starts winding down, the NBA will have national games every day of the week: Peacock on Monday; NBC/Peacock on Tuesday; ESPN on Wednesday; Amazon on Thursday; Amazon and ESPN on Friday; Amazon and ABC on Saturday; and ABC, NBC, and Peacock on Sunday.
Every team will be featured at least twice on the national TV broadcast schedule, with the Warriors, Lakers, Knicks, and defending champion Thunder leading the way with 34 appearances apiece.
Here’s the full breakdown of nationally televised games by team:
- Golden State Warriors: 34
- Los Angeles Lakers: 34
- New York Knicks: 34
- Oklahoma City Thunder: 34
- Houston Rockets: 28
- Minnesota Timberwolves: 28
- Denver Nuggets: 26
- Boston Celtics: 25
- Cleveland Cavaliers: 24
- Dallas Mavericks: 23
- San Antonio Spurs: 22
- Los Angeles Clippers: 21
- Milwaukee Bucks: 18
- Detroit Pistons: 16
- Orlando Magic: 14
- Philadelphia 76ers: 14
- Atlanta Hawks: 13
- Memphis Grizzlies: 10
- Indiana Pacers: 9
- Phoenix Suns: 9
- Sacramento Kings: 9
- Portland Trail Blazers: 8
- Miami Heat: 5
- Charlotte Hornets: 3
- Chicago Bulls: 3
- Brooklyn Nets: 2
- New Orleans Pelicans: 2
- Toronto Raptors: 2
- Utah Jazz: 2
- Washington Wizards: 2
Since nationally televised matchups are subject to change, there’s no guarantee that every team will ultimately end up being featured multiple times on the national stage.
As Salao points out, all 30 clubs showed up at least once on the national broadcast schedule initially announced for 2024/25, but the Wizards didn’t get any nationally televised games after having their lone contest replaced by a showdown between Cleveland and Oklahoma City.
Additionally, not every team this season will have a game aired on a traditional, non-streaming network — the only games featuring the Raptors or Wizards will air on either Peacock or Amazon Prime.
Due to their proximity to the second tax apron, the Timberwolves may only carry 14 players on standard contracts to open the 2025/26 season, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic writes. While Minnesota has checked in on several free agent guards, including Cameron Payne, Malcolm Brogdon and Landry Shamet, all signs point to Bones Hyland being the frontrunner for the 14th spot, Krawczynski reports.
Hyland signed a two-way contract with the Wolves last season, appearing in four games. As Krawczynski notes, Hyland was a former first-round pick by president of basketball operations Tim Connelly.
While breaking down the roster, Krawczynski writes that Johnny Juzang — who agreed to a training camp deal with the Wolves — is a long shot to make the cut but that Luka Garza forced his way onto the team with similar odds last year. Young players like Jaylen Clark, Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. are expected to have larger roles this season, Krawczynski adds.
We have more from the Western Conference:
- A group led by the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon reached an agreement on Wednesday to buy the Trail Blazers. That group includes Sheel Tyle, co-CEO of Collective Global who is married to Dr. Sejal Hathi, the head of Oregon Health Authority, Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report writes (Substack subscriber link). The group’s local connection through Tyle is one of a few reasons why it stood out among the bidders, per Highkin.
- After suggesting in a recent podcast that the Rockets might be reluctant to sign Kevin Durant to a maximum-salary extension, Tim MacMahon said on an NBA Today appearance that there isn’t any urgency to complete a multiyear agreement. MacMahon said the Rockets have other matters to attend to, including an extension for Tari Eason. “Kevin Durant is their best player, he’s not necessarily their priority,” MacMahon said. “That’s not an insult to him, their priority is making sure they have as long of a runway as possible while trying to cash in on this window that they created by getting Kevin Durant.“
- Plenty of “ifs” stand in the way of the Suns making the playoffs, Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports writes. While they could be a surprise team if things break the right way, Bourguet has them just on the outside looking in of the Western Conference playoff picture for next season, sitting at No. 11 in his conference power rankings. The Suns basically remade their depth after trading away Durant and waiving Bradley Beal, adding the likes of Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks and Mark Williams via trades.
The Suns put out a press release on Tuesday formally announcing their team of assistants under first-year head coach Jordan Ott, but the club is making one more notable addition to its staff that wasn’t included in that announcement, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Phoenix is hiring former NBA head coach Steve Clifford as a coaching advisor, sources tell Scotto.
