I don't know what to expect from the Phoenix Suns, and neither do you. That'll either be a great thing come playoff time, or their downfall.

-Gerald

The 2024 Phoenix Suns are Forrest Gump's box of chocolates

There are few teams in the NBA with the night-to-night variance of the Phoenix Suns. Some nights, like their recent losses -- yes, plural -- to the Houston Rockets, their fatal flaws are on full display as they play down to their competition. Other nights, like Tuesday's resilient overtime win over the Denver Nuggets without Devin Booker, show just how scary this group can be when everything's clicking.

They are Dr. Jekyll, happily perusing a Forrest Gump box of chocolates that's half-filled with Mr. Hyde's formula. You truly never know what you're going to get.

We can try to make our predictions, of course. As of right now, the Suns continue to show the ceiling of a contender, or glimpses of what they could be on a night-in, night-out basis. And those those flashes are tantalizing!

The Suns' preferred starting lineup of Booker, Bradley Beal, Grayson Allen, Kevin Durant and Jusuf Nurkic has the fourth-best Net Rating of any five-man lineup in the league that has logged at least 250 minutes together this season, outscoring opponents by 12.7 points per 100 possessions.

For the lone stretch where they were relatively healthy between Dec. 27 and the start of the All-Star break, Phoenix ripped off a 19-7 record, which equates to a 60-win pace over the course of a full 82-game season. When the Big 3 share the court, they outscore opponents by 10.1 points per 100 possessions.

The main role players are promising too. Jusuf Nurkic continues to be the secret sauce that makes this team work on both ends with his elite defensive rebounding, connective passing and underrated screen-setting. Grayson Allen is still leading the league in 3-point percentage, knocking down 47.1 percent of his 5.5 attempts per game -- efficiency on that kind of volume that only eight other players in NBA history have ever achieved over a full season, per Stathead. Royce O'Neale has been a seamless addition on both ends, and even with Eric Gordon struggling lately, Phoenix has at least six reliable pieces for their playoff rotation.

Unfortunately, as promising as the glimpses have been, they have yet to materialize into a consistent identity. Injuries remain the biggest obstacle on that front, as the Big 3 have only played in 23 of the team's 62 games together. The Suns' starting lineup may have the fourth-best Net Rating among all lineups that have played 250 minutes together, but the minute totals for the other teams in that top five (527, 736, 531 and 439) eclipse Phoenix's starting group (274).

With a new piece to incorporate in O'Neale, a starting five that needs more reps together, small-ball lineups that still need to explored and the Suns at a severe continuity disadvantage across the board, this group only has 20 games to figure it out before the playoffs arrive. The pressure is mounting, as Phoenix has the toughest remaining schedule and Booker is currently sidelined by an ankle sprain for anywhere from 3-14 days, depending on which source you ask.

Getting through the next week or two without Book is a daunting task against such a challenging gauntlet of opponents, especially since we've seen how this team is sometimes just inexplicably not good enough when they only have two members of the Big 3. Mind-boggling turnovers have been a recurring theme in their losses, with iso ball, miscommunications and sheer carelessness all contributing to a team that ranks 25th in turnovers and 27th in opponent points off turnovers.

Phoenix still doesn't shoot enough 3s, ranking 26th in attempts per game despite being the seventh-most efficient team from beyond the arc. There are matchups that will challenge their defensive anchors at the 5 come playoff time, and there are some nights where the ball just doesn't move the way it should. That usually means the offense devolves into iso ball, which helps explain why the Suns take the second-most shots in the NBA where the closest defender is in "tight" coverage (2-4 feet away) and the 10th-fewest "wide open" shots (nearest defender is 6+ feet away).

And of course, that's saying nothing of this team's confounding fourth-quarter struggles, as the Suns still rank dead-last in fourth-quarter Net Rating by a county mile. They've been outscored by a whopping 14.8 points per 100 possessions in the final frame. The next-closest team is the Miami Heat...with a -5.9 Net Rating. It's not just fourth quarters either; those late-game woes are the most glaring example of this team's dumbfounding ability to look like world-beaters one quarter and then completely disjointed the next.

That was on display even in the Denver win, when the Suns managed just 12 fourth-quarter points and allowed what was a 22-point lead to be all tied up at the end of regulation.

The Suns' fatal flaws make it tough to view this team as a title contender, and yet, nights like that OT win against the defending champs make it impossible to write them off just yet either.

Even without Booker, that game was close to the blueprint for Phoenix: Minimize turnovers (they only committed nine), take as many shots as your opponent (they were even at 96 attempts each), move the ball around (32 assists) and as a result, generate enough 3-pointers to avoid drastically lose the 3-point battle (both Phoenix and Denver hit 15 3s).

Despite all the injuries, Phoenix is still a borderline top-10 offense (12th) and a suddenly underrated defense (12th). Since that Dec. 27 game that turned their season around, the Suns are seventh in offensive rating, ninth in defensive rating and have the fourth-most wins in the NBA over that span, trailing only the league-leading Boston Celtics, West-leading Oklahoma City Thunder and red-hot Cleveland Cavaliers.

A lot of stars have to align between now and April for the Suns to avoid the play-in, let alone solidify themselves as a legitimate threat to teams like the Celtics, Nuggets, and LA Clippers. Truthfully, because of injuries, the turnover problem, the bizarre fourth-quarter struggles and a general lack of time together to build continuity, this just might not be the Suns' year.

But in a playoff setting, you need firepower. You need individual bucket-getters who can score in a pinch, accompanied by shooters who can spread the floor or make defenses pay for leaving them open. You need a solid enough defense to allow an efficient offense to do its thing, even when the game slows down to a half-court setting.

Despite their flaws, the Suns have all of those ingredients, all of which were on display in Denver. Kevin Durant started the game 7-for-13, drastically cooled off in the second half as he went 4-for-18, and then dominated the extra period, outscoring the Nuggets by himself (8-5) and going 3-for-3 -- and that's not even including the big-time 3 he made near the end of regulation to force overtime.

Despite Beal going 4-for-16 in regulation, he went 2-for-2 in overtime and scored 10 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter and OT. Grayson Allen started his night 8-for-8 from 3 to help buoy the Suns' offense without Booker. Jusuf Nurkic made life difficult on Nikola Jokic as one of the few players in the league who's strong enough to not get bullied by the Joker's physicality. Even Drew Eubanks, who's struggled for a majority of the season, came in and gave the Suns great minutes when Nurk got into foul trouble, getting to the free-throw line and keeping possessions alive with tap-outs for offensive rebounds.

There are nights where the Suns look lost, the body language looks rough, the turnovers feel belligerent and this team looks like a first-round exit waiting to happen. But then there are nights like the Nuggets win, the Sacramento Kings and Chicago Bulls comebacks, or dominant victories over the Milwaukee Bucks, New Orleans Pelicans and Dallas Mavericks, where those promises of a title contender start to crystalize.

So after watching a team that continues to vacillate between two ends of the spectrum, what can we realistically expect from the Phoenix Suns? I truthfully don't know, and neither do you.

But, to repeat the catchphrase of the entire 2023-24 season: "If they can just get healthy...."