Here’s the thing nobody wants to say out loud yet about the 2025-26 Phoenix Suns: this might not work.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s October. The air smells like hope and freshly opened Gatorade coolers. Everyone’s “locked in,” “buying in,” and “ready to prove people wrong.” This is the season’s honeymoon phase, where optimism is cosplaying as hard work and a few Instagram workout clips are all it takes to restore faith in humanity, the system, and the vision. Or is it alignment?

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The front office did their part, or at least…they did things.

They brought in a brand new GM and a brand new head coach, both of whom have the combined experience of an unpaid intern running a 2K MyLeague. But hey, new blood, new vibes, right? You look at the roster and start talking yourself into it. Grit of sandpaper. Fire of a dragon. Willpower of Samson (pre-haircut version, obviously). You can practically hear the montage music swelling as everyone dives for loose balls in your imagination.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth, the thing you can feel creeping in like the world’s slowest fourth-quarter collapse (which is something we know, as T-Swizzle would say, ‘all too well’): there’s a very real chance this all blows up in our faces.

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Gravity has left the room. You are now floating in a vacuum of emotion and reflection. It’s like the battle room in Ender’s Game. “The enemy’s gate is down!”

We know how this goes. This isn’t our first heartbreak. We’ve been ghosted by destiny so many times we should probably stop texting it back. The history of this franchise reads like a Greek tragedy written by a guy who really hates air conditioning, happiness, and mythical fiery birds. Every time the universe hands us hope, it takes it right back like, “Oh sorry, wrong address.”

Last season? Expectations through the roof. The kind of hype that makes Vegas look silly for pumping up the numbers. And sure, there were cracks in the roster. Hairline fractures, really. But on paper, they were contenders. The year before that? Same story. And both times, what did we get? The exact opposite of the script we were promised. A team supposedly built for rings and revenge ended up getting swept into oblivion one year and failing to even make the party the next.

It’s like clockwork. The higher the expectations, the more spectacular the implosion. We’re not rooting for a basketball team at this point. We’re participating in a social experiment about pain tolerance. Summer goes by, bleeds into autumn, and we can once again find ourselves reasoning with the unreasonable.

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So here we are again, standing at the edge of another season with that weird mix of optimism and emotional scar tissue. Things feel good right now. The vibes are immaculate. Everyone’s talking about grit, culture, and whatever other buzzwords teams use when they’re not actually good yet.

But here’s the thing about vibes: they don’t score points.

It’s a long road ahead, full of teams that would love nothing more than to make us question our life choices by mid-January. And if success doesn’t show up early (and let’s be honest, that’s a very real possibility) it won’t be hard to diagnose why. Maybe the pieces don’t fit. Maybe the roster’s built like a Lego set missing a few bricks. Maybe winning takes a backseat to “figuring things out,” which, in Phoenix, is the eternal preseason state of being.

So yes, the trade deadline could get interesting. Dillon Brooks might as well keep a go-bag ready. He’s the perfect “make a move” asset: valuable enough to draw interest, affordable enough to move, and exactly the kind of player teams convince themselves they can “fix.”

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That’s where we are. Hopeful, cautious, and painfully self-aware. Because if there’s one thing this franchise does better than anyone, it’s turn hope into performance art. This is the Phoenix Suns, where optimism is seasonal, disappointment is permanent, and reality never misses rent day.

And as fans, we need to be ready for that. Because deep down, we’ve been here before. We’ve seen the “gritty new era” and “fresh start” movies enough times to know how they usually end. Spoiler alert: the hero dies, the locker room turns on itself, and by February, we’re arguing about rotations in the comment section like it’s a hostage negotiation.

So sure, get hyped. Dream a little. But maybe keep one eye on reality, because there’s a universe out there, —probably this one — where the whole “new culture” thing lasts about as long as a Deandre Ayton double-team.