Clifford, who will turn 64 next month, had multiple stints as the Hornets’ head coach from 2013-18 and 2022-24. He also coached the Magic from 2018-21. Overall, he compiled a regular season record of 340-461 (.424) in Charlotte and Orlando, earning four playoff appearances across 10 seasons.
Clifford also has no shortage of experience as an NBA assistant, including stints with the Knicks, Rockets, Magic, and Lakers from 2001-13. Prior to his first NBA job, he worked as a college assistant and head coach for about a decade-and-a-half.
When the Suns were in the process of filling out Ott’s staff, reporting indicated that the team was seeking a lead assistant with previous head coaching experience. Phoenix didn’t end up finding anyone who fit that bill, with Jesse Mermuys, DeMarre Carroll, and Brian Randle expected to occupy the top three front-of-bench spots under Ott.
By bringing aboard Clifford in an advisory role, the Suns are providing Ott with a more experienced confidant who can help him navigate his first year as a head coach.
The Suns have officially announced the coaching staff that will work under new head coach Jordan Ott during his first year on the job. Most, but not all, of Phoenix’s new coaches were previously reported — now they’ve formally been hired.
Here’s the Suns’ new team of assistant coaches:
- Jesse Mermuys (story): A longtime NBA assistant who spent the past four seasons with the Magic and has also had stints with the Kings, Lakers, Raptors, Rockets, and Nuggets.
- DeMarre Carroll (story): A former NBA forward who transitioned to coaching following his retirement as a player and has worked for the Bucks, the Lakers, and – most recently – the Cavaliers since 2022.
- Brian Randle (story): A Wizards assistant last season who previously worked for the Pistons, Suns, and Timberwolves and had a professional playing career overseas.
- Chaisson Allen: A carryover from Mike Budenholzer‘s staff who previously served as the head coach of the Wisconsin Herd in the G League from 2021-23.
- John Little (story): A veteran G League assistant who was the head coach of the Valley Suns, Phoenix’s NBAGL affiliate, in 2024/25.
- Mike Muscala (story): A longtime NBA forward/center who retired as a player last summer and is taking on his first coaching job.
- Sean Dwyer: A college coach who spent the past four years as an assistant at Loyola University Chicago, including the 2024/25 season as the team’s associate head coach.
The Suns also officially confirmed that they’ve hired former NBA point guard Mateen Cleaves as a player development/leadership assistant, as previously reported.
Both Cleaves and Dwyer share an alma mater (Michigan State) with Ott and Suns team owner Mat Ishbia. General manager Brian Gregory also began his coaching career as a Spartans assistant from 1990-96 and later returned in the same role from 1999-2003, during which time he overlapped with Ishbia.
It may seem like the Thunder have the makings of dynasty, but ESPN’s Tim Bontemps details why it’s tougher than ever to build a dominant team. He outlines how the tax aprons make it more difficult for teams to run it back with the same core of players and that roster mistakes can haunt contenders for several years.
“You have to be right on every decision,” one Western Conference scout told Bontemps. “Now, you have to look at things in not a one-year window, but a three-year window. You literally can’t mess anything up. It puts pressure on the organization to think differently and smartly to make sure you are best-positioned to make the right decisions.”
We have more from around the league:
- Point guard Mike Conley will turn 38 before opening night and finding a suitable replacement could be difficult for the Timberwolves. Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report gets creative in an effort to solve that problem, proposing a four-team trade in which Minnesota winds up with Magic guard Anthony Black.
- The Athletic’s Zach Harper provides his ratings for the ‘concern-o-meter’ regarding 10 potential red flags that have popped up around the league this offseason. Rating high on the ‘concern-o-meter’ is the demise of free agency, the moves made by the Pelicans and the continued health issues for the Sixers.
- Speaking of the Pelicans, Sam Quinn of CBS Sports takes a look at every future traded first-rounder, ranking them from least valuable to most valuable. New Orleans’ unprotected 2026 pick, which its new front office dealt to the Hawks in a draft-night trade, is considered the most valuable among those picks. The Bucks‘ 2029 pick, which could go to either the Trail Blazers or Wizards, is ranked No. 2, followed by the 2027, ’29 and ’31 first-rounders the Suns dealt away.