Suns remain confident, paint picture beyond bleak end to season

PHOENIX — If you went into Wednesday’s end-of-season availability for Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia and general manager James Jones with zero idea of how the season went, you’d need more than 50 guesses to land on what really happened.

Ishbia and Jones were not only very positive about the future but vague when addressing the failures.

Yes, there is some merit to them remaining in that glass-full headspace through the lens of a back-and-forth with the media. But the scales were heavily tipped onto that side instead of a proper balance between that and reviewing what spiraled for the Suns. This was a team once thought of as one of the two main powers in the Western Conference that avoided the play-in tournament in game No. 82 before getting swept in a first-round series that included three uncompetitive finishes.

They also chose to hold the availability before deciding the fate of head coach Frank Vogel, so there was no clarity there. The majority of what was said on the critical side was muddled and lacking substance, just like the basketball team we watched this past year.

Jones on a few separate occasions referenced Phoenix’s lack of chemistry and continuity, noting how Phoenix will progress once it gets on the same page and simply ran out of time. What are some of the contributing factors to that? Is it time together? Personalities not meshing?

“I think all of those things, all of those human conditions you talked about,” Jones said. “Familiarity — once you’re familiar with someone you can develop a deep level of trust where you can be honest and candid in the toughest moments. I think when you’re familiar with someone, you can start to get on the same page and recognize the patterns and the behaviors that put you on the same page. So I don’t think there’s just one factor. I do know over time it’s easier the more time you have but we look at this from year-to-year and our goal, my goal, my responsibility, coach’s responsibility, the player’s responsibility is to accelerate all of those things because that’s the only way you get ahead of it when you’re coming together for the first time like we were.”

That process was a mess this year. And while the 2020-21 run to the NBA Finals was Monty Williams’ second season, it was the first for Chris Paul and Jae Crowder, two incredibly large fixtures in the leadership dynamic and Paul’s systematic inclusion into the offense was another huge element to figure out. They did.

Both Ishbia and Jones kept coming back to a win total of 49, which is a solid number, but hardly discussed the sweep. They noted the injuries and lack of time the team had together when again, this group should have overcome those obstacles and wasn’t exactly hamstrung by them to completely tank the season’s outcome.

Ishbia wanted to take some of his time to target a few takes he had been reading up on, noting “the house is not on fire” despite